Florance Constantine Broadhurst (1861–1909) was a 19th century Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

n businessman who is most notable for successfully taking over the management of a number of business ventures of his notoriously unsuccessful, yet extremely creative and hard-working father, Charles Edward Broadhurst

Charles Edward Broadhurst

Charles Edward Broadhurst was a pioneer pastoralist and pearler in colonial Western Australia. He was a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council in 1874 and 1875...

, and turning a profit. The best known of these is the guano

Guano

Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...

 mining venture in the Houtman Abrolhos

Houtman Abrolhos

The Houtman Abrolhos is a chain of 122 islands, and associated coral reefs, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia. Nominally located at , it lies about eighty kilometres west of Geraldton, Western Australia...

. While his entrepreneur father had recognised the potential of the industry and began mining, eventually to obtain a monopoly on the extraction of the guano, he proved unsuccessful in managing the concern. This situation continued until Florance, who had a mercantile education, joined the concern and began managing the venture under the name Broadhurst MacNeil and Company. MacNeil was initially a backer and a partner but he took not part in the management of the venture. With his accountancy training F.C. Broadhurst proved enormously successful exporting to Europe and winning a gold medal at the Paris Exposition. While working the deposits on Gun Island his labourers found a large number of artifacts that he believed to be relics of the 1629 Batavia

Batavia (ship)

Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company . It was built in Amsterdam in 1628, and armed with 24 cast iron cannons and a number of bronze guns. Batavia was shipwrecked on her maiden voyage, and was made famous by the subsequent mutiny and massacre that took place among the survivors...

shipwreck

Shipwreck

A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....

. He developed an interest in the wreck, and eventually obtained a copy of Isaac Commelin

Isaac Commelin

Isaac Commelin was a Dutch historian.-Life:He wrote Lives of the Stadtholders William I and Maurice and Beginning and Ending of the Dutch East India Company, as well as other basic works in the fields of geography, cosmography and astronomy, discovery and travel...

's 1647 Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia, the Dutch publication that first popularised the Batavia incident. He commissioned Willem Siebenhaar

Willem Siebenhaar

Willem Siebenhaar was a social activist and writer in Western Australia from the 1890s until he left Australia in 1924. His literary contributions and opposition to policies such as conscription were his most notable contributions to the history of the state.-Biography:Siebenhaar was born in The...

 to translate it, and this resulted in what is still the only English translation, entitled The Abrolhos tragedy

The Abrolhos tragedy

The Abrolhos tragedy is the only English translation of Isaac Commelin's 1647 Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia, which was the first published account of the 1629 shipwreck of the Batavia in the Houtman Abrolhos, and the subsequent mutiny and massacre that occurred amongst the survivors.The...

. Broadhurst maintained a catalogue of his finds, which he donated to the state. These were eventually shown to be related not to the Batavia, but the VOC ship Zeewijk

Zeewijk

The Zeewijk was an 18th century East Indiaman of the Dutch East India Company that was shipwrecked at the Houtman Abrolhos, off the coast of Western Australia, on 9 June 1727. The survivors built a second ship, the Sloepie, enabling 82 out of the initial crew of 208 to reach their initial...

which was wrecked off Gun Island

Gun Island

Gun Island is one of the larger islands in the Pelsaert Group of the Houtman Abrolhos. It is nominally located at , about 4 km north and east of Half Moon Reef and is a flat limestone outcrop of about by in size...

 in 1727. A friend of his children Henrietta Drake-Brockman came to learn of the Dutch wrecks while around the family home and she became an acknowledged force in the eventual location of the Batavia

Batavia (ship)

Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company . It was built in Amsterdam in 1628, and armed with 24 cast iron cannons and a number of bronze guns. Batavia was shipwrecked on her maiden voyage, and was made famous by the subsequent mutiny and massacre that took place among the survivors...

wreck and its survivor's campsite. Though a great success, in 1904 Broadhurst lost the monopoly to the guano industry.