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WORLD WAR ONE

The Men Who Died

WORLD WAR ONE

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Cecil attended Oundle School and did well, playing for the school's rugby and cricket teams but also applying himself to learning. He earned a senior scholarship in 1898 and at prize day in 1900 he won six prizes, including the Headmaster's Prize for Greek and Latin Prose.

He also won a major scholarship in Classics to Trinity College, Cambridge where he won various college prizes and obtained a first in his classics degree in 1903.

Cecil was born on October 25th, 1881 in Cannock, Staffordshire and was baptised that December in St Luke's Church, Cannock. He was the son of James, a bank manager and his wife Eliza, nee Jennings.

By 1891 the family have moved to Rochdale where Cecil is one of seven children living at home with hid parents, his sister and three servants.

Second Lieutenant Cecil Hoyle Broadbent

Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, 4th Battalion

Died of wounds, March 1st, 1916 in Albert, France, aged 34

Buried at Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery, Somme,

France

In 1901 Cecil is listed as living in Kingston on Thames with his sister Jessie and her husband, Charles Rowland, a clergyman. This is probably his address when not in college.

Cecil decided to be a schoolmaster and his first appointment was at Christ College, Brecon in 1903 as a classical sixth form master. Three years later he moved on to Bradford Grammar School. At the outbreak of war, Cecil was involved in the formation of the school's Officer Training Corps and in November 1914 was gazetted second lieutenant with the Bradford School Officer Training Corps.

In August 1915 Second Lieutenant Broadbent joined the 1/4th Territorial battalion of the Yorkshire Light Infantry and after a brief period of training in Beverly and Leeds.

He went to France in September 1915 and served in the trenches near Ypres. By February 1916, he had moved to the Somme area and was in charge of a Brigade Bombing School in Albert, behind the lines. There he was accidentally killed on 1st March 1916 when a mills bomb exploded prematurely while he was acting as instructor.

The Lord gives and the Lord hath taken away