Captain Harold Hamilton Broadmead DL JP was a barrister, one of four amongst the founders. The son of the Reverend P Broadmead, he went up to Gonville & Caius after Malvern before being called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1912. He was appointed Sheriff of Somerset in 1929.
He volunteered and was commissioned into the Somerset Light Infantry during the Great War, serving first in Burma, at Meiktila where the Taunton Company he commanded was posted to guard a prisoner of war camp, largely for Turkish PoWs, and then on the NW Frontier from 1917.
He stayed after the Armistice and fought in the Third Afghan War getting Mentioned…
“…. for distinguished service during the operations against Afghanistan by General Sir C. C. Monro, G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.M.G., in his despatch dated 1st November, 1919”
He did much in the inter-war years to restore the family seat of Enmore Castle in Bridgwater, formerly the home of the Percevals but acquired by the Broadmead Family in the 1830s.
His decorations below are shown below and include the Inner Temple War Commemorative Medal, the Defence Medal, British War medal 1914-20; Allied Victory medal 1914-19, with oak leaf, India General Service medal 1908-35 with clasp and the Royal Humane Society Swimming Medal.
He was initiated into St Mary’s Lodge No 63 in London.
He was a keen archaeologist, a member of the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society, a member of the Oxford & Cambridge and rode with the Quantock Staghounds. He was also a keen proponent of the Temperance movement, even joining a local branch of the movement in Burma for serving soldiers and officers.
Photo Credit: Portrait Photograph, Lafayette Ltd., 160 New Bond Street, London. Copyright: V&A
