--- title: "Albert Broadbent - IVU - International Vegetarian Union" description: "Albert Broadbent: International co-ordinator of the 1st World Vegetarian Congress, 1908 Member of the provisional IVU Committee, 1908-1909 Organiser of the 1909 IVU Congress Member of the Congress Organising Committee, 1910 Mr. Broadbent and his vegetarian family, photographed in 1895 when he" url: "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=4276:members-council-albert-broadbent&catid=208" date: "2026-11-05T23:59:21+00:00" language: "en-GB" --- # Albert Broadbent **Albert Broadbent** International co-ordinator of the 1st World Vegetarian Congress, 1908 Member of the provisional IVU Committee, 1908-1909 Organiser of the 1909 IVU Congress Member of the Congress Organising Committee, 1910 ![](https://ivu.org/images/legacy/history/congress/wvc08/broadbent-family.jpg) Mr. Broadbent and his vegetarian family, photographed in 1895 when he became the Secretary of the Vegetarian Society, based in Manchester.Albert Broadbent became the Secretary of the Vegetarian Society (Manchester) in 1895. He had already been actively involved, for at least two years, with the Vegetarian Federal Union which was attempting to bring all vegetarian societies together. He is recorded as having attended all VFU meetings from 1893, in several parts of the UK, and was present in Liverpool to see off the delegates to the International Vegetarian Congress in Chicago, in July 1893, and there again to welcome them home. The report of the VFU AGM in London, February 1896, shows that Mr. Broadbent was present and participated in discussions, then again at the Autumn meeting in Bristol. He then gave a talk at the [1897 International Vegetarian Congress](https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=3151:congress-1897-manchester&catid=90), held in London, and wrote the report of the event for his Society's magazine. In 1901 the Continental European Vegetarian Societies found themselves at odds with the London-based VFU and the Vegetarian Society (Manchester) supported the Europeans. By 1904 the VFU had almost faded away, and Mr. Broadbent was one of the delegates from The Vegetarian Society (Manchester) to the [Vegetarian Congress in St. Louis, USA](https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=3169:congress-1904-index&catid=92) and again he wrote the report for their magazine. The Annual Meeting of The Vegetarian Society (Manchester) in 1907 was the 60th anniversary and international guests were invited as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. The Deputy President of the French Vegetarian Society proposed that a new international organisation should be formed and invited the 'mother society' to take the lead. Mr Broadbent rose to the challenge and contacted all known vegetarian societies around the world, arranging with the Dresden Vegetarian Society, Germany, to meet in their city the following August. The suggestion for the location almost certainly came from Mr J.A.Gill, secretary of the Friends Vegetarian Society as he was an Esperantist and the International Esperantist Congress was being held in Dresden at that time. Many of the esperantists were also vegetarians so they got two congresses for one trip. - [**1st World Vegetarian Congress, Dresden, Germany 1908** ](https://ivu.org/hv-congress-main-congress-wvc08-index.html)**-** Mr Broadbent called all the societies together and was elected to the first Committee of the International Vegetarian Union. - **[2nd World Vegetarian Congress, Manchester, England 1909](https://ivu.org/hv-congress-main-congress-wvc09-index.html)** - organised by Albert Broadbent, with more about him as an IVU Committee member and his travels to Brussels. - **[3rd World Vegetarian Congress, Brussels, Belgium, 1910](https://ivu.org/hv-congress-main-congress-wvc10-index.html)** - includes a photo of the restaurant which Mr. Broadbent arranged to be built for the Brussels Exhibition. Albert Broadbent died, following a short illness, in January 1912 whilst he was still Secretary of the Vegetarian Society. Both the following have further comments about Mr. Broadbent's earlier years with as the Vegetarian Society Secretary. Many detailed obituaries were printed in the *Vegetarian Messenger* and may be added here later. - [One hundred years ago](http://www.vegsoc.org/members/history/100ago_3.html) - from *The Vegetarian* Spring 1995 - [One hundred years ago](http://www.vegsoc.org/members/history/100ago_4.html) - from *The Vegetarian* Summer 1995 In 1969 the Vegetarian Society (Manchester) merged with the London Vegetarian Society (which had been the prime mover behind the VFU in 1890s) to become the [Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom](http://www.vegsoc.org/) Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. A note on this archive. The history section of this website is drawn from a body of legacy content originally compiled by John Davis, former manager of the International Vegetarian Union. It represents his curation of historical material, and in places includes passages written by him directly. Over the years, the IVU website has migrated between several different hosting servers. In the course of these migrations, a number of PDF files were unfortunately lost, and **some links to PDF documents may no longer function**. Where this is the case, we have chosen to leave the original link text in place, as it may itself carry information of historical value. - Hits: 1790 ## Schema ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=4276:members-council-albert-broadbent&catid=208","url":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=4276:members-council-albert-broadbent&catid=208","name":"Albert Broadbent — IVU International Council","description":"International co-ordinator of the 1st World Vegetarian Congress (1908), member of the provisional IVU Committee (1908-1909) and organiser of the 1909 Congress; Secretary of the Vegetarian Society (Manchester) from 1895.","inLanguage":"en","isPartOf":[{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html#archive"},{"@id":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html#international-council"}],"about":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/#/schema/person/albert-broadbent"},"mainEntity":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/#/schema/person/albert-broadbent"},"publisher":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/#organization"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https://ivu.org/#/schema/person/albert-broadbent","name":"Albert Broadbent","description":"International co-ordinator of the 1st World Vegetarian Congress (1908), member of the provisional IVU Committee (1908-1909) and organiser of the 1909 Congress; Secretary of the Vegetarian Society (Manchester) from 1895.","url":"https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=article&id=4276:members-council-albert-broadbent&catid=208","memberOf":[{"@type":"OrganizationRole","roleName":"Member of the IVU Executive Committee","memberOf":{"@id":"https://ivu.org/#organization"},"startDate":"1908","endDate":"1910","description":"Represented: UK"}]}]} ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://ivu.org" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "History of IVU", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "History of the Vegetarian Societies", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=46" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "members", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=207" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 5, "name": "council", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html?view=category&id=208" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 6, "name": "Albert Broadbent", "item": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://ivu.org/history-of-ivu.html" }, "headline": "Albert Broadbent", "description": "Albert Broadbent: International co-ordinator of the 1st World Vegetarian Congress, 1908 Member of the provisional IVU Committee, 1908-1909 Organiser of the 1909 IVU Congress Member of the Congress Organising Committee, 1910 Mr. Broadbent and his vegetarian family, photographed in 1895 when he", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "International Vegetarian Union", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://ivu.org/images/logos/logo-ivu-tranparent-background.png" } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Alex Fernandes", "url": "https://ivu.org/international-council.html" }, "datePublished": "2026-06-30T23:45:26+00:00", "dateCreated": "2026-06-25T00:17:01+00:00", "dateModified": "2026-10-08T00:54:35+00:00" } ```