Florence Broadhurst
| Florence Broadhurst | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Florence Maud Broadhurst 28 July 1899 Mount Perry, Queensland |
| Died | 15 October 1977 (aged 78) Sydney, New South Wales |
| Cause of death | Murder |
| Other names | Bobby Broadhurst, Madame Pellier |
| Occupation | Designer Business woman |
Florence Maud Broadhurst (28 July 1899 – 15 October 1977) was an Australian wall paper and fabrics designer and businesswoman, whose murder remains a mystery
Broadhurst was born in Mount Perry, Queensland, at Mungy Station. She became a singer, winning local eisteddfods, and joined a group known as the Smart Set Diggers who performed in Toowoomba. In 1922 she joined a comedy sextet known as the "Globe Trotters" and later the "Broadcasters", who toured South East Asia and China. In 1926 she established the Broadhurst Academy in Shanghai, offering tuition in violin, pianoforte, voice production, banjolele playing, modern ballroom dancing, classical dancing, musical culture and journalism.
After her return to Queensland in 1927, she sustained head injuries in a car accident. She then went to England and married Percy Walter Gladstone Kann, an English stockbroker; they co-directed Pellier Ltd, Robes & Modes, and she called herself Madame Pellier. Kann and Broadhurst separated, and Broadhurst became involved with diesel engineer Leonard Lloyd-Lewis, living in Banstead from 1939. During World War II she joined the Australian Women's Voluntary Services, offering hospitality to Australian soldiers. In 1949, the couple and their son Robert moved to Australia, where she maintained the fiction that she was British. She travelled widely and produced 114 landscape paintings, which were first shown as "Paintings of Australia" in 1954 at David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney, then later in Brisbane and Canberra. In the late 1950s Lloyd-Lewis left her for a woman younger than their own son. She was a foundation member of the Art Gallery Society of New South Wales and a member of the Society of Interior Designers of Australia, was a teacher of printmaking and sculpture at the National Art School and was also involved in a variety of charitable activities. Her husband left her and their son in 1961.
She worked from a studio at 12-24 Roylston Street, Paddington. She travelled to England in 1973 to receive treatment for her failing eyesight and hearing.
She was bludgeoned to death with a large piece of timber in her Paddington studio in 1977. The murder was never solved, but there has been some speculation that Broadhurst was a victim of serial killer John Wayne Glover, who was convicted of murdering six elderly women between 1989 and 1990, and is thought by police to have been responsible for other deaths. In Gillian Armstrong's Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst, friends and employees of Broadhurst stated that they believed the killer may have been known to her and that the motive may have been financial. This was due to the presence of two cups of tea near her body, suggesting a meeting or appointment, and the killer's apparent knowledge of her factory's layout.
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