His fortunes turned from commerce to theology when he inherited a substantial sum, allowing him to study at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

He was ordained deacon on 15 February 1818 and priest on 17 May the same year, both times by John Fisher (bishop of Salisbury), at the Quebec Chapel, Marylebone (but on behalf of Brownlow North, Bishop of Winchester, in whose diocese Broughton served);[3] he became a curate in Hampshire and later in Surrey where he was noticed by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, who materially assisted his prospects, including influence in Broughton being offered the Archdeaconry of Sydney.

[4] Broughton offered to resign half of his professional income (£2500) to support a second see, "an instance of self-devotion", said a contemporary writer, "with scarcely a parallel".

[9] Due to Broughton's appeals for clergy to serve in New South Wales, William Sowerby arrived in Sydney in 1837, immediately becoming the first Anglican cleric in Goulburn.

Broughton is widely accepted as the founder of the King's School in Parramatta, then a town at a distance of a day's ride from Sydney.

Broughton championed the Newcastle case and forfeited 500 pounds sterling from his salary to partly fund the development of a new diocese.

[12] On 12 March 1845, he consecrated St John the Baptist Church at what later became the site of the federal capital of Australia, Canberra.

Another son, Charles Broughton Boydell, married Rose Madelaine, the daughter of William Munnings Arnold and grand-daughter of the first incumbent of Paterson, New South Wales, John Jennings Smith.