Monument To William Broadfoot, West Enclosure

635-1/0/10233 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Monument to William Broadfoot, West en closure

GV II Obelisk monument to William Broadfoot, late C19

LOCATION: 532611.5, 182238.1

MATERIALS: Granite

DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of a tall obelisk with a pyramidal top, set on a square pedestal with raised panels which rests in turn upon a stepped plinth. An inscription on the obelisk shaft reads 'Revd William Broadfoot / Apostle of the Orkneys'; another inscription on the pedestal gives details of his later career, and also commemorates his wife Helen.

HISTORY: William Broadfoot (1775-1837), originally from West Yorkshire, was between 1798 and 1817 minister at the United Secession Church in Kirkwall, Orkney, where he was known as a successful preacher and evangelist. Whilst in Orkney, he met and married Mary Sutherland; their son, George Broadfoot, became a distinguished officer in the East India Company. After returning from the north, he became minister at Oxendon Presbyterian Chapel in London, and Professor of Theology at Chesthunt College, Hertfordshire.

His tomb was renewed in the late C19, a testament to the strength of his reputation at the time. Nearby is a mid-C19 headstone commemorating a family with the distinctively Orcadian name of Isbister; the latter's connection with Broadfoot, if any, is not known.

Bunhill Fields was first enclosed as a burial ground in 1665. Thanks to its location just outside the City boundary, and its independence from any Established place of worship, it became London's principal Nonconformist cemetery, the burial place of John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, William Blake and other leading religious and intellectual figures. It was closed for burials in 1853, laid out as a public park in 1867, and re-landscaped following war damage by Bridgewater and Shepheard in 1964-5.

SOURCES: Corporation of London, A History of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (1902). A W Light, Bunhill Fields, vol. II (London, 1933). A J Arbuthnot, entry on George Broadfoot in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb.com (retrieved on 9 June 2009).

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to William Broadfoot is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It commemorates a noted Free Presbyterian missionary and tutor of the early C19, whose Orcadian connections place Bunhill Fields in the wider context of British Protestantism. * It is an imposing granite obelisk, testifying to increasingly monumental late-C19 modes of commemoration. * It is located within the Grade I registered Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (q.v.), has group value with the other listed tombs in the west enclosure, and forms a landmark at the western entry to the site.