Florance Constantine Broadhurst (1861–1909) was a 19th-century

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

n businessman who is most notable for successfully taking over the management of a number of business ventures of his ill-fortuned, yet extremely creative and hard-working father,

Charles Edward Broadhurst Charles Edward Broadhurst (1826 – 26 April 1905) was a pioneer pastoralism, pastoralist and pearl hunting, pearler in colony, colonial Western Australia. He was a Members of the Western Australian Legislative Council, member of the Western A ...

, and turning a profit. The best known of these is the

guano Guano (Spanish from ) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. Guano is a highly effective fertiliser due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano was also, to a le ...

mining venture in the

Houtman Abrolhos The Houtman Abrolhos (often called the Abrolhos Islands) is a chain of 122 islands and associated coral reefs in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia about west of Geraldton, Western Australia. It is the southernmost true coral r ...

. While his entrepreneur father had recognised the potential of the industry and began mining, eventually to obtain a monopoly on the extraction of the guano, he proved unsuccessful in managing the concern. This situation continued until Florance, who had a mercantile education, joined the concern and began managing the venture under the name Broadhurst MacNeil and Company. MacNeil was initially a backer and a partner, but he took no part in the management of the venture. With his accountancy training F.C. Broadhurst proved enormously successful exporting to Europe and winning a gold medal at the Paris Exposition. While working the deposits on Gun Island, his labourers found a large number of artifacts that he believed to be relics of the 1629 '' Batavia''

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. It results from the event of ''shipwrecking'', which may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately thre ...

. He developed an interest in the wreck, and eventually obtained a copy of

Isaac Commelin Isaac Commelin (19 October 1598, in Amsterdam – 13 January 1676, in Amsterdam) was a Dutch historian, a member of the vroedschap and a manager of a :nl:Binnengasthuis (Amsterdam), charity hospital, providing help to the sick and poor. Life Isaa ...

's 1647 , the Dutch publication that first popularised the ''Batavia'' incident. He commissioned

Willem Siebenhaar Willem Siebenhaar (; 28 July 1863 – 29 December 1936) was a social activist and writer in Western Australia from the 1890s until he left Australia in 1924. His literary contributions and opposition to policies such as conscription were his mos ...

to translate it, and this resulted in what is still the only English translation, entitled ''

The Abrolhos tragedy ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The' ...

''. Broadhurst maintained a catalogue of his finds, which he donated to the state. These were eventually shown to be related not to the ''Batavia'', but the VOC ship ''

Zeewijk The ''Zeewijk'' (or ''Zeewyk'') was an 18th-century East Indiaman of the Dutch East India Company (, commonly abbreviated to VOC) that was shipwrecked at the Houtman Abrolhos, off the coast of Western Australia, on 9 June 1727. The survivors ...

'', which was wrecked off

Gun Island Gun Island is one of the larger islands in the Pelsaert Group of the Houtman Abrolhos, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia. It is nominally at , about north and east of Half Moon Reef and is a flat limestone outcrop of about ...

in 1727. A friend of his children, Henrietta Drake-Brockman, came to learn of the Dutch wrecks while around the family home, and she became an acknowledged force in the eventual location of the Batavia wreck and its survivor's campsite. Though a great success, in 1904 Broadhurst lost the monopoly to the guano industry.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Broadhurst, Florance 1861 births 1909 deaths People from Western Australia 19th-century Australian businesspeople