{{distinguish|Florence Broadhurst}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} [[File:Florance C Broadhurst HOFWA.jpg|thumb|right|Florance C Broadhurst]] '''Florance Constantine Broadhurst''' (1861–1909) was a 19th-century [[Western Australia]]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]], and turning a profit. The best known of these is the [[guano]] mining venture in the [[Houtman Abrolhos]]. 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 (1628 ship)|Batavia]]'' [[shipwreck]]. He developed an interest in the wreck, and eventually obtained a copy of [[Isaac Commelin]]'s 1647 {{lang|odt|[[Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia]]}}, the Dutch publication that first popularised the ''Batavia'' incident. He commissioned [[Willem Siebenhaar]] to translate it, and this resulted in what is still the only English translation, entitled ''[[The Abrolhos tragedy]]''. 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 [[Dutch East India Company|VOC]] ship ''[[Zeewijk]]'', which was wrecked off [[Gun Island]] 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 (1628 ship)|Batavia]] wreck and its survivors' campsite. Though a great success, in 1904 Broadhurst lost the monopoly to the guano industry.
==References== * {{cite book | first = Mike | last = McCarthy | chapter = Failure and success: The Broadhursts and the Abrolhos guano industry | title = Private enterprise, government and society (Studies in Western Australian history XIII) | year = 1992 | isbn = 0-86422-206-8 | publisher = Centre for Western Australian History, Department of History, University of Western Australia}} * {{cite book | first = Henrietta | last = Drake-Brockman | year = 1995 | title = Voyage to disaster | location = Nedlands | publisher = University of Western Australia Press | isbn = 1-920694-72-2| edition = 2nd }}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Broadhurst, Florance}} [[Category:1861 births]] [[Category:1909 deaths]] [[Category:People from Western Australia]] [[Category:19th-century Australian businesspeople]]