Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/356

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Bristowe
294
Broadhead

committee-room at St. Thomas's Hospital. The bulk of the subscriptions collected on his retirement from St. Thomas's Hospital in 1892 was used to found a medal to be awarded for proficiency in the science of pathology. He married, on 9 Oct. 1856, Miriam Isabelle, eldest surviving daughter of Joseph P. Stearns of Dulwich, by whom he had five sons and five daughters.

Dr. Bristowe's reputation rests chiefly upon his great power of teaching students at the bedside, for in this he was facile princeps among the physicians of his own time. The faculty seemed to depend on a most retentive memory for detail, a thoroughly logical mind, an inability to accept anything as a fact until he had proved it to be so to his own satisfaction, and a very complete mastery of the science of pathology. As a physician his reputation stood highest in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the nervous system, though he took almost an equal interest In diseases of the chest and abdomen. The problems of sanitary science, too, afibrded him a constant gratification, and he communicated to the public health department of the privy council a series of important reports 'On Phosphorus Poisoning in Match Manufacture' (1862), 'On Infection by Rags and Paper Works' (1865), 'On the Cattle Plague' (1866) in conjunction with Professor (Sir) J. Burdon Sanderson, and 'On the Hospitals of the United Kingdom' jointly with Mr. Timothy Holmes. He had considerable skill as a draughtsman, and many of the microscopical drawings to be found in his books were the work of his own hand. In particular his figures of trichina spiralis, a parasitic worm in the muscles of man, have been copied into many text-books.

Bristowe published: 1. 'Poems,' London, 1850, 8vo; towards the end of his life he issued another small volume of poems for private circulation. 2. 'A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Medicine,' London, 1876, 8vo; the 7th edit, was issued in 1890. This work immediately became one of the principal text-books of medicine for students and practitioners in all English-speaking countries; the chapters on insanity form one of the most valuable portions of the book. 3. 'Clinical Lectures and Essays on Diseases of the Nervous System,' 1888, 8vo. 4. 'Annual Reports of the Medical Officer of Health to the Vestry of St. Giles, Camberwell, Surrey,' London, 1857-82, 8vo. He also edited the 'St. Thomas's Hospital Reports,' 1870-76.

[Personal knowledge; information kindly contributed by Mr. L. S. Bristowe, barrister-at-law ; St. Thomas's Hospital Eeports, new series, 1894, xxiii. 18.]

D’A. P.

BROADHEAD, WILLIAM (1815–1879), instigator of trade-union outrages, was born at Whirlow, near Sheffield, in September 1815. As a boy he worked with his father, who was for many years foreman of the saw-grinders employed by Messrs. Jonathan Beardshaw & Sons of Garden Street (now of the Baltic Steel Works, Effingham Road), Sheffield. After leaving his father he went to work at Stacey Wheel in the Loxley Valley, now enclosed within the Damflask reservoir of the Sheffield water company. He married and developed studious tastes, assiduously reading Shakespeare. On leaving Loxley, Broadhead, without ceasing to practise his craft, became landlord of the Bridge Inn, Owlerton. His sympathies were always strongly with workmen in their disputes with their employers. In 1848, while living at Owlerton, he guaranteed the costs of the solicitor who defended Drury, Marsden, Bulloss, and Hall, charged with employing two men to destroy the property of Peter Bradshaw. The prisoners were eventually liberated on technical grounds, but Broadhead found himself seriously embarrassed by the heavy amount of the costs.

In 1848 or 1849 he was appointed secretary of the saw-grinders' union. The body was a small one, numbering as late as 1867 only 190 members. Originally it was organised chiefly as a mutual benefit society. Under Broadhead's vigorous management the working members in five years contributed no less than 9,000l. to sick and unemployed members. Removing from Owlerton he became landlord of the Greyhound inn at Westbar, and subsequently of the Royal George in Carver Street, Sheffield. These houses became the headquarters of the saw-grinders' union, and Broadhead, though nominally only secretary, in reality dictated its actions. He was full of zeal for its prosperity, and, to enforce discipline on its members and compel the whole of the workmen to enrol themselves, hesitated at no measures, however disgraceful. The trade had long been notorious for rattenings and outrages, but under Broadhead's management more daring crimes were perpetrated. In July 1853 he hired three men to hamstring a horse belonging to Elisha Parker of Dore, who had offended by working in association with two non-unionists. Parker, remaining obdurate, was fired at and wounded on Whit Monday, 1854, at the instigation of Broadhead, who paid his assailants out of the funds of the union. In November 1857 James Linley, who persisted in keeping a number of apprentices in defiance of the union, was