Florence Broadhurst had been born in a remote, rural part of Queensland, but she apparently had much bigger ambitions than her unassuming origins would suggest. She was an accomplished singer and comedian, and parlayed these talents into a career that took her out of her humble hometown and eventually around the world.
Florence opened an arts academy in Shanghai in 1927, moved to England and married a stockbroker in 1929, returned to Australia some years later pretending to be an English aristocrat, and made a name for herself showing her paintings at various galleries around Sydney, Canberra, and Brisbane.
Perhaps the works she is most remembered for, however, were the beautiful and influential series of hand-printed wallpapers and textiles she produced with her company, Australian (Hand Printed) Wallpapers Pty Ltd., established in 1959. Her products were soon shipped out all over the world, and to this day are still recognized and revered as being iconic designs of the 1960s.
But Florence’s extraordinary journey from small-town country girl to globe-trotting artist and businesswoman would come to a sudden halt on October 15th, 1977. On that fateful day, seventy-eight-year-old Florence Broadhurst was found bludgeoned to death with a large length of timber in her art studio, located in Paddington, a suburb of Sydney.
Her killer had also apparently thrown her against the bathroom wall, and then left her body lying at the base of the toilet. All her fingers had been broken, and two of her expensive rings were missing. Several thousand dollars in cash had also been taken from her handbag.
Though robbery was initially suspected as the motive, police hypothesized that she might have known her killer, as it appeared as though she was making two cups of tea when she was struck from behind.
Some researchers theorize that Florence may have been an early victim of so-called “Granny Killer” John Wayne Glover, who was convicted of murdering six elderly women between 1989 and 1990 along Sydney’s North Shore. Although Glover’s methods are rather similar to the circumstances seen in Florence’s death, Glover committed suicide in prison in 2005, and is thus beyond further justice.
Several books and films have been devoted to telling the story of Florence Broadhurst, but as of this writing, there are no solid suspects in her gruesome murder.
Crime Immemorial 