The business George Slater operated at various times in the second half of the nineteenth century in Melbourne and in Brisbane, and in country Victoria and Queensland, as a bookseller, publisher, printer, stationer, newsagent, library, and dealer in homeopathic medicines. George Slater opened a bookshop in Wellington Street in Collingwood, Melbourne, soon after his arrival from London in 1853 (sometimes advertised as the 'Wellington Library'), but soon moved to 94 Bourke Street, where the business developed into a leading Melbourne bookseller, which also published in association with W. H. Williams, and traded also as Slater, Williams and Hodgson. During the 1850s George Slater published the Journal of Australasia (later the Illustrated Journal of Australasia), which contained some of the earlist criticism of Australian literature. Another publication was the periodical Newsletter from Australia, a compendium of information intended to be sent to relatives and friends in Britain. This publication featured a woodcut print on the cover, and Slater also published and sold individual prints of scenes of Melbourne and the gold diggings. The firm opened branches in Castlemaine and Bendigo, but the business failed, and was sold around 1858. George Slater operated as a wholesale bookseller at 120 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, then from 1859 to 1861 as a library in High Street, St Kilda.
George Slater moved to Brisbane where in 1864 he opened a small bookshop and stationery in the Kingsford Building in Queen Street. The business opened branches in Rockhampton and Gympie, and expanded into printing, producing maps and woodcut and lithographic prints and photographs of Queensland scenes. It also operated a subscription library, which had a list of 15000 books in 1869. From 1867 the firm published Slater's Queensland Almanac, and in 1873 moved into a new warehouse and workshop in Edward Street. This business was sold around 1876 to Gordon and Gotch, who continued Slater's Queensland Almanac into the twentieth century.
George Slater is listed in the the 1882 Queensland Post Office Directory as a bookseller and publisher at the New Church Book Depot. Slater purchased an interest in a homeopathic pharmacy in Edward Street in 1882, which he sold in 1885.
