Richard Brookes was an English physician and author of compilations and translations on medicine, surgery, natural history, and geography, most of which went through several editions.

He was at one time a rural practitioner in Surrey (Dedication of Art of Angling). At some time previous to 1762 he had travelled both in America and Africa (Preface to Natural History).

His General Gazetteer (1762) filled a gap in the market and went through many editions, up to that of Alexander George Findlay in the later nineteenth century.