Broadbent, Donald

Material concerning claims, which he considered to be defamatory, about Broadbent's research on the effects of noise on performance.

1976-1983

6 files

Other number refers to numbering system used by previous owners, the British Psychological Society.

Deposited in the library at Wellcome Collection by the British Psychological Society in September 2008.

Born Birmingham, May 1926 died Oxford 20 April 1993. The youngest of three children of Herbert Arthur Broadbent (b. c.1980), accountant, and his wife Hannah Elizabeth Williams (1893-1965). Educated Winchester School, joined the Royal Air Force in 1944 and went up to Pembroke College Cambridge, graduated with a first class degree in moral science, 1949. Married Margaret Elizabeth (b. 1924), daughter of Frederick Holden Wright, June 1949. They had two daughters, one of whom died in a traffic accident in 1979. Broadbent remained in Cambridge after his marriage, having secured a post with the MRC's Applied Psychology Unit (APU) of which Sir Frederick Bartlett was director. He studied the effects of noise on performance, for the Royal Navy. Broadbent remained at the APU for the next twenty five years.

In 1958 Broadbent was appointed director of the APU at 32 years of age and remained as director until 1974. Broadbent was helped by two assistant directors of the APU, R. Conrad and E. C. Poulton. After his first marriage ended in divorce Broadbent married Margaret Gregory (b.1929) in 1972. She was a graduate assistant in the department. Broadbent appeared regularly on television and radio and sat on numerous national committees. He resigned from the APU (after giving 3 years notice in 1971), in 1974. He moved to the Oxford Department of Experimental Psychology as a member of external MRC staff. Broadbent accepted a Fellowship at Wolfson College (he had been a Fellow of Pembroke College, from 1965 to 1974), chaired the faculty board and sat on many committees. Broadbent was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1968, and a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Science in 1971. He was appointed CBE in 1974. He received nine honorary doctorates. Broadbent was President of the Experimental Psychology Society in 1973 and 1974.

The material is available in the Rare Materials Room subject to the usual conditions of access. Some files have access restrictions which are explained in the item-level catalogue records.

Compiled by the Cataloguing Project Archivist at the British Psychological Society History of Psychology Centre, with minor editing by Wellcome staff.

Donated to the British Psychological Society by Margaret Broadbent.