George Harold Burchett and his brother, Franklin, travelled as steerage passengers to Western Australia in 1898 in a bid to find gold after their family farm at Pooyong, Victoria, was destroyed in a bushfire. They found some gold, but not enough to make them rich and they eventually returned to Victoria. George Burchett met his future wife, Mary Jane Evelyn Davy, while in Western Australia. One of their sons,
Wilfred Burchett (q.v.) became one of the world's most controversial journalists.
