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.
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.
Berrow's Weekly Journal, a newspaper from Broughton's home town of Worcester, England, reported the marriage: "Another American millionaire young lady is about to marry an Englishman, who is not a duke.
Broughton decided to become a Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party and in June 1915 he was elected unopposed in a by-election in Preston, Lancashire.
[1] In 1928, Broughton purchased Ashridge House in Hertfordshire, and donated it to the Conservative Party as a memorial to former Prime Minister Bonar Law.
[1] The Times announced: "The purposes of the gift are to preserve for the nation a historic site and a stately building, to establish a centre where all grades of Conservatives can find a curriculum suited to their requirements and to give enjoyment to the public by admitting it to the gardens once a week".
The official list recorded that the barony was awarded to "Broughton, Urban Huttleston Rogers Esq, in consideration of the public, political and philanthropic services of his father, whose elevation to the Peerage would have been recommended to His Majesty but for his death on January 30, 1929".