Benjamin Broomhall

Benjamin Broomhall
Missionary Secretary and Anti-Opium Trade Activist
Born	15 August 1829 Bradley, Staffordshire, England
Died	29 May 1911(1911-05-29) (aged 81) London, England

Benjamin Broomhall (15 August 1829 – 29 May 1911) was a British advocate of foreign missions, administrator of the China Inland Mission, and author. Broomhall served as the General Secretary of the China Inland Mission (CIM), (from 1878 to 1895). A boyhood friend of James Hudson Taylor (Founder and General Director of the China Inland Mission), he became husband to Hudson Taylor’s sister Amelia. As General Secretary of the CIM, he was involved in fund-raising and recruiting missionaries to send to China and acted as editor of the mission magazine, "China's Millions".

Born in Bradley Staffordshire, Broomhall was the eldest child of Charles and Jane Broomhall. Benjamin and his wife Amelia married in 1859 and were members of the Baptist Westbourne Grove Church in Bayswater, London, where they lived. It was pastored by their friend, William Garrett Lewis, who was instrumental to Hudson Taylor publishing "China's Spiritual Need and Claims". The Broomhalls did not go to China themselves, but they sent five of their ten children to China as missionaries, including Marshall Broomhall, the author of many books on China and missionaries; Albert Hudson Broomhall, the Treasurer of the CIM in China from 1918 to 1934; and Amelia Gertrude Broomhall, who married Dixon Edward Hoste, recruited by her father as part of the Cambridge Seven. (Dixon Hoste replaced Hudson Taylor as General Director of the CIM in 1901.)

Benjamin addressed breakfast gatherings in the homes of titled people and spoke for the mission at meetings throughout Britain. When the Cambridge Seven been accepted as missionary candidates, Broomhall organized large farewell gatherings in many centers and produced a book about the men, "A Missionary Band" (1876). A copy was accepted by Queen Victoria and some 20 thousand copies were sold.