OBITUARY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20452, 13 January 1941, Page 6

OBITUARY

CAPTAIN F. M. BROADBENT The death has occurred at Geraldine of Captain F. M. Broadbent, R.N. (retired), at the age of 73. Captain Broadbent entered the Royal Navy as Naval Instructor in 1896. From 1901 to 1904, he served in H.M.S. Glory, flagship on the China Station. Arriving in Pekin just after the Boxer rising, the Glory performed the remarkable feat of steaming 600 miles up the Yangtse river as far as Hankow, a fine and daring piece of seamanship which greatly added to British prestige in the Far East. He also served in the old Britannia at Dartmouth. Captain Broadbent was then appointed to the Royal Naval College at Osbornp, where he remained until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. He then joined .the Grand Fleet and for the last year of the war was in H.M.S. Repulse and was present at the surrender of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow. Captain Broadbent later went for a cruise in the West Indies with naval cadets and Captain (now Admiral) Gordon Campbell, V.C., D.S.O. (of Q-boat fame) in H.M.S. Cumberland. Since his retirement, Captain Broadbent lived in Hampshire, England, and was on his second visit to New Zealand at the time of his death. He first took up residence on the Downs. Geraldine, in 1938, and for the last Ul months was a lay-reader at the Geraldine Anglican Church. Apart from this he lived a fairly retired life. He is survived by his widow and one daughter. Mrs. A. J. Hodgkin (Geraldine).