He married wife Catherine Margaret, née Robinson, on 10 January 1865 and they had seven children: William Ernest (1865 – 1879), businessman, pastoralist, public official and philanthropist Herbert Brookes (1867-1963) who married Ivy Deakin, Mabel Catherine (1870- 1916) who married James Bertram, Percy Campion (1872-1873), May (1874 – 1938), businessman and pastoralist Harold Brookes who married Dorothy Clare Bird, and businessman, pastoralist and champion tennis player Sir Norman Brookes (1877-1968) who married Mabel Balcombe Emmerton.
