William Robert Broughton was a British naval officer in the late 18th century. As a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, he commanded HMS Chatham as part of the Vancouver Expedition, a voyage of exploration through the Pacific Ocean led by Captain George Vancouver in the early 1790s.
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In November 1791, while exploring the South Pacific, his crew were the first Europeans to sight the Chatham Islands. In October 1792, while exploring the Pacific Northwest of North America, he was ordered to explore the lower Columbia, between present-day Oregon and Washington, with several boats from Broughton's ship. Broughton and his party navigated upriver as far as the Columbia River Gorge. On October 30, he reached his farthest point up the Columbia, landing in eastern Multnomah County east of Portland and northwest of Mount Hood. Late in 1792, Vancouver, stymied by conflicting instructions over Nootka Sound, sent Broughton back to England via Mexico and the Atlantic, bearing dispatches and requesting instructions.[1]
In 1793, Broughton was promoted to commander and later given command of HMS Providence, a ship formerly commanded by Captain William Bligh. In February 1795 he left England for the Pacific to assist Vancouver. Correctly determining that Vancouver had returned to England having completed his survey, Broughton crossed to Japan and from September 1796 charted the east coast of Honshu and Hokkaidō before wintering at Macau. There Broughton purchased a small schooner to assist the Providence. Next year he returned to Japan where the Providence was wrecked on Providence Reef (now Yae Bishi 八重干瀬) at Miyako Island (south of Okinawa). The schooner saved the crew of the wrecked ship and they continued north along the east coast of Honshu. He passed either north or south of Hokaido and sailed north into the Gulf of Tartary along the west coast of Sakhalin. Finding extensive shallows at the north end of the gulf he falsely concluded that Sakhalin was part of the mainland (a common mistake). He turned south along the coast of Korea and then headed home by way of Trincomalee, Ceylon where the crew was paid off. He reached England in February 1799.
Broughton continued service, seeing action at the Battle of the Basque Roads and in the 1811 Java Expedition (where he was commodore). He died in Florence, Italy in 1821, and he was buried in the Old English Cemetery, Livorno.
Broughton named many locations in the course of his explorations and has been honoured with namings as well:[2]
Derek Hayes, Historical Atlas of the North Pacific Ocean',2001
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