Arthur MacLoughlin Broome (18 February 1779 – 16 July 1837) was an English clergyman and campaigner for animal welfare. He was one of a group of creators of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in 1824. Broome was appointed as the original society's first Secretary, a post he held until 1828. He held posts at various churches in London, Essex, and Kent, and supported an appeal for earthquake relief in Syria. He wrote about animal theology and also about two 17th-century English clergy. He was guarantor for the RSPCA's debts, which led to his financial ruin and in April 1826 he was sent to a debtors' prison.

Broome was born on 18 February 1779, the son of Thomas and Frances Broome in Sidmouth, Devon. According to university records, he matriculated from school and enrolled on 31 March 1798 at Balliol College, Oxford and he graduated with a B.A. in 1801. He subsequently was awarded an M.A.

He applied to the Bishop of London for ordination in the Church of England and on 21 November 1802 was ordained by Bishop Beilby Porteus as a deacon. Porteus was an evangelical church reformer and a noted anti-slavery campaigner. Broome's association with Porteus no doubt brought him into a network of contacts with similarly minded individuals. After a year's service in the role of a deacon, Broome was then ordained as a priest by Bishop Porteus on 18 December 1803. His first appointment as a priest was to the parish church, St. Peter's Church situated in Roydon, Essex. His next parish appointment was on 7 March 1812 as a licensed curate to serve two churches, both named St. Mary's, in neighbouring villages, Hinxhill and Brook, situated in Kent. On 6 March 1816, he was appointed as a curate to St. Helen's church in Cliffe at Hoo, Kent. Broome remained in Cliffe until he was appointed as a stipendiary curate to St. Mary's Church, Bromley St Leonard's (now called Bromley by Bow) on 23 April 1819. A year later he was appointed as a perpetual curate at this church and he remained in this position until he resigned on 13 February 1824.

Broome was active in serving the Bromley parish and he came into contact with people who were labourers employed in the warehouses of the East India Company. In December 1822, he wrote to the company's directors seeking their financial support for an additional weekly church service. Broome also demonstrated practical care and concern for the victims of a major earthquake that struck Syria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) and in April 1823 preached a sermon for the purpose of raising funds for victim relief.

Broome was married to Anna Barne Trollope on 1 May 1817 at St. Margaret's Church, Rochester, Kent. Anna was born on 6 August 1790 in Huntingdon the eldest child born to Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Trollope (1757–1805) of the Royal Marines and Anna Steel (1771–1845). Her grandfather was Rev. John Trollope, her great-great-grandfather was the third baronet of Casewick, Sir Thomas Trollope and she was an older cousin of the novelist Anthony Trollope. Some years after her birth, her parents and siblings were relocated from Huntingdon to Rochester, Kent close to where Trollope's military unit was stationed, and Lieutenant-Colonel Trollope died suddenly in 1805 in Somerset while en route to his unit. Anna's brother George Trollope held the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Navy but died of consumption (tuberculosis) on 4 August 1837. Anna's wider family included several cousins who were ordained clergy in the Church of England. Broome and his wife Anna had one daughter, Maria Anna Broome.

In 1815, Broome compiled a work about two seventeenth century Church of England clergy, Thomas Fuller and Robert South which consisted of selected excerpts from their writings as well as a short biographical profile of Fuller. Two years later, he reissued the text, which was expanded to include a biographical profile on South. The Gentleman's Magazine carried a positive review of Broome's book. Broome dedicated this book to the law reformer Basil Montagu who was also a fan of the writings of Fuller and South. Broome also edited and annotated an important eighteenth century text in animal theology, A Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy and Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals (1776), that was written by Rev. Humphrey Primatt.

The era in which he lived as well as his personal convictions formed the basis of Broome's role as a campaigner on behalf of animal welfare. The eighteenth and nineteenth century intellectual climate in Britain concerning the use of animals is reflected in different schools of thought that developed around theological, philosophical and moral reflections. Some clergy of the late eighteenth century expressed the theological view that the maltreatment of animals was sinful, linking this view to biblical passages denouncing cruelty (e.g. Proverbs 12:10; Numbers 22:21-34) and with passages of mercy (Matthew 5:7), as well as on the grounds that non-human creatures have the capacity for feeling pain. Representatives of this view include the eighteenth century preachers John Wesley, Augustus Montagu Toplady, James Granger, and Humphry Primatt. Others, such as Richard Dean, added to the anti-cruelty argument based on reflections about the resurrection of Jesus having a positive effect on the problem of evil in its impact on the creation (Romans 8:19–22) and leading to a future resurrection for non-human creatures.

At the time when Broome was a youth and then a student at university, there was a moral groundswell that was opposed to bull-baiting and that resulted in an unsuccessful attempt by William Johnstone Pulteney on 18 April 1800 to pass legislation through England's Parliament to ban the practice. A subsequent attempt to pass anti-cruelty legislation was led by Lord Erskine (1750-1823) in the House of Lords in 1809 but it was defeated by opponents in the House of Commons. Erskine in his speech on behalf of the Bill combined the vocabulary of animal rights and trusteeship with a theological appeal to biblical passages opposing cruelty.