Urban H. Broughton

Urban Hanlon Broughton (12 April 1857 – 30 January 1929) was an English civil engineer who went to work in the United States, married an American heiress, returned to England and was for three-and-a-half years a Conservative Member of Parliament. In 1928 he donated Ashridge House to the Conservative Party and in 1929 he was in line for elevation to the peerage, but he died before the honour was bestowed. His wife, Cara Leland (née Rogers) Broughton, was granted the style of a baron's wife and their eldest son was created the first Baron Fairhaven. Early life Broughton was born in Worcester, England on 12 April 1857, the son of railway manager John Broughton and Abigail Elizabeth (née O'Hanlon) Broughton. The family moved around as John Broughton worked for different railway companies, living in Lapworth, Warwickshire and, later, Ireland. In the 1860s, John and Elizabeth Broughton spent six years in India, leaving their children with relatives of Elizabeth in Ireland. Tragedy struck the family when three of the children died within one week. The surviving children were reunited with their parents in 1868 and the family settled in Wrexham in North Wales, where Broughton attended Grove Park School. John Broughton spent the last ten years or more of his life in the Joint Counties Lunatic Asylum in Carmarthen, Wales. Broughton was a pupil of the firm Low and Thomas, civil and mining engineers of Wrexham, from 1875 to 1878. He also studied at the University of London and won the Miller Prize of the Institution of Civil Engineers.