BROADLEY, Henry (1793-1851), of 3 Charles Street, St. James’s, London; Melton Hill, nr. Hull; later of Norwood House, Beverley; later of Welton House, nr. Howden, Yorks.

A Conservative ‘of strong Protectionist feeling’, known for his ‘stinginess’, Broadley sat for Yorkshire’s East Riding from 1837 until his death in 1851.1Annual Register (1851), 318. Although he was silent in the Commons chamber, barring one intervention on a sewage bill, a surviving volume of his diary indicates that he was nonetheless a diligent representative.2J. Markham (ed.), The diary of an honourable Member. The journal of Henry Broadley, M.P. 1 January, 1840 to 17 March, 1842 (1987). The Yorkshire Gazette recorded that ‘a more attentive member ... did not exist. His name appeared in almost every division, and his punctuality was equalled by his consistency … [He] always marked out for himself a straightforward course of undeviating political rectitude’.3Yorkshire Gazette, cited in Gent. Mag. (1851), ii. 434. A ‘serious, solemn, conscientious man’, Broadley also served ‘with efficiency and controlled enthusiasm’ as chairman of the Hull and Selby railway. He was, however, ‘more respected than liked’ and ‘his introverted nature made it impossible for him to acquire an easy popularity’.4Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 1, 4, 7. Although many sources give the dates of his railway chairmanship as 1836-43, press reports and the diary of his fellow director Joseph Robinson Pease indicate that it was not until 1844 that he resigned: Hull Packet, 1 Nov. 1844; J. D. Hicks (ed.), The journal of Joseph Robinson Pease 1822-1865 (2000), 138. A fellow Hull Conservative considered him ‘an odd compound’, but ‘a man of business and a man of honour with whom you could safely deposit your best interests’.5Hicks, Journal of Joseph Robinson Pease, 188; Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 15. Despite his considerable wealth, he was renowned for his parsimony: he quibbled over the cost of his London lodgings and fixed strict limits on how much he was prepared to spend on elections, although he left a wine cellar worth over £850.6Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 5-7.

The Broadleys had settled in the seventeenth century in Hull, where they developed a ‘thriving’ business as merchants and became Hull’s ‘most voracious land buyers’.7http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=050-dp146&cid=-1&Gsm=2008-06-18#-1 Members of the family also became shipowners, insurance underwriters and bankers,8B. English, The great landowners of East Yorkshire 1530-1910 (1990), 31. and the Broadleys ‘acquired wealth and station’ through their commercial pursuits,9The assembled Commons; or, parliamentary biographer (1838), 38. notably by selling building plots as Hull expanded.10English, Great landowners of East Yorkshire, 31-2. Broadley’s father, a naval officer, died when Broadley was four.11Gent. Mag. (1797), ii. 897; Burke’s landed gentry (1846), i. 142. Broadley’s uncle, Robert Carlisle Broadley, a banker, underwriter and major property owner in Hull, died in 1812 leaving his estates to Broadley’s oldest brother Thomas. When Thomas died in 1815 this property passed to Broadley.12http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=050-dp146&cid=-1&Gsm=2008-06-18#-1; English, Great landowners of East Yorkshire, 31. Dod’s parliamentary companion listed Broadley in 1840 as a ‘shipowner and merchant of Hull’, but Broadley was involved in neither occupation, and this description was removed from the 1841 edition after Broadley wrote to Dod with corrections.13Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 106, 178.

Broadley emulated earlier generations of his family with significant property dealings.14In 1840 he was lord of the manors of Sutton, in Holderness, and Bempton, near Bridlington: W. White (ed.), History, gazetteer, and directory of the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire (1840), 268, 362. In 1837 he sold land for the construction of the Hull and Selby railway, connecting Hull to Leeds.15Hull Packet, 24 Feb. 1837. In 1839 Broadley was involved in a court case regarding lands adjoining the river Humber which the railway company wished to purchase, his ownership of which was disputed by the crown. The verdict was for the crown: The Times, 6 June 1839. He had become the first chairman of this company in 1836, having previously chaired its provisional committee.16Hull Packet, 24 Oct. 1834. In 1844 he sold Dock Green in Hull to the dock company for £43,000.17Hull Packet, 4 Oct. 1844. That year he resigned as chairman of the Hull and Selby railway, citing the pressure of his parliamentary duties.18Hull Packet, 1 Nov. 1844. Although praised by fellow directors for ‘his arduous and valuable services’, he appears to have retired under a cloud.19PP 1846 [700], xvi. 664. His fellow director Joseph Pease noted a ‘rather unpleasant half-yearly Railway meeting’ after Broadley resigned with ‘no good reason given’. Pease’s account suggested that Broadley disagreed with recent decisions regarding the railway and despaired of ‘our inefficient Board’. Pease claimed that through his railway shares and selling land to the railway and dock companies, Broadley had ‘put about a hundred thousand pounds into his pocket’.20Hicks, Journal of Joseph Robinson Pease, 138. Pease’s diary later corrected this account and recorded Broadley’s formal resignation as taking place on 19 Oct. 1844, rather than at the August meeting. See also Hull Packet, 1 Nov. 1844. At the meeting which announced his resignation, one shareholder voiced concerns about Broadley’s recent sale of half his railway shares,21Hull Packet, 1 Nov. 1844. which had reportedly caused shares to drop in value.22York Herald, 9 Nov. 1844. Broadley added to his properties in June 1847 when he purchased the Raikes family estates, comprising 2,000 acres centred on Welton, near Howden, at a cost of £200,000. He already owned 1,500 adjoining acres.23Hicks, Journal of Joseph Robinson Pease, 168-9; English, Great landowners of East Yorkshire, 31. Broadley’s purchase of this property was not made public until after the death of Robert Raikes’s widow in 1848. Having previously lived at Melton Hill, near Hull, and then at Beverley, he took up residence at Welton House.24Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 3; K. J. Allison, “Hull Gent. seeks country residence” 1750-1850 (1987), 35, 38, 43-6. Broadley’s house in Beverley was a ‘pleasant mansion’ at the end of Hengate, Norwood: White, History, gazetteer, and directory of the East and North Ridings, 144.

Alongside his business activities, Broadley played a prominent part in the political life of Hull and the East Riding, as well as contributing to local charitable institutions.25Among the causes he patronised in Hull were the musical festival which raised money for Holy Trinity Church, the subscription library and the general infirmary: Hull Packet, 23 May 1834, 5 Sept. 1834, 20 Jan. 1837, 19 May 1848. He was chamberlain of Hull in 1829 and sheriff in 1832, but stood unsuccessfully for an aldermanic vacancy in 1834.26Hull Packet, 6 Oct. 1829, 11 July 1834; York Herald, 6 Oct. 1832. In August 1832 he chaired the meeting which established the Hull Conservative Society and became its first president.27Hull Packet, 7 Aug. 1832. He supported the candidature of the Conservative Richard Bethell for the East Riding at that year’s general election, seconding him at the nomination.28Hull Packet, 20 Nov. 1832; York Herald, 22 Dec. 1832. In 1832 the parties shared the representation, but when the Liberals mooted bringing forward a second candidate in 1835, the Conservatives threatened to nominate Broadley alongside Bethell.29The Times, 16 Jan. 1835. This had the desired effect of preventing a contest, and Broadley again seconded Bethell’s unopposed return, when he berated the Whigs as ‘panderers to popular delusion’ and declared that ‘the very vital principle of conservatism is reform’ in order to secure ‘permanence and stability’ in the constitution.30Hull Packet, 16 Jan. 1835.

In June 1835 Broadley was invited to contest Hull at a by-election, but declined, instead proposing another Conservative on the hustings.31York Herald, 20 June 1835; The Examiner, 21 June 1835. In the same month it was reported that he would contest the East Riding at the next election.32Leeds Intelligencer, cited in Morning Post, 22 June 1835. At a ‘Protestant’ meeting in the constituency in July he condemned Liberal proposals to appropriate the Irish church’s surplus revenues as ‘robbery’, threatening ‘our homes, our children, and our altars’.33Hull Packet, 3 July 1835. Later that month he attended the East Riding Agricultural Association’s annual dinner.34Hull Packet, 31 July 1835. He appeared regularly at gatherings of the East Riding Conservative Association and the Hull Conservative Society. Addressing the latter in 1836 he denounced the Whigs’ ‘cabalistic bond of union’ with Daniel O’Connell.35The Times, 19 Sept. 1836.

Sir Walter James, elected in 1837 for Hull, observed that he ‘never saw any man more anxious about a seat’ in Parliament than Broadley.36Hicks, Journal of Joseph Robinson Pease, 94. Broadley turned down invitations from Hull and Beverley to stand at the general election,37Ibid., 93; The Standard, 24 July 1837. but came forward for the East Riding at the behest of a section of the Tory gentry who wished to end shared representation. His candidature provoked some discord, as Bethell would happily have been re-elected unopposed alongside the Liberal for a third time.38Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 6; The Times, 22 Aug. 1837. On the hustings Broadley, who stood ‘as an English country gentleman, and as an independent man, bound by no ties, and fettered by no obligations’, declared that he offered upon ‘broad principles of Conservatism’. However, while defending established institutions he would ‘repair all those delays and dilapidations’. He promised to represent both agricultural and commercial interests.39Hull Packet, 4 Aug. 1837. He secured the second seat behind Bethell.

Broadley was generally a loyal (but almost silent) Conservative supporter at Westminster. A regular presence in the division lobbies, he voted in 79 out of 109 divisions in the 1841 session.40Leeds Mercury, 10 July 1841. He consistently divided against the ballot and other measures of electoral reform. He opposed Melbourne’s ministry on their Canadian policy, 7 Mar. 1838, but backed them on slave apprenticeships, 30 Mar. 1838. He routinely voted in support of the corn laws, and opposed the appropriation of the Irish church’s surplus revenues, 15 May 1838. Although he had intended to vote for John Plumptre’s motion to curtail the Maynooth grant, 23 June 1840, he concluded that this should not be done without an inquiry, and thus abstained.41Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 45. He showed some sympathies with Tory paternalism, voting with Lord Ashley for a 58 hour working week for young people, although he opposed him on the question of defining adults as over eighteen for the purposes of factory legislation, 1 July 1839. He also joined the minority which favoured limiting the appointment of poor law commissioners to the end of 1843, 22 Mar. 1841. He divided with his party in confidence votes, 31 Jan. 1840, 4 June 1841, but inadvertently found himself voting with the Radicals on a clause of the Canada government bill, 29 May 1840, having chosen the wrong lobby after falling asleep in the chamber and waking to find a division in progress.42Ibid., 41. According to Hansard, Broadley was a silent member, but he recorded that he ‘said a few words’ when seconding the sewers bill’s second reading, 23 Mar. 1840.43Ibid., 30. His committee service was limited, serving on the 1838 inquiry into the Ipswich election petition and a private bill committee in 1840.44PP 1837-38 (173), x. 341; PP 1840 (570), xlv. 10.

Despite his diligence, Broadley did not find universal favour among the East Riding’s Conservatives, and there were moves in 1839 to secure an alternative candidate, Lord Hotham. Robert Denison, a leading local Conservative, claimed that Broadley’s unpopularity was such ‘in all parts, particularly in Hull and Beverley … that it would be a dangerous nuisance fighting with him’. Although Broadley owned substantial landed property and declared his interests to be ‘wholly agricultural’, his connections with Hull’s commerce and railways led Denison to warn him that ‘the farmers in general were anxious to have a man more associated with agricultural interests ... he had never gone among them to gain goodwill’.45Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 7-8. Broadley accompanied several deputations from Hull on questions relating to the docks and railways: The Times, 11, 28, 30 Mar., 5 June 1839, 21 Mar. 1842; Morning Post, 10 Jan. 1843. Broadley appears to have made efforts to counter this impression: in July 1840 he donated a prize for the best bull to the East Riding Agricultural Association.46Hull Packet, 31 July 1840. He was also a supporter of the Holderness agricultural society: York Herald, 18 Mar. 1848. His second failing was that ‘his stinginess is so extreme the whole Riding is talking of it’. Many Conservatives who had subscribed towards the 1837 contest would pay again to return Bethell, but not Broadley, ‘considering him … amply wealthy enough to bear the cost himself’. Broadley protested in January 1840 that ‘I could not stand a contest on my own resources’ and insisted that he would not pay an unlimited amount, but agreed a compromise whereby he would pay half the expenses, up to a maximum of £3,000 for his share, thereby securing his position.47Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 7-8, 21, 23. Broadley had protested when asked to give a further £150 to supplement the £1,000 he had paid towards the 1837 election: ibid., 8.

Broadley’s election address in 1841 expressed his hope that the ‘reckless and imbecile’ Melbourne ministry would be removed.48Hull Packet, 18 June 1841. At an election meeting at Hedon he attacked Liberal proposals for a fixed duty on corn, which would ‘ruin ... those who now lived by its culture’, and denounced the ‘cheap bread’ cry as ‘humbug’. Aware that his protectionist views would play less well at Hull, he warned that repeal would cut agricultural wages, resulting in an influx into the towns of agricultural labourers seeking work. He also emphasised the detrimental effects which alterations in the timber duties would have on the shipping interest, and appealed to the memory of William Wilberforce when asserting that cuts in the sugar duties would encourage ‘the produce of slavery’ to replace free-grown sugar.49Hull Packet, 9 July 1841. Bethell’s retirement enabled Broadley to be elected unopposed alongside Hotham, after which he made, in the view of the Morning Post, ‘a long and eloquent speech, in which he gave the Whigs a severe drubbing’.50Morning Post, 9 July 1841. His unopposed return enabled a relatively cheap election, for which Broadley paid £814 9s. 4d.51Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 110, 123.

Broadley was again a fairly regular attender, and served on several committees on private bills.52PP 1842 (553), xxxvii. 19; PP 1843 (624), xliv. 35; PP 1845 (659), xxxvi. 112; PP 1846 (723-II), xxxiii. 125; The Times, 6 Feb. 1846. He recorded that Queen Victoria ‘looked fat and pasty’ at the opening of the 1842 session.53Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 139. He backed a ten hour factory day, 22 Mar. and 13 May 1844, and again in the 1847 session. He divided for Peel’s sliding scale on corn, 9 Mar. and 7 Apr. 1842, but increasingly entered the opposite lobby from his party leader. He voted against the Dissenters chapels bill, 6 and 28 June 1844, and against the Maynooth grant at all stages in 1845. He was also a consistent opponent of the Catholic relief bill. Broadley divided against Charles Villiers’ annual anti-corn law motions, and presented several petitions in defence of the corn laws. In 1845 he wrote a remonstrance to Lord John Russell about his letter to the electors of London in support of ‘immediate repeal’,54Huddersfield Chronicle, 16 Aug. 1851. and at a meeting of the East Riding agricultural protection society in February 1846 he voiced his ‘grief’ at Peel’s change of opinion on this question.55York Herald, 14 Feb. 1846. He of course divided against repeal of the corn laws, 27 Mar. and 15 May 1846, but rallied behind Peel in the critical vote on the Irish coercion bill, 25 June 1846. From November 1846 he suffered from ‘severe indisposition’, but had recovered sufficiently to resume his parliamentary duties in January 1847.56The Standard, 23 Nov. 1846; Morning Post, 4 Jan. 1847.

Seeking re-election in 1847 Broadley asserted in his election address that he had ‘no change of views to propound – and no votes in the House of Commons to excuse or explain away’, and would go to Westminster ‘unfettered by pledges’.57Hull Packet, 9 July 1847. Renewed illness left him unable to attend election meetings, but he appeared at the nomination, where he was re-elected unopposed.58Hull Packet, 6 Aug. 1847; Leeds Mercury, 7 Aug. 1847. He praised Peel’s management of the country until he decided to repeal the corn laws, whereupon he ‘forfeited the good opinion of every one of his former adherents’. At an election dinner Broadley complained that ‘the fatigues of parliamentary life were great, occasioned by the uncertainty of the length of time that members had to sit’.59Hull Packet, 6 Aug. 1847.

Broadley was less assiduous in his third Parliament, voting in 43 out of 219 divisions (20%) in the 1849 session,60Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. and his committee service was limited, serving on those on the Battersea park amendment and extension bill, and the Malton and Driffield railway bill.61PP 1851 (660), xlvii. 52; PP 1851 (692), xlvii. 37. He routinely divided against the removal of Jewish disabilities, and also opposed the abolition of church rates, 13 Mar. 1849. He confirmed his protectionist sympathies with votes against the repeal of the navigation laws, 12 Mar. and 23 Apr. 1849, and for Grantley Berkeley’s motion to reconsider the corn laws, 14 May 1850. He also endeavoured to support agricultural interests by backing Disraeli’s relief motions, 15 Mar. 1849, 13 Feb. 1851, and Cayley’s efforts to repeal the malt tax, 5 July 1850, 8 May 1851. At a protectionist meeting at Beverley in February 1850 Broadley denied that landlords were self-interested in their desire for protection.62Hull Packet, 15 Feb. 1850.

In March 1851, when the Russell ministry found itself ‘in constant minorities’, Broadley privately informed two of his leading supporters, Pease and Denison, that he would not offer again at the next dissolution, as ‘his health was so shattered’, and this decision was reported in the press. Pease believed that Broadley was also ‘afraid of a contest and his purse’, as funds might be forthcoming for a Liberal opponent. He was persuaded to rescind his withdrawal after the Conservatives’ preferred successor, Hon. Arthur Duncombe, declined to leave his East Retford seat, and the Hull Packet recorded in April that he had ‘in a great measure rallied from his indisposition’.63Hicks, Journal of Joseph Robinson Pease, 185; Hull Packet, 25 Apr. 1851. However, just three months later Broadley made his last appearance in the division lobbies, on the question of whether David Salomons, returned for Greenwich at a recent by-election, should be allowed, as a Jew, to take his seat, 28 July 1851.

Broadley died that August at his London lodgings in Charles Street, St. James’s Square, a few days after suffering a stroke.64Huddersfield Chronicle, 16 Aug. 1851; Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 15. He was buried in the family vault at Holy Trinity Church, Hull.65Hull Packet, 22 Aug. 1851. He left a personal estate worth almost £164,000.66Broadley’s estate was proved under £160,000 at York and under £4,000 at Canterbury: B. English, ‘Probate valuations and death duty registers’, BIHR, 57 (1984), 88. He bequeathed his properties and the bulk of his estate to his unmarried sister, Sophia, with whom he had lived. Pease wrote scornfully that Broadley thereby gave ‘his old nervous sister the trouble of disposing of what he had not the courage to do himself’.67Markham, Diary of an honourable Member, 174. He left £5,000 to his nephew John Broadley and £1,000 each to John’s five sisters. He also left £5,000 to his nephew Broadley Harrison, and £500 each to Harrison’s older brother William Henry and his sister Mary.68Ibid. William Henry Harrison (1820-96) inherited the estates on Sophia’s death in 1864, and took the name Harrison-Broadley in 1865. He followed in his uncle’s footsteps to serve as Conservative MP for the East Riding, 1868-85. On his death the estates passed to his nephew, Henry Broadley Harrison-Broadley (1853-1914), Conservative MP for the Howdenshire division of the East Riding, 1906-14.69Ibid., 149; Gent. Mag. (1864), ii. 124. In 1883 the Harrison-Broadley estates amounted to 14,877 acres in the East Riding, but land purchases between 1867 and 1871 had expanded the family’s holdings since Broadley’s time: J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (4th edn., 1883), 57; English, Great landowners of East Yorkshire, 71. Papers relating to the Broadley and Harrison-Broadley families are held by the East Riding of Yorkshire Archives.