Walter Broadbent was born in London, the third son of Sir William Broadbent, Bart, F.R.S, F.R.C.P, and his wife Eliza, daughter of John Harpin of Holmforth. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in arts in 1889. He was a medical student at St. Mary’s Hospital and qualified in 1893, afterwards holding house appointments there and at the Brompton Hospital and the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic. He practised in Brighton and was elected to the staff of the Royal Sussex County Hospital in 1902. He also held appointments at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Brighton and the Lady Chichester Hospital for Nervous Disorders at Hove. He acted as medical referee for the Charity Organisation Society, the Benenden Sanatoria, Queen Alexandra’s Sanatorium, Davos, and the Royal National Hospital for Consumption, Ventnor. His only book was an edition of his father’s writings, published in 1908. 

A major in the Territorial R.A.M.C. before the 1914-1918 War, Broadbent served as a consulting physician to the forces in Italy during the war years. He retired from active work in 1933. At Cambridge he had rowed for his College, and he was a member of the Leander Club. Later, winter sports in Switzerland provided his main recreation. His wife, who received the O.B.E. for public work in 1928, was Edith, daughter of the Right Hon. John Monroe; they had two sons and two daughters. One of his brothers was Sir John F. H. Broadbent, Bart, F.R.C.P. Broadbent died at Henfield, Sussex.

G H Brown

[Lancet, 1936; B.M.J., 1936; Times, 20 Oct 1951]