Christopher Edmund Broome

Son of Christopher Broome and Sarah Dorothea Steller; awarded the compensation for Palmyra estate in British Guiana. The enslaved people on the estate were registered between 1818 and 1828 as 'the property of R. P. Broom Esq.' by D.[onald] Ross jnr (this was almost certainly Richard Pinniger Broome (q.v.), Christopher Edward Broome's uncle) and in 1831 to the heirs of Cr. Broome.

1. Born 24/07/1812 at Berkhamstead. Matriculated Lent 1833 Trinity Hall Cambridge having been previousy at Oxford (he matriculated Worcester College 1831). BA 1836. Mycologist, FLS 1866. Died 15/11/1886 in London. The Oxford records describe him as 1st son of ---- Broome of Berkhamstead, matriculating Worcester 13/06/1831 aged 18. Married Charlotte Harman, daughter of Rev. John Rush incumbent of Chelsea Old Church April 1836.

2. Broome bequeathed his library in 1886 to the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Bath, Somerset [which had been founded in 1824]. In 1855 Broome had founded the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Society with Rev. Leonard Jenyns [later Blomefield], which operated under the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. He was closely associated with the work of Miles Joseph Berkeley (1803-89) from 1848 onwards.

3. C.E. Broome, Esq., Rudloe, Corsham, Wiltshire was one of many subcribers to the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church throughout England & Wales.  

4. Will of Christopher Edmund Broome of Batheaston Somerset who died 15/11/1886 at Furnivals Inn proved 12/12/1886 by son Rev. Edmund Broome of Hurst Vicarage Berkshire and two other executors, effects £26,118 13s 11d.

T71/885 British Guiana claim no. 374 (Palmyra); 1819 Slave Registers Berbice pp. 37-38 [printed no. 33].

1. Ancestry.com, Cambridge University Alumni 1261-1900 [database online]; Ancestry.com, Oxford University Alumni, 1500-1886 [database online]. Journal of Botany: British and Foreign Vol. 25 pp. 148-149, which gives an obituary for him [and appears to give his wife as Charlotte Norman].

2. www.brlsi.org [accessed 29/12/2011]; ODNB James H .Price, 'Berkeley, Miles Joseph (1803-1889), Church of England Clergyman and Naturalist.'

3. Times 04/09/1843 p. 3 [Sub-committee to fund schools in manufacturing and mining districts].

4. National Probate Calendar 1886