Broadhurst served as Liberal-Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent 1880-85, Birmingham Bordesley 1885-86, Nottingham West 1886-1892 and Leicester 1894-1906. He became the first working class person to hold ministerial office when, in 1886, Gladstone appointed him Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office. Broadhurst also served twice as Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee of the TUC. Broadhurst was a keen golfer and was instrumental in the founding of the Royal Cromer Golf Club in 1888.