Henry Broadwood

Henry Broadwood (8 August 1795 or 1793 – 1878) was a British Conservative politician.

He was a younger son of John Broadwood (by his second wife) and came from the famous piano-making family who owned John Broadwood & Sons, and supplied Beethoven with his favourite piano. He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge from 1813. He became a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King George IV in 1826, continuing under William IV after 1830.

On 19 May 1840 he married Fanny Lowther (1818–1890) at Saint Martin in the Fields, a few hundred yards from the homes of both. She was the "natural" (illegitimate) daughter of the unmarried Viscount Lowther, the future William Lowther, 2nd Earl of Lonsdale, also a Tory MP, who had been a friend of George IV. By a later liaison of her mother with Dr Charles Lewis Meryon, Fanny Lowther was the half-sister of the French artist Charles Meryon who she helped support to the end of his life. She was living with her father at 15 Carlton House Terrace at her marriage, and received a dowry of £10,000.

They had two sons and a daughter, Mary, who died young (1851–66). The elder son was Arthur Broadwood (1849–1927), who retired from the army as a colonel in 1906 and who had five children. His brother was Alfred Broadwood (1856–1909).

Broadwood had been left £20,000 and a country house in Essex at his father's death in 1812. Most of this was invested by his trustees in a partnership in a Lion Brewery in London (apparently not the Lion Brewery Co in Lambeth). But the business, perhaps neglected by Broadwood, was not a success,