William Smithson Broadhead (1848 - 1924) was one of 12
children of Edward Broadhead and Mary Anne Broadhead (1856 - 1944). He grew up
on Barnsley Road and later Firth Park Road, Fir Vale, Sheffield. Demonstrating a flair for drawing and art in
his youth, Broadhead graduated from the Sheffield School of Art and sailed to
Canada as a young artist in January 1910. From there he travelled to New York,
where he became an illustrator for the magazine 'Judge'. On the outbreak of the
First World War, patriotic duty lured Broadhead back to Britain and he joined a
cavalry regiment, the King Edward's Horse (which was part of the King's
Overseas Regiment and was mobilised in London in 1914 and subsequently sent to
France).
In a series of humorous and delightfully illustrated
letters which Broadhead wrote from the Western Front and sent to his family in
Sheffield at Firth Park Road, Broadhead demonstrates a tendency (like so many
fellow First World War soldiers) to put on a brave face to loved ones back home,
trying to make light of the situations in which he found himself and disguising
the true horrors of war to which he was witness. Broadhead frequently depicts
himself in the letters in caricature as a comically dishevelled figure. In one
letter dated 1st April 1916, from ‘the Western Front’, which is
addressed to ‘My Own Loving Parents’, Broadhead writes:
‘…there’s
one thing I strongly object to & that is the plague of Rats here. At night
they run about in Regiments. A night never passes without my being awakened by
one either running across my head or jumping onto my body. They are such big
bounders too…I think the plague is caused by the fact that there are hundred[s]
of dead still unburied not many miles from here and another thing which
encourages them is the habit of the French soldiers throwing their rubbish
& refuge about! We always bury ours.’
Broadhead was eventually wounded and sent home. His time
in the cavalry during the First World War evidently left an indelible
impression on his imagination – horses became a recurrent theme of his work in
his ensuing career as an artist. After
the war, Broadhead relocated to London, where his portraits of both people and
horses were frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy. In 1928, Broadhead
married the American–born Edith Northrup (1899 - 1993) and the couple returned
to live in the USA in 1934. During the Second World War, Broadhead served with
the Home Guard back in England, but, after the war, returned to the USA where
he lived with his wife and son. During his career in the USA, Broadhead worked
as an illustrator for ‘Cosmopolitan’ and ‘Good Housekeeping’ magazines and
later became a celebrated horse painter, painting many of the leading race horses
of the USA and Canada. In 1951, he produced a pictorial history of the horse in
the USA titled Hoof Prints over America.
Broadhead died in Winchester Memorial Hospital, Virginia
on 17 June 1960 and was buried at the Ivy Hill Cemetery, Upperville, Fauquier
County, Virginia.
Broadhead’s World War One letters (Ref. LD1980) are
available to view at Sheffield Archives. A selection of sketches have been scanned and added to Picture Sheffield: http://tinyurl.com/npy69re
The experiences of thousands of First World War servicemen from Sheffield can be discovered through the resources held at Sheffield Archives and Local Studies Library: www.sheffield.gov.uk/1914-1918
The experiences of thousands of First World War servicemen from Sheffield can be discovered through the resources held at Sheffield Archives and Local Studies Library: www.sheffield.gov.uk/1914-1918
