physician to this institution and to the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers.
Broadbent was secretary (1864–1872), treasurer (1872–1900), and subsequently president (1900) of the British Medical Benevolent Fund, to which he was a generous subscriber. An honorary member of many foreign medical societies, he was in 1904 a chief organiser of and first president of the Entente Cordiale Médicale, and at the banquet given at Paris in honour of the English physicians was invested with the grand cross and insignia of a commander of the legion of honour. He was elected F.R.S. in 1897. He received the hon. degree of LL.D. from the Universities of Edinburgh (1898), St. Andrews (1899), Montreal (1906), Toronto (1906), and that of D.Sc. from the University of Leeds (1904). He was president of the Harveian (1875), Medical (1881), Clinical (1887), and Neurological (1896) Societies; vice-president of the Imperial Cancer Fund; consulting physician to the New Hospital for Women, and to the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children (1896).
An acute clinical observer, sound and accurate in diagnosis, resourceful in his methods of treating disease, Broadbent was frank and outspoken in speech, and of resolute will, with business-like powers of concentration. Of robust constitution, he met the exacting requirements of his practice and public work with comparative ease. He died in London on 10 July 1907 from influenza, and was buried in the parish churchyard, Wendover, where he had a country house.
He married in 1863 Eliza, daughter of John Harpin of Holmforth, Yorks, who survived him with two sons, both members of the medical profession, and three daughters. The elder son, John Francis Harpin, succeeded to the baronetcy. A portrait by Scholderer is in the possession of the family.
In addition to the work already cited, Broadbent also revised Tanner's 'Practice of Medicine' (7th edit. 1875). His more important contributions to medical journals have been collected and published by Dr. Walter Broadbent, the second son, with a full bibliography (1908).
[Life of Sir William Broadbent, by Mary Ethel Broadbent (daughter), 1909; notices in the British Medical Journal, 20 July 1907 (portrait); Lancet, 13 July 1907; Practitioner, Aug. 1907 (portrait); Collected Papers by Dr. Walter Broadbent (son) with bibliography, 1908; Index Catalogue, Surgeon-General's Office, Washington; Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., series B., vol. lxxx.] E. M. B.
BROADHURST, HENRY (1840–1911), labour leader, born in the parish of Littlemore, Oxfordshire, on 13 April 1840, was fourth son and 'eleventh or twelfth child,' as he says in his autobiography, of Thomas Broadhurst, stonemason, and his wife Sarah. He was educated at a village school near Littlemore, and at the age of twelve he left to do miscellaneous jobs about the village, and soon afterwards was regularly employed by its blacksmith. In 1853 he was apprenticed to his father's trade in Oxford, and was soon working as a stonemason in Buckingham and Banbury. Coming to London, he felt so country-sick that he left in a month, and, after ill-fortune compelled him to return, he immediately obtained an engagement in Norwich, whither he went by sea. During the depressed time of 1858–9 he tramped twelve hundred miles in the south of England without finding employment. When at Portsmouth on this fruitless search, he attempted to enlist in the army, but was rejected. In 1865 he came finally to London, and shortly afterwards was employed by the contractor who was building the clock tower and its adjoining corridor of the houses of parliament. The mallet and chisels then used by him are preserved in the library of the House of Commons.
In 1872 an agitation for increased pay in the London building trade came to a head by the employers locking out their men. Broadhurst was elected chairman of the masons' committee and was its chief spokesman. The result of the contest was an immediate increase of pay by a halfpenny per hour, a reduction of hours by four per week in summer, and a full half-holiday on Saturdays. Thenceforth he ceased to work at his trade. He had become a leader in his trade union and was active in political agitations conducted by the Reform League, of which he was a member. He had succeeded in changing the character of his trade union by inducing it to offer superannuation and unemployment benefits, and he led it to fix its headquarters in London, and cease moving them every third year. For the first time, in consequence, the central committee became a real executive with power to negotiate on behalf of the whole membership. This establishment of representative democracy in trade unions is an historic event. In 1872 he was sent to represent his trade union at congress, and was elected a member of the parliamentary committee. The labour
