Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Broadhurst, Henry
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 unrest of the time brought into being a renewed political agitation in favour of labour legislation, such as the removal of objectionable provisions in the conspiracy and master and servant laws, and in that agitation Broadhurst was prominent. In 1873 he was elected secretary to the Labour Representation League, formed to send trade unionists to parliament. That year he tried to enter the London School Board for Greenwich, but failed. Workmen had been candidates for parliament before the league's days, but it produced the first list of labour candidates at any election that of 1874 and succeeded in returning two of them, Alexander MacDonald for Stafford and Thomas Burt for Morpeth. Broadhurst himself stood for High Wycombe on a day's notice, but only polled 113 votes. In 1875 the trade union congress elected him secretary of its parliamentary committee.
At this time the leading members of the parliamentary committee were prominent supporters of programmes of radical reform, like the extension of the franchise, the abolition of property qualifications for office on local governing bodies the first subject upon which Broadhurst had to draft a bill (1876) and the Plimsoll merchant shipping bill [see Plimsoll, Samuel, Suppl. I]. Above all the committee had begun to lobby in parliament, to send deputations to ministers and leading politicians on labour questions, and to interfere in parliamentary elections. The agitations for the repeal of what the trade unionists considered the unjust laws relating to conspiracy, masters and servants, and the legal status of trade unions had been so far successful [see Howell, George, Suppl. II], but Broadhurst and his friends brought within the scope of their urgent activity questions like employers' liability and work-men's compensation for industrial injuries and amendments to the Factory Acts. Broadhurst was also the secretary of the workmen's committee of the Eastern Question Association, which stimulated public opinion in England against the conduct of the Turks in Bulgaria (1875-1880). He promoted international trade union con- ferences, like that of Paris in 1883, which was one of the beginnings of the present International Socialist Congresses.
After the general election of 1874 the Labour Representation League ceased to move the interest of trade unionists, and gradually collapsed. Broadhurst thenceforth identified himself with the liberal party, and in 1878 was chosen one of the two liberal candidates for Stoke-on-Trent. He was elected in 1880 with a poll of 11,379 votes. In the House of Commons Broadhurst at once engaged in miscellaneous but most useful work. He supported employers' liability bills (1880-1) and proposed amendments in factory legislation. He investigated the hardships attending the employment of women and children in the heavy industries of the Black Country (producing in the House of Commons in 1883 one of the nail-making machines to illustrate his speech on the subject). In 1884 he moved for the first time the appointment of working-men to the bench of justices and in 1885 the inclusion of a fair wages clause in government contracts. At that time all his income, which came to him as secretary of the trade union congress parliamentary committee, was 150l. a year, from which he had to pay for clerical help at his office ; he could only afford clothes made by his wife.
From 1882 Broadhurst took an active interest in leasehold enfranchisement, which rapidly became a popular radical demand, and was the subject of a memorandum attached to the report of the royal commission on the housing of the working classes (1884). Of that commission he was a member. In 1882 he was offered an assistant factory inspectorship, and in 1884 an inspectorship of canal boats, but declined both.
In 1884 Broadhurst, as secretary of the trade union congress parliamentary committee, became the leading spirit on the workmen's side in the final phase of the agitation for an extension of the franchise. At the election, which followed the Franchise and Redistribution Acts of 1885, Broadhurst declined to contest either of the new Pottery constituencies, into which Stoke-on-Trent bad been divided, and stood for the Bordesley division of Birmingham, which he won with 5362 votes. On the formation of Gladstone's liberal ministry in February 1886 he accepted office as under-secretary in the home department. This necessitated his resignation of the secretaryship of the parliamentary committee. Queen Victoria agreed to excuse him from attending levees, and he was the first minister to whom such permission was granted.
On the defeat of the liberal government in the autumn, Broadhurst retired from Bordesley, and contested West Nottingham, which he won, polling 5458 votes, and in September 1886 lie again was elected secretary to the trade union congress parliamentary committee. A steady drift towards an independent political position had set in within trade unionism, and Broadhurst's official connection with the liberal party was bitterly resented by growing sections of the congress. About 1885 the trade union congress embarked anew on the interrupted agitation for sending working-men to Parliament. A demand for a legal eight hours' day was also put forward by trade unionists, and Broadhurst's difficulties were further increased by his opposition to this proposal. At the congresses of Swansea (1887), Bradford (1888) and particularly at that of Dundee (1889) Broadhurst had to defend his political position against attacks, which were too personal to be successful; consequently the overwhelming votes which were cast in his support obscured the changes in opinion which were taking place. Next year at Liverpool the attack was more prudently directed, and on the issue of a general eight hours' bill Broadhurst's policy was defeated by 193 votes to 155. Owing partly to this defeat and partly to ill-health Broadhurst resigned his secretaryship. The dock strike in 1889 confirmed the new development of trade unionism. Broadhurst continued to be the object of bitter attack, and the defeat of his parliamentary candidatures at West Nottingham in 1892, when he polled 5309 votes, and at Grimsby in 1893, when he polled 3463 votes, was undoubtedly helped by the opposition of the advanced section of trade unionists. At West Nottingham he agreed in a lukewarm way to support the miners' eight hours bill, but the earnestness of his pledge was questioned. In 1892 he was appointed a member of the royal commission to inquire into the condition of the aged poor. In 1894 he stood for Leicester, and was elected with 9464 votes, and this constituency he retained, till he retired in 1906 owing to ill-health. He was an alderman and J.P. of the county of Norfolk. He died at Cromer on 11 October 1911, and was buried at Overstrand.
He married in 1860 Eliza, daughter of Edward Olley of Norwich. She died on 24 May 1905, leaving no children. A bust of Broadhurst is in the art gallery of the Leicester corporation.
He wrote:
- 'Leasehold Enfranchisement,' in collaboration with Sir Robert Reid (Lord Loreburn), 1885.
- 'Henry Broadhurst, M.P.: the Story of his Life from the Stonemason's Bench to the Treasury Bench,' 1901.
[The Times, 12 Oct. 1911; Autobiography; Webb's History of Trade Unionism, 1894; Howell, Labour Legislation, Labour Leaders, and Labour Movements, 1902; Humphrey, The History of Labour Representation; Trade Union Congress Annual Reports]