Edmund Broughton Barnard

Sir Edmund Broughton Barnard OBE JP DL (16 February 1856 – 27 January 1930) was a British Liberal politician, landowner and sportsman.

Barnard was an old-fashioned country gentleman, a patron of his locality on the Essex and Hertfordshire borders where his family had been extensive landowners and farmers for generations.

[6] Barnard was an original member of Hertfordshire County Council from 1888, serving on and chairing many different committees and becoming its chairman in 1920[7] and an Alderman.

After nursing the constituency for the next few years,[9] he was finally elected at Kidderminster in the Liberal landslide victory of 1906 where his Conservative opponent was the future prime minister Stanley Baldwin.

He played polo for Cambridge and rode in competitions under Jockey Club Rules, on one occasion riding three winners in an afternoon at Lewes races.

He later took to regular attendance at race meetings and combined this with a reputation for being a pleasure seeker and convivial host at his Sawbridgeworth home.

Barnard died suddenly, aged 73, during a meeting of the Hertfordshire County Council which he was chairing on 27 January 1930.