Sir George Shenton (4 March 1842 – 29 June 1909) was a prominent businessman in colonial Western Australia, the first Mayor of Perth, and a Member of the Western Australian Legislative Council for over thirty years. Early and family life George Shenton was born in Perth, Western Australia on 4 March 1842, the eldest son of George Shenton Sr, a wealthy businessman who was Perth's first pharmacist. Shenton Jnr was educated locally until 1855, when at the age of 13 he was sent to England to complete his education at the Wesleyan Collegiate Institute (Queen's College) in Taunton. In 1858 he returned to Perth, where he received experience working in a range of his father's businesses, including running his father's store in Geraldton, and managing the family's farm on the Greenough River. On 4 November 1868, Shenton married Julia Theresa Eichbaum in a ceremony at Fremantle. Business activities On 5 March 1867, Shenton Snr drowned when his schooner, The Lass of Geraldton, capsized off Mandurah in a storm. Shenton Jnr then took over his father's businesses. The Shenton family's businesses continued to prosper over the next thirty years, but as Shenton became more involved in politics he had less time to invest in his business activities. From 1884, his youngest brother Ernest gradually took over the running of the Perth store, and another brother, Edward, took the Geraldon business as his inheritance. This left George with responsibility for the shipping business that his father had established. Shenton ran a number of coastal vessels in partnership with John Monger, and the two men had some of the best-known sailing ships of the era. He exported substantial quantities of wool, timber, sandalwood and minerals to London, and pioneered Western Australia's trade with Singapore. He was an agent for a number of firms, including Lloyd's of London, and Felgate's, a London company that controlled most of Western Australia's trade with Britain in the 1870s. George Shenton also invested profitably in gold mining. He was a member of the syndicate that financed Leslie Menzie's 1894 prospecting expedition that resulted in the discovery of the Menzies gold field. The first lease became the famous Lady Shenton mine, which yielded over 130,000 ounces of gold and paid out over £150,000 in dividends. Shenton later became a shareholder and director of the Gold Estates Mining Company. Shenton became a director of a number of local companies, and