Ronald Broadhurst

Brigadier Ronald Joseph Callender Broadhurst was a british colonial police officer and Northern Irish unionist politician.

Colonial Service

Broadhurst entered the colonial service in 1926. He served as an officer in the Palestine Police Force between 1930 and 1939, including the Great Palestinian [Arab Revolt]. He was made deputy chief-of-staff of the Arab Legion in 1939, the british controlled gendarmerie of the Emirate of Transjordan and was promoted to the rank of Brigadier. He received the King's Police and Fire Services Medal with the 1946 New Year Honours. He served as one of the british officers of the Arab Legion in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and retired from service in the Arab Legion in 1948.

Translation and Collection

An Arabist, in 1952 he authored a translation of The Travels of Ibn Jubayr from Arabic.
His papers are held in the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast and also in St Antony's College, Oxford.

Northern Irish Politics

In the Assembly election">Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973">Assembly election, he was the last of seven MPAs elected in the South Down constituency, as a pro-Sunningdale candidate. He became the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly.
Also in 1973, Broadhurst appeared on Ulster Television demanding that the New University of Ulster be closed down, a request he also made in the Assembly, to no effect. As a supporter of Brian Faulkner, he followed Faulkner into the newly formed Unionist Party of Northern Ireland in 1974 and stood for the party in South Down in the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention election of 1975 but failed to get elected.