Throssel, George (1840–1910), businessman and state premier, was born 24 May 1840 in Fermoy, Co. Cork, the second of five children (four sons and a daughter) of Michael Throssel (d. 1855) and his wife (Ann) Jane (née Ledsam; d. 1854). His father had been born in England and come to Ireland as part of his service in the army. There, he met and married George's mother, Jane, who was from Fermoy, Co. Cork. His father was discharged from the army in 1836 with the rank of corporal. The family remained in Ireland for a time before moving to England by 1845. Michael Throssel appears as police constable of Brigstock, Northamptonshire in 1846.
The family emigrated in 1850 (on the convict transport ship Scindian, his father serving as guard) to Perth, Western Australia, where his father took employment as a sergeant of police. George arranged for his younger brother and sister to be brought up by relatives in Adelaide, South Australia, after the loss of their parents. Finding work in a branch of the Padbury general goods firm in Perth, he endeavoured to fill the gaps in his education by going to evening classes at city self-improvement societies. He was promoted (c.1860) to manager of a Padbury branch in Guildford, a suburb of Perth.
Moving to Northam, some 100 km from Perth, after marriage in 1861, he set up his own shop in the town centre. A dynamic businessman, principally retailing agricultural goods and hardware, he invested his growing capital in property and construction. He actively participated in the full range of local administrative boards, clubs, and committees, and helped to found the municipal council in 1879. Remembering his own struggles for education, he set up a mechanics’ institute in the town in 1866. Elected mayor of Northam (1887–94), he also represented the town in the state legislative assembly (1890–1904). Ebullient, popular, and non-ideological, he agitated for measures to develop the valley of the Avon, making a good deal of money out of the immigration of small farmers to the region in the 1890s.
The former premier, Sir John Forrest of the conservative ministerial party, unwisely selected him to take over as state premier on 15 February 1901. In a year of political turmoil, as an emerging right–left divide in state politics caused factions to form and dissolve, Throssel did not have the acumen to keep an uneasy coalition together, and the government collapsed in April 1901. After the disintegration of the ‘Old Party’ in the May elections, he resigned (on 26 May) as party leader and premier. He continued to sit in the legislative assembly till 1906, and sat in the legislative council from 1907 to 1910. Badly hurt after a fall at home, he died 30 August 1910 and is buried in Northam cemetery.
He married (June 1861) Anne Morrell, daughter of a pioneering family in the Northam district. They had six daughters and five sons, including Hugo Throssell (1884–1933) who was awarded a VC for heroic action at Gallipoli and was active in communist politics in Western Australia after the war.