Benjamin Broomhall (15 August 1829 – 29 May 1911) was a British advocate of foreign missions, administrator of the
China Inland Mission
OMF International (formerly Overseas Missionary Fellowship and before 1964 the China Inland Mission) is an international and interdenominational Evangelical Christian missionary society with an international centre in Singapore. It was founded in ...
, and author. Broomhall served as the General Secretary of the
China Inland Mission
OMF International (formerly Overseas Missionary Fellowship and before 1964 the China Inland Mission) is an international and interdenominational Evangelical Christian missionary society with an international centre in Singapore. It was founded in ...
(CIM), (from 1878 to 1895). A boyhood friend of
James Hudson Taylor
James Hudson Taylor (; 21 May 1832 – 3 June 1905) was a British Baptist Christian missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM, now OMF International). Taylor spent 51 years in China. The society that he began was respon ...
(Founder and General Director of the China Inland Mission), he became husband to Hudson Taylor’s sister Amelia. As General Secretary of the CIM, he was involved in fund-raising and recruiting missionaries to send to China and acted as editor of the mission magazine, "China's Millions".
Life
Born in
Bradley
Bradley is an English surname derived from a place name meaning "broad wood" or "broad meadow" in Old English.
Like many English surnames Bradley can also be used as a given name and as such has become popular.
It is also an Anglicisation of t ...
Staffordshire, Broomhall was the eldest child of Charles and Jane Broomhall. Benjamin and his wife Amelia married in 1859 and were members of the
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul com ...
Westbourne Grove Church in
Bayswater
Bayswater is an area within the City of Westminster in West London. It is a built-up district with a population density of 17,500 per square kilometre, and is located between Kensington Gardens to the south, Paddington to the north-east, and ...
,
London, where they lived. It was pastored by their friend,
William Garrett Lewis
William Garrett Lewis (1821–1885) was a Baptist preacher and pastor of Westbourne Grove Church in Bayswater, London for 33 years. He was an apologist author of two books, ''Westbourne Grove Sermons'' and ''The Trades and Industrial Occupations ...
, who was instrumental to
Hudson Taylor publishing "
China's Spiritual Need and Claims
''China’s Spiritual Need and Claims'' (original title: ''China: Its Spiritual Need and Claims'') is a book written by James Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, in October 1865. It is arguably the most significant work rega ...
". The Broomhalls did not go to China themselves, but they sent five of their ten children to China as missionaries, including
Marshall Broomhall
Marshall B. Broomhall (Chinese: 海恩波; 17 July 1866 – 24 October 1937), was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China with the China Inland Mission. He also authored many books on the subject of Chinese missionary work. He was the ...
, the author of many books on China and missionaries;
Albert Hudson Broomhall, the Treasurer of the CIM in China from 1918 to 1934; and Amelia Gertrude Broomhall, who married
Dixon Edward Hoste
Dixon Edward Hoste (23 July 1861 – 11 May 1946) was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China and the longest lived of the Cambridge Seven. He became the successor to James Hudson Taylor as General Director of the China Inland Mis ...
, recruited by her father as part of the
Cambridge Seven
The Cambridge Seven were six students from Cambridge University and one from the Royal Military Academy, who in 1885, decided to become missionaries to China through the China Inland Mission. The seven were:
* Charles Thomas Studd
* Montagu H ...
. (Dixon Hoste replaced Hudson Taylor as General Director of the CIM in 1901.)
Benjamin addressed breakfast gatherings in the homes of titled people and spoke for the mission at meetings throughout Britain. When the Cambridge Seven been accepted as missionary candidates, Broomhall organized large farewell gatherings in many centers and produced a book about the men, "A Missionary Band" (1876). A copy was accepted by
Queen Victoria and some 20 thousand copies were sold.
For a while, Benjamin was Secretary of the ''Anti-slavery Association'', one of many British anti-slavery societies formed during the mid-nineteenth century. His later interest in introducing Christianity into China, led to familiarity with Chinese slavery and opium addiction. Long opposed to the former, he also became an active opponent of the
Opium trade, writing two books to promote the banning of opium smoking: “Truth about Opium Smoking” and “The Chinese Opium Smoker”. In 1888 Broomhall formed and became Secretary of the
Christian Union for the Severance of the British Empire with the Opium Traffic and editor of its periodical, "National Righteousness". He lobbied the
British Parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...
to stop the opium trade. He and
James Laidlaw Maxwell
James Laidlaw Maxwell Senior (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: ''Má Ngá-kok''; ; born 18 March 1836 in Scotland – March 1921) was the first Presbyterian missionary to Formosa ( Qing-era Taiwan). He served with the English Presbyterian Mission.
Maxwell ...
appealed to the London Missionary Conference of 1888 and the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910 to condemn the continuation of the trade. When Broomhall was dying, his son Marshall read to him from ''
The Times'' the welcome news that an agreement had been signed ensuring the end of the opium trade within two years. Benjamin and Amelia Broomhall were buried in London in the
Abney Park Cemetery
Abney Park cemetery is one of the "Magnificent Seven" cemeteries in London, England.
Abney Park in Stoke Newington in the London Borough of Hackney is a historic parkland originally laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney, Dr. ...
.
File:AFlameofSacredLove.jpg, A Flame of Sacred Love by Norman Howard Cliff 1998
File:AmeliaHudsonTaylor.jpg, Amelia Hudson Taylor before her marriage to Benjamin Broomhall
File:B Broomhall.jpg, Benjamin Broomhall
Further reading
*
Historical Bibliography of the China Inland Mission
External links
Christian Biography ResourcesOMF International (formerly China Inland Mission and Overseas Missionary Fellowship)Genealogy.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Broomhall, Benjamin
1829 births
1911 deaths
People from the Borough of Stafford
Burials at Abney Park Cemetery
Leaders of Christian parachurch organizations
English Baptist missionaries
Baptist missionaries in China
British expatriates in China
19th-century Baptists