Benjamin Broadbent (builder)

Benjamin Broadbent (1813–1862) was an English master builder, stonemason, and architect. In 1840 in Leicester, he formed the company Broadbents Ltd, a busy which serviced builders' merchants and roofing contractors. He was also associated with Broadbent and Hawley, stone and marble masons and gravestone cutters.^[1] Broadbent built his home, Victoria House, in 1861 in Humberstone. The large estate included a mansion house, stables, coach house, winery, orchard, conservatories and outbuildings. His first wife was the daughter of a farmer from Dodleston, Cheshire called Anne Wright and they had four children. The eldest, also Benjamin, inherited the family business. His second wife was Mary Geary and they had six children. Three years after his death, Victoria House was purchased by the Leicester Corporation to establish the Leicester Borough Asylum, which became the Towers Hospital.^[2]

Selected works

His work includes a marble tablet of commemoration in All Saints Church, Thurcaston.^[3] Pevsner attributes Victorian ceilings in Althorp's Billiard Room (formerly the Yellow Drawing Room or Rubens Room) and South Drawing Room to Broadbent.^[4][5]

Broadbent erected a plaque on a gable end next to Leicaster's old Bow Bridge in 1856,^[6] which remains part of the 17th century legend of the fate of Richard III’s body.^[7]

When the old Bow Bridge at Leicester was demolished to make way for a new and more serviceable structure, a very good engraving of it appeared in The Illustrated London News of February 9, 1861. It was an old bridge when King Richard III passed over it en route for Bosworth Field. The article read in part: —

"For many years, there was a spot pointed out by visitors as King Richard’s grave, and an old stone inserted in a neighbouring wall bore testimony to the fact. In the course of events, however, it became necessary to pull down the wall, and build over the spot; and it seemed as if the place of King Richard’s burial would be forgotten altogether, and so it probably would have been but for the enterprise and public spirit of a Leicester townsman, Mr. Benjamin Broadbent, a master builder, and one well known for his many acts of munificence. This gentleman, unwilling that the remains of a King of England should lie without a stone to mark the place, obtained permission of Mr. A Turner, the owner of the estate, and at his own sole cost inserted a massive stone in the building about to be erected recording the event... The visitor to Leicester (thanks to Mr. Broadbent), may still go to the place of King Richard's last interment, and may read there that ‘Near this spot lie the remains of Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets, 1485.' "^[8]

References

•   This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: "Notes and Queries: For Readers and Writers, Collectors and Librarians" (1892)

1. Bennett, John David; Bennett, John Douglas (1968). Leicestershire architects 1700-1850. Leicester Museums and Art Gallery.
2. "The Early Years". Leicestershire County Council. 12 August 2013. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
3. . Leicester Chronicler. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
4. Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (1 January 1973). Northamptonshire. Yale University Press. pp. 81–. ISBN 978-0-300-09632-3.
5. Spencer, Raine (1986). Althorp: a short history of Althorp and the Spencer family. s.n. p. 6.
6. . Leicester Arts & Museums Service. January 2014. Archived from the original on 28 May 2014. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
7. Ashdown-Hill, John (October 2006). "Local Legends - The fate of Richard III's body". BBC. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
8. Notes and Queries: For Readers and Writers, Collectors and Librarians (Public domain ed.). Oxford University Press. 1892. pp. 161–.