Agent TypeOrganisationActivities & OccupationsVigneronsMerchantsHistoryWJ Seabrook started a wine brokers business in Melbourne in 1878 assessing wine from many regions of Australia. One of Australia’s earliest wine merchants, he was a judge at the inaugural Royal Melbourne Wine Show in 1888. His son, TC followed his father as an acclaimed judge for 35 years and began working at the family wine business from the age of 12 and began to operate the business at age of 27.
As a broker, TC assessed fortified and table wines and relied on his extensive contacts with vignerons, hoteliers and restaurateurs. Typically, the trade was in hogsheads, wicker-covered, ceramic demijohns and special bottles of wine were sold direct to the public.
After 1940, W. J. Seabrook & Son evolved. The firm imported and exported wines and began to produce its own blends under the Seabrook label. TC Seabrook was meticulous about wine and rarely drank a glass without appraising it. He became one of an influential group of connoisseurs who helped to keep the trade alive when it was threatened by temperance restrictions, failing vineyards and a beer-drinking society's lack of understanding.
He was honorary secretary (1910-35) and president (1964-67) of the Viticultural Society of Victoria and in 1963 he was appointed O.B.E. Like his father before him and his son Douglas after him, he was chairman of wine judges at the Victorian Royal Agricultural Show.
Doug’s son, Iain took the family baton and worked in the family business from 1964 as well as judging at Melbourne for several years. Douglas, who suffered from the effects of poliomyelitis, sold the family business in 1976 and retired. Iain went on to continue working in the wine trade in sales and marketing and then again as a wine broker based in the Barossa Valley.Search records of this agent
![[Photographs of wine labels]](/img/placeholder.gif?1761251355 "[Photographs of wine labels]")
