Year: 2017

The years 2016 to 2020 are a four year ‘Brontë 200’ period that marks the 200^th anniversaries of the births of all the writing Brontë children, with dear Anne being celebrated in the last year of the cycle. Today sees Branwell Brontë take centre stage, as on 26^th June 2017 he was born to Patrick and Maria Brontë in the parsonage on Market Street, Thornton.

His birth would undoubtedly have been seen as a blessing, being the first son after three daughters (in order of birth Maria, Elizabeth and Charlotte). Here at last was the child who would become the man to take the Brontë name forward into the world. He would also be expected to be a breadwinner and to be able to support his sisters if they should fail to marry or if his father became ill or worse. It didn’t work out like that.

Branwell Brontë certainly divides opinions today. Some see him as a talented writer in his own right, unfairly overshadowed by his sisters, whereas others see him as the devil incarnate – but the truth is that he was neither of these things. To find the true Branwell we have to take a more nuanced look at this very complex, very troubled man.

Let us turn first to Branwell as a writer. He was the first Brontë to appear in print, under the pseudonym of Northangerland, a character from the imaginary land of Angria that he created with Charlotte, but while his poems have a charm and an intelligence they don’t match the poetic creations of Anne, and fall far behind the poetry of genius crafted by Emily. The worst calumny is that some people still think that Branwell Brontë wrote some or all of ‘Wuthering Heights‘. This theory gained popularity in Victorian times because some people had difficulty believing a reclusive parson’s daughter could have written a work of such brutality, power and brilliance, but surely we’ve moved on from that now? Branwell was already a hopeless case by the time of the novel’s creation, and his talent never approached the level of the writer of ‘Wuthering Heights’. This claim was summed up by the 1929 Brontë biographer Kaye Sugden as follows:

‘[Francis Leyland’s 19^th century biography of Branwell] attempts to maintain that his achievements as an author were such that he might easily have written all, or at least a part, of ‘Wuthering Heights’. We know, of course, for a fact that he did nothing of the sort; but even if we did not, the productions which Mr. Leyland prints in wearisome profusion are almost without exception so mediocre that we are quite convinced of his incapability… He was no genius, and all his sisters’ fame will never make him one.’

Branwell Brontë certainly was no genius, and yet today he is frequently treated as though he is the equal of his sisters. This does not mean that he should be overlooked, however, and he was a man with great potential. I’m a fan of his paintings, although I know that some are less so, and feel that he could have made a success of life as a portrait painter if he had endured, but it was this quality that he severely lacked. Both Emily and Anne were models of patience and endurance, but they had taken their brothers share. When problems occurred, Branwell would flee from them – as we see from his record in adult life: he failed possibly to even turn up at the Royal Academy, where his father expected him to study art; he abandoned his role as a portrait painter in Bradford after a year, having run up debts and gained few commissions; he began a short lived job as a tutor with a mammoth drinking session in Kendal; his promising and well paid job as a railway clerk was ended when he failed to watch a subordinate who stole money, having instead spent his days drinking, sketching and writing.

Most disastrous of all, of course, was his stint as a governor to the Robinson family of Thorp Green Hall, a post that Anne had obtained for him, an action she would come to regret. The story is well known of how Branwell fell in love with Mrs Lydia Robinson, but did she love him back? It’s entirely possible as at this time he could be exquisitely charming, and Charlotte admitted that he had fair looks that had eluded his sisters.

Branwell was dismissed in disgrace, and he later learned that whilst his beloved Lydia’s husband had died, the terms of the will forbid him to make contact with Lydia. This was a lie of course, but Branwell was so unworldly-wise that he believed it just as much as he initially believed that he had a chance of marrying the widow Robinson. Branwell was already a heavy drinker and this mortal blow accelerated his descent into an alcohol-fuel hell, he also turned increasingly to opium that he bought from the nearby apothecary.

Branwell did not always drink simply because he could not afford it (which is why he often chose opium which was cheaper and left no trace on the breath), but when he did there should be no doubt that he drank to a terrifying excess. Towards the end of his life we hear of him collapsing in a fit on the floor or public houses, a sure sign of delirium tremens. He also suffered from the haunting visions that come with DT; on one of the last days of his life he met his friend Francis Grundy at the Black Bull Inn. Grundy reported his horrifying appearance, with wild unkempt hair and constantly quivering lips; he also wrote of how Branwell produced a knife from his sleeve – he had thought Grundy was the devil and was going to kill him.

Branwell was incredibly disruptive to his family at this time, as on the occasion when he fell asleep while trying to read by candle light; Anne discovered his room on fire, and the strong Emily had to carry him from his bed as they threw water to put the flames out – an episode that Charlotte would later recreate in ‘Jane Eyre‘ of course. His father Patrick, by then ageing and half-blind, insisted that Branwell share a bedroom with himself for his own safety. It was an act of bravery, as Branwell often cried out that in the morning at least one of them would be dead.

It is even more incredible that the Brontë sisters managed to create their great work in what must have been a terribly strained environment. Nevertheless, we should not condemn Branwell out of hand: he was not a bad man at heart, he was a troubled man who had fallen victim to an addiction and could find no way out. In a sad letter to his great friend J.B. Leyland he reveals not only his love and respect for his father but his despair at his own life:

‘I know only that it is time for me to be something when I am nothing. That my father cannot have long to live, and that when he dies my evening, which is already twilight, will become night – that I shall have then a constitution still so strong that it will keep me years in torture and despair when I should every hour pray that I might die.’

A year after writing this letter Branwell was dead. A major cause of Branwell’s despair was of course his thwarted love for Mrs Robinson, a love that fuelled the sense of injustice that readily burned within him. The real root of his problems, however, go back much further – the loss of his mother when he was an infant and then of his eldest sisters Maria and Elizabeth when he was a child caused him great damage. It led to lifelong depression for both Branwell and Charlotte, but in the brother and sister who were once inseparable it took on different appearances. He received a further blow in 1842 with the loss of Aunt Elizabeth Branwell. She could be both stern and kind, but she had shown him love when he needed it and had helped to curb his wildest excesses. He revealed his love for his Aunt in two anguished letters:

‘I am attending at the death-bed of my aunt, who has been for twenty years as my mother. I expect her to die in a few hours… I have now lost the guide and director of all the happy days connected with my childhood.’

No, we should not judge Branwell; we would not want to walk a mile in his shoes. Rather today let’s look at the good things he did. It was he who led the childhood walks across the moors and started a lifelong obsession for Emily and Anne; it was he who painted the only portrait of the three Brontë sisters together; it was he who drew drawings of castles and rustic scenes to please his little sister Anne; it was the sharing of his toy soldiers that led to the Brontë children creating their first stories, and it was he who took charge of the writing of their first little books: entitled ‘Branwell’s Blackwood’s Magazine’. It has to be said that without Branwell there would probably be no Brontë books at all.

Grundy’s aforementioned views on Branwell and Wuthering Heights cannot be allowed, yet his final judgement on his former friend is a very fair one:

‘Patrick Branwell Brontë was no domestic demon – he was just a man moving in a mist, who lost his way.’

Let us remember what he could have been on this day. He was an essential part of the Brontë story, if not altogether good he was not bad. Let’s raise a glass (he’d like that) and say ‘Happy 200^th birthday, Branwell Brontë!’

Anne Brontë spent much of her life at the famous Parsonage in Haworth, although it should be pointed out of course that she spent nearly six years in total as a governess, meaning she held down a job in the ‘real world’ for far longer than any of her siblings. When in residence at the parsonage she would have met visitors, one of the most frequent being Charlotte Bronte’s great friend Ellen Nussey who would stay for days or weeks at a time. Another visitor who would have met Anne is Charlotte’s other lifelong friend Mary Taylor – and she and Ellen were very different people.

Ellen Nussey was a kind, loving and pious woman who saw tragedies in her own family that mirrored that of the Brontës. Mary Taylor was a fiercely independent woman, full of opinions, and a woman who refused to be bound by the constricting norms of nineteenth century society.

Mary, like Ellen, was born in Birstall in the West Riding of Yorkshire, but the Taylor family moved to the imposing Red House in nearby Gomersal (that’s it at the top of this post). Until recently the Red House was a fabulous museum run by knowledgeable and enthusiastic volunteers, but alas it was closed by the philistine Kirklees Council in a cost cutting measure. Hopefully it will one day open its doors to the public again but as it’s up for sale its future looks far from certain.

The Taylor family were very successful cloth merchants, and a measure of their wealth is that they had their own bank adjacent to the Red House. They made their wealth from producing the material that was used to make the red uniforms for the British army. The economic situation in the country was very volatile, however, and by the late 1830s the Taylors were on the verge of bankruptcy, especially as a period of peace in Europe was doing little for the trade in military uniforms. By the time of Joshua Taylor’s sudden death in 1840 however the family fortunes had revived a little, although he still left large debts.

The Taylor family as a whole left such an impression on Charlotte that she recreated them as the unconventional Yorke family in her second novel ‘Shirley’, with Mary as Rose Yorke and her sister Martha as tragic little Jessie Yorke.

Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey were a year younger than Charlotte and met her at Roe Head School, Mirfield, forging relationships that would last a lifetime. It was Mary who gave a memorable description of her first impressions of the young Charlotte:

‘She looked a little, old woman, so short-sighted that she always appeared to be seeking something, and moving her head from side to side to catch sight of it. She was very shy and nervous, and spoke with a strong Irish accent.’

You might think that was a sorry start to a relationship, but they were soon firm friends, and it was that which brought her into contact with Anne. We know that Charlotte often visited Mary at the Red House, but could Anne Brontë have done so as well? It was, after all, only a relatively short journey from the Roe Head school that Anne attended as a pupil whilst her sister Charlotte was a teacher there. There’s no record of such a visit, but Anne is likely to have met Mary Taylor on one of her sojourns to the Haworth Parsonage. On one such visit, in June 1840, we hear about Mary playing chess against William Weightman, and also that her behaviour during the visit was sometimes ‘mad’. She was certainly not a run-of-the-mill Victorian lady.

The fiscal uncertainty that engulfed her family helped to make Mary a very self-sufficient woman. She was sent to Brussels to study along with her sister Martha, and it was her letters to Haworth that encouraged Charlotte and Emily Brontë to join her there (Anne was left out of the adventure, being ensconced in Thorp Green Hall at the time as governess to the Robinson family). Whilst the Taylors were at the exclusive Chateau de Koekelburg school, Charlotte and Emily had to settle for the respectable, yet cheaper, Pensionnat Heger. Nevertheless the Brontës would make frequent journeys to see the Taylors, until tragedy struck as we shall see later.

Travel was in Mary Taylor’s blood. In 1845 she emigrated to New Zealand, leaving a woeful Charlotte saying, ‘to me it is something as if a great planet has fallen out of the sky’. She later sent her friend a gift of £10 to buy a cow.

In Wellington, Mary Taylor founded a shop and then a wool trading business. It was very successful, but in 1860 she returned to England and Gomersal. In later life, Mary often travelled to Switzerland, and contributed articles to journals and newspapers, often with a stridently feminist bent. In 1890 she published her only novel ‘Miss Miles, or a Tale of Yorkshire Life 60 Years Ago’. It is a neglected book, but you can still find copies online and it’s well worth a read as it paints a picture of the world that Charlotte and Mary, and therefore Anne and Emily as well, knew during their formative years.

Mary Taylor died in 1893 aged 76. She is buried in St. Mary’s Church, Gomersal. Below her monument lies a tribute to Martha Taylor. She died suddenly in Brussels aged 22, and it was a huge blow to Mary and to Charlotte who held strong feelings for her. Some have hinted that a love relationship may have formed between Charlotte and Martha, but this is something we will never know – and even great writers have to be allowed their secrets. All we do know is that it left Charlotte devastated, and is an event referred to in three of her novels. She pays a particularly poignant tribute to Jessie York (who is of course Martha Taylor) in chapter nine of ‘Shirley’:

‘Do you know this place? No, you never saw it; but you recognise the nature of the trees, this foliage – the cypress, the willow, the yew. Stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you, nor are these dim garlands of everlasting flowers. Here is the place – green sod and a gray marble headstone. Jessy sleeps below. She lived through an April day; much loved she was, much loving. She often, in her brief life, shed tears, she had frequent sorrows; she smiled between, gladdening whatever saw her… The dying and the watching English girls were at that hour alone in a foreign country, and the soil of that country gave Jessy a grave.’

The fact that Martha remained on Charlotte’s mind can be seen in that Charlotte remembers this scene, one she had seen played out for real in Brussels seven years before writing ‘Shirley’, once again in chapter 23. We can also see that Charlotte is distracted because she now spells the name ‘Jessie’ rather than ‘Jessy’ as earlier in the novel. It is a vision she could never eradicate:

‘Certain people who had that day performed a pilgrimage to a grave new-made in a heretic cemetery, sat near a wood-fire on the hearth of a foreign dwelling. They were merry and social, but they each knew that a gap, never to be filled, had been made in their circle. They knew they had lost something whose absence could never be quite atoned for so long as they lived; and they knew that heavy falling rain was soaking into the wet earth which covered their lost darling; and that the sad, sighing gale was mourning above her buried head. The fire warmed them; Life and Friendship yet blessed them; but Jessie lay cold, confined, solitary – only the sod screening her from the storm.’

The Belgian graveyard that Martha Taylor was buried in has been dug up and built upon. Now all that is left is a stone beneath Mary’s memorial in Gomersal, reading: ‘Martha Taylor sister of Mary. 1819-1842. Buried in Brussels. Much loved she was, much loving. C. Brontë’

The Taylors made a huge impact on Charlotte Brontë, and were also known to Emily and Anne, but tomorrow in a special post we will look at someone who perhaps had the greatest impact of them all, for good and ill, as we wish a happy 200^th birthday to Branwell Brontë.

Leeds is a large, vibrant city just 20 miles to the east of Haworth. It is home to some exceptional bars and restaurants, the world famous Leeds United football team, and Victorian shopping arcades nestling near modern malls. It is, in my opinion, the most beautiful city in the north of England, and this week I visited Leeds University’s Brotherton Library where I found some real Brontë treasure.

The Brotherton Library Special Collections room houses many old and valuable manuscripts, but there was one set in particular I was looking for: referenced ‘BC MS 19thC Brontë/07’ it is the Ellen Nussey archives. Collated inside the pages of a leather bound book are hand written letters and extracts written by Charlotte Brontë’s best friend Ellen Nussey, and they give startling insights into the Brontë sisters as a whole.

We have Ellen to thank for much of what we know about the Brontës, thanks to the hundreds of letters from Charlotte that she kept, as well as the reminiscences that she shared with early biographers including Elizabeth Gaskell and Clement King Shorter. The Brotherton archive, however, expands upon much of the information the biographers used, giving us a sometimes very different view on Anne, Emily and Charlotte. For example we find that Emily had a wicked sense of humour, Charlotte was terrified of wild animals, and Anne made a very close friend at school. Here are some extracts:

On Charlotte Bronte’s love for Constantin Heger:

‘M. Heger wasn’t proud of having made this involuntary conquest.’

On Anne Bronte’s close friendship with Ann Cook:

‘I enclose also a notice [in a letter sent to Elizabeth Gaskell] which dear C. made in a letter on the death of a young lady who was a pupil at the time Anne Brontë was at school, a pupil who attached herself to Anne B. and Anne bestowed upon her a great deal of quiet affection and genial notice. I think the young ladies friends would most probably be gratified if dear C.’s comments on her decease were inserted. They are monied and influential people in the neighbourhood, some of them not very friendly to Currer Bell‘s emanations. Would they not be won by her kindly thought of one of their own?’

On Elizabeth Gaskell’s portrait of Patrick:

‘The anecdote of the little coloured shoes produced a mental sting that no time would obliterate and I felt that all commonplace readers would fail to see the Spartan nature of the act unless you pointed it out to them, and I was intending to ask you to make very clear and distinct comments on Mr. B’s character – I do not wish anything you have said suppressed, only I think your readers will have to be taught to think kindly of Mr. B’

On Emily’s treatment of guests, and her peculiarities:

‘It used to be a matter of surprise to Charlotte that she [Emily] made an exception in my favour – she used to wish for my visits and was always kind and polite in her behaviour which was not often the case to other guests. Charlotte said she liked me because I never seemed to mark her peculiarities and I never pained her by treating her as a peculiar person.’

On Anne and Emily’s love for each other:

‘She and gentle Anne were often seen twined together as united statues of power and humility – they were to be seen with their arms lacing each other in their younger days whenever their occupation permitted their union.’

On Keeper’s sadness:

‘Poor old Keeper! Emily’s faithful friend and worshipper – he seemed to understand her like a human being… Keeper was a solemn mourner at Emily’s funeral and never recovered his cheerfulness.’

On Emily’s sense of humour, and teasing of Charlotte:

‘She [Emily] could be really vivacious in conversation… feeling pleasure in giving pleasure. A spell of mischief also lurked in her on occasions, when out on the moors – she enjoyed leading Charlotte where she would not dare to go of her own free will. C. had a mortal dread of unknown animals and it was Emily’s pleasure to lead her into close vicinity and then to tell her of what she had done, laughing at her horror with great amusement.’

I was visiting the archive not only as a Brontë lover, but also as part of research into my biography of Emily, ‘Emily Brontë: A Life in 20 Poems’ that will be published by The History Press in 2018. It is moments like this that make all the work worthwhile. I found the archive exhilarating, but often sad and mournful too. Perhaps the saddest letter of all was one to Elizabeth Gaskell, after a proof copy of her ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë’ had been sent to Patrick Brontë and Charlotte’s widow Arthur Bell Nicholls. They believed, wrongly of course, that Ellen had been responsible for unfavourable comments about them in the book. Here, Ellen pleads with Mrs Gaskell to clear her name:

There is further rare and wonderful Brontë related material in the beautiful Brotherton Library (that’s it at the top of this post) as well; it’s open to the public and free to use, although you do have to tell them what you want to see at least two days in advance. I heartily recommend it to you all, and I came away knowing more about Anne, Emily and Charlotte, and once more filled with admiration for the kind Ellen Nussey.

We know the Brontës as a brilliant writing family, and one who loved nothing more than reading novels or books of poetry or composing their own. Whilst that much is certainly true, we should not forget the joy that Anne Brontë and her siblings got from another of the great arts: music.

Branwell was the first of the children to show a musical bent, as we know that he became a proficient flute player at an early age. In late 1833 or early 1834 Haworth parsonage gained a new arrival that would transform the daily lives of its inhabitants: an upright cabinet piano.

The piano, originally sold by Green’s of Soho Square, London, was second hand and very much an economy model, but it was still a significant purchase for a man of Patrick Brontë’s often strained means so it’s likely that he received some financial assistance in the purchase from his childrens’ godparents such as Mrs Firth, and Mrs Francks and Miss Outhwaite.

Patrick knew it was a gift his children would love, but also that it had a practical value. An ability to play and therefore teach music was a valued skill for a future governess, the likely career of his daughters, to have. There was also another reason, as a letter that Patrick sent to many of his parishioners in September 1833 revealed:

‘I have spoken to several people concerning the organ. All seem desirous of having one if the money can be procured. Miss Branwell says she will subscribe five pounds, and some others have promised to give liberally. Mr Sunderland, the Keighley organist, says he will give his services gratis on the day of the opening of the organ, and, in general, the real friends of the church are desirous of having one. A player can also be readily procured.’

Patrick had sent up a fund to buy a grand organ for his church. On 23^rd March 1834 it was unveiled alongside a spectacular production of Handel’s suitably themed oratorio ‘Messiah’. The children must have been spellbound at this performance, but it was soon to be their brother playing that self same organ. When Patrick had said that ‘a player can readily be procured’ he had his own son in mind.

The Keighley organist Sunderland was hired to teach Branwell the organ and piano, but Emily and Anne were soon added to the lessons too, with extra lessons provided by a local teacher named William Summerscale. Whilst Branwell proved to be proficient at the keyboard, and did indeed fulfill the role of church organist for a number of years, the enthusiasm of his younger sisters meant that Emily and Anne soon surpassed him in ability. Alas, Charlotte’s poor eyesight meant that she was not allowed to take music lessons for fear that reading the music would strain her eyes.

Ellen Nussey gave a first hand account of listening to music from the sisters:

‘Emily, after some application, played with precision and brilliancy. Anne played also, but she preferred soft harmonies and vocal music. She sang a little; her voice was weak, but very sweet in tone.’

We still have much of the sheet music bought by Emily and Anne, and it is a prodigious collection. Much of it is copied out in the sisters’ own handwriting, or with fingering marks added to the scores to guide their hands when playing (the image at the top of this post is ‘Auld Lang Syne’ copied by Anne into one of her music books.) From these we can see that Anne loved light, melodic pieces and comic operas by the likes of Rossini and Mozart, whereas Emily preferred complex pieces by Beethoven, Liszt, Dussek and Clementi.

We know that Anne saw a performance of Rossini’s brilliant opera The Barber of Seville when she went to London with Charlotte Brontë in the summer of 1848, an evening that she surely treasured. Emily may have bettered this by meeting one of her musical heroes in person: Franz Liszt gave a concert in Halifax, eight miles from Haworth and a place Emily knew well from her time as a teacher, in 1841, and he also conducted a concert in Brussels during the time she was there.

The Brontës didn’t always have to travel far, however, to hear beautiful music, as Haworth itself was a hotbed of musical perfomance. Their father’s church sometimes held musical concerts, such as one particularly grand event on 20^th July 1846 featuring celebrated tenors. It was covered by the Leeds Intelligencer newspaper who reported that the church was ‘crowded to suffocation’, and also that taking pride of place in the church was the organiser, the Reverend Patrick Brontë who it noted was ‘now totally blind.’

This grand yet sacred music would have been a delight to Anne, but she and her siblings may have loved the secular music that was also frequently available in their village even more. The Haworth Philharmonic Society was formed in the 18^th century and it gave a spectacular concert every year, as well as smaller events on occasion. These concerts were held in the function room of the Black Bull Inn, and it is a time when the girls would have been allowed into the public house chaperoned by their Aunt Branwell (Patrick was a man of habit and always insisted on leaving at nine o’clock which was when he retired to bed).

These concerts were loud, raucous and full of fun as this report of the 1834 annual concert in the Bradford Observer shows:

‘The Philharmonic Society in this place, held a concert in the Large Room of the Black Bull Inn, on Tuesday evening, April 1^st. The songs, catches, and glees were well selected. Miss Parker sung with much sweetness, and was highly applauded. Mr. Parker was in fine voice, and sang with his usual effect. Mr. Clark sung several comic songs with much taste, and was often encored, particularly in the song of “Miss Levi,” which kept the audience in continual laughter. The concert was very numerously and respectably attended, and the company went away highly gratified.’

It is pleasing to think of this as a joyous family event: Patrick and Aunt Branwell remaining dignified, whilst Anne, Emily, Charlotte and Branwell laughed along in front of them. Music became a central delight of Anne Brontë’s life, referred to in her poetry such as ‘Music On Christmas Morning’, and she loved her music scores just as much as any teenage girl loves the latest hits today.

After what seems like years of interminable campaigning, the day of the General Election has at last arrived. As I type this I don’t of course know the result, but it’s fair to say that whilst Theresa May is still hot favourite to remain in number ten, a buoyed Jeremy Corbyn has been seen taking measurements for a new red carpet. There have been many big issues, but of course the really big question is this: just who would the Brontë sisters have voted for?

It is commonly stated that the sisters were ‘high Tory’, but before Labour supporting Brontë fans go red in the face it’s important to remember that voters at this time had only two choices: Tory, equivalent to the modern day Conservatives, or Whig, who evolved into the current Liberal Democrats.

It’s also important of course to remember that large sections of the country were completely disenfranchised. Women over 21 wouldn’t be allowed the vote until 108 years after Anne was born. The vast majority of men, including Patrick and Branwell Brontë, were also barred from voting by the archaic system then in place. By 1832 around 1 in 1000 people had the vote in England. Cities that were growing rapidly such as Leeds and Manchester had no MPs at all while Dunwich, with a recorded population of 32, was represented by two Members of Parliament.

This was a source of great unrest, with the Chartist movement calling for large scale reforms, including votes for men. The area around Haworth was said to be a hotbed of Chartist activity, with the threat of a violent uprising hanging in the air. This was an inspiration for Shirley by Charlotte Brontë, as well as a reason that Patrick slept with loaded pistols by his bed every night.

Although they couldn’t vote, the Brontës were firm supporters of the Tory cause. Patrick had been at University with Henry Temple, later Lord Palmerston. Palmerston was a Tory grandee and would serve twice as Prime Minister, although he later became a Liberal. The undoubted hero of the family was Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. He was not only a famous war veteran, he was also a Tory politician who would serve as Prime Minister.

The children took a keen personal interest in politics, and would gain a real grasp of the issues of the day from the newspapers and periodicals that they read. Charlotte described them thus: ‘Papa and Branwell are gone for the newspaper the Leeds Intelligencer – a most excellent Tory newspaper edited by Mr Wood the proprietor Mr Hennaman. We take 2 and see 3 Newspapers as such we take the Leeds Intelligencer Tory and the Leeds Mercury Whig Edited by Mr Bains and his Brother Soninlaw and his two sons Edward and Talbot – we see the John Bull it is a High Tory very violent’.

Her friend Mary Taylor of the Red House at Gomersal was later to reveal how interested Charlotte was in politics: “We used to be furious politicians, as one could hardly help being in 1832. She [Charlotte] knew the names of the two Ministries; the one that resigned and the one that succeeded and passed the Reform Bill. She worshipped the Duke of Wellington, but said that Sir Robert Peel was not to be trusted; he did not act from principle like the rest, but from expediency… She said she had taken an interest in politics ever since she was five years old. She did not get her opinions from her father – that is, not directly, but from the papers he preferred.”

The Reform Act of 1832 led to some major cities including Leeds getting their own MP. Emily and Anne’s jointly written diary paper of 1834 reveals their excitement that Sir Robert Peel had been chosen to stand as MP for nearby Leeds:

‘Branwell went down to Mr Drivers and brought news that Sir Robert Peel was going to stand for Leeds’

We can only imagine what Charlotte thought of that!

If Anne Brontë was alive today, would she have voted Conservative? It’s an intriguing question, and one that’s impossible to answer, but we can look at what would have been important to her and draw our own conclusions. Anne, following the example of her father, was very keen on the power of education to improve people’s lives. She took a keen interest in the conditions of the poor. She cared greatly about animals and animal welfare, and it’s safe to assume that she would also have been passionate about modern environmental concerns. It seems fair to wonder whether Anne’s political persuasions today would be of the red, or even green, variety rather than blue.

There’s another option at this election that Anne Brontë and her siblings may have found intriguing: there’s now a Yorkshire Party. The central tenet of its manifesto is that Yorkshire should have a devolved parliament similar to that in Scotland and Wales (both of which have smaller populations than Yorkshire). Unfortunately there is no mention of them making it compulsory to read Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in schools, but maybe that will make it into their next manifesto!

Whatever the outcome of the General Election, it always makes sense to vote Brontë when you’re choosing a new book to read – they’re a strong and stable reading choice, and they certainly provide entertainment for the many, not the few.

In light of the recent terrorist atrocities in Manchester and London, and at other locations around the world, it is easy to sink into a slough of despond. That’s when the power of art and literature becomes even more important; the power to lift the gloom and show us a greater, more exhilarating side of human nature.

This is certainly the path that Anne Brontë took whenever woes oppressed her, and she found the writing of poetry and the reading of poetry to be particularly cathartic. This poem was originally titled ‘Monday Night May 11^th 1846′, so at least we know when Anne wrote it, but Charlotte later entitled it ‘Domestic Peace’.

It seems that on the day of May 11^th there had been some sort of argument at the Haworth Parsonage that had ended in an uneasy silence and withdrawal. The date is significant, as it was the time when ‘Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell‘ was in the process of being published, and it is possible that this had re-opened the original argument between Charlotte and Emily – seeing her work in print and exposed to the public was almost more than the reclusive Emily could bear, and she was now regretting acquiescing to the scheme.

In this poem, Anne looks back to a time when the sisters were happy and at peace with each other. Yes, the Brontë sisters had tensions and arguments just like any other family, and yet they also possessed a great love for each other that would always see them reconciled. Anne’s message is simple: we must turn aside from worldly thoughts, and remember that above all else the thing we should seek is peace.

When we read this beautiful poem let us too become reconciled to one other, and look again for joy and happiness. The happiness that can come from walking in nature in the sunshine, looking up to a bright and full moon, listening to gentle music, or taking a break from the everyday stresses and strains by reading the works of the Brontës – here is ‘Domestic Peace’ by Anne Brontë:

Why should such gloomy silence reign;
And why is all the house so drear,
When neither danger, sickness, pain,
Nor death, nor want have entered here?
We are as many as we were
That other night, when all were gay,
And full of hope, and free from care;
Yet, is there something gone away.
The moon without as pure and calm
Is shining as that night she shone;
but now, to us she brings no balm,
For something from our hearts is gone.
Something whose absence leaves a void,
A cheerless want in every heart.
Each feels the bliss of all destroyed
And mourns the change – but each apart.
The fire is burning in the grate
As redly as it used to burn,
But still the hearth is desolate
Till Mirth and Love with Peace return.
‘Twas Peace that flowed from heart to heart
With looks and smiles that spoke of Heaven,
And gave us language to impart
The blissful thoughts itself had given.
Sweet child of Heaven, and joy of earth!
O, when will Man thy value learn?
We rudely drove thee from our hearth,
And vainly sigh for thy return.

As we reach the last days of May, my thoughts always turn to a seaside town on the east coast of England – Scarborough. It was there that Anne Brontë laid down her pen on 28th May, 1849.

Take a look at the beautiful bracelet at the top of our latest Brontë blog; it’s one that was especially precious to Charlotte Brontë, and she wore it wherever she went, but what is it made of? At the centre is a sparkling amethyst but the strap around it is made of the intertwined hair of her dead sisters, Emily and Anne Brontë.

It may sound a little macabre, or even odd, to us, but jewellery made from the hair of deceased relatives and friends was all the rage amongst the middle and upper classes in the early Victorian era, and there’s a good reason why.

Photography was in its infancy in the 1840s, and a photograph was a luxurious rather than commonplace item. In short, people had no way of looking back at the faces of those they had loved and lost, so they did the next best thing – by keeping locks of their hair, sometimes arranged in a band and sometimes in ornate jewellery, they could always have a piece of their loved one near to them. Charlotte could no longer see her sisters, for example, but she could touch them, she could have them with her always by wearing their hair against her wrist.

Hairworkers, the people who crafted these objects from the tresses that had been lovingly cut from a person in the hours after their passing, were much in demand as it was also common to send these memento mori, reminders of death and therefore reminders of your own mortality, to friends of the deceased. Thus it was that Charlotte presented Ellen Nussey with this reminder of the quiet, gentle friend, Anne Brontë, she had grown to love:

These items are among a number that are displayed at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth from time to time, and they have the hair of all three of the famous Brontë sisters. They have faded over time, and are now very delicate, but behind their glass case they are incredibly beautiful and moving too. We can not only read the great novels and poems of the Brontës, we can actually see their hair before us looking as vibrant as if it had been cut that day.

This Brontë hair jewellery also helps us lay aside one popular misconception of the Brontë: that they had red hair. There are two reasons, I feel, for this misconception. One is that they were of Irish descent, which has a higher than average proportion of redheads, and that Branwell Brontë‘s self-portraits show that he did indeed have red hair. The other is this description given by Francis Grundy, a close friend and drinking companion of Branwell:

“Branwell, like his sisters, was small, red-haired, large of nose, prominent of spectacles, with eyes cast down.”

Some have taken this to mean that all his sisters had red hair too, but this isn’t necessarily the correct reading of course. The description may simply mean that the first part relates to his sisters, that he was small. Anne and especially Charlotte were diminutive, although Emily was somewhat taller than average. Charlotte certainly did were spectacles, and had the exceedingly poor eyesight which dogged her father, but there is no evidence of Anne or Emily wearing them. It seems, therefore, that Grundy’s description is meant merely to illustrate that Branwell shared some of his physical characteristics with some of his sisters.

In the pictures of Anne, by Branwell and Charlotte, she clearly has brown hair, and indeed she is described as having chestnut brown hair that was somewhat lighter than her sisters. The hair jewellery too, although it has now become lighter than it was, displays brown hair. As a redhead myself I’d love to claim the Brontës for the titian team, but alas it wasn’t so. Nevertheless, the Brontë hair bands and bracelets remain a true treasure of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and a tangible link to the three young women we all know and love.

Every writer of talent is inspired, to a greater or lesser degree, by the literature they read during their formative years. In her childhood, Anne Brontë would be thrilled by the Tales of The Arabian Nights, and later by books such as Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. In their early teenage years the Brontës would thrill to poetry by the likes of Wordsworth, Southey, Cowper (Anne wrote a poem in tribute to him) and Byron. The novels of Walter Scott were also important to the development of the Brontës, and his influence can most clearly be seen in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.

There was one other important literary influence on them; one closer to home and often overlooked: their father Patrick Brontë. The love of poetry and writing that flowed through Anne, Emily and Charlotte was found just as powerfully, if not as profitably, in their father, and it was he that became the first Brontë to be published.

Patrick Brontë’s first foray into poetry was entitled ‘Cottage Poems’, and like much of his writing it centres upon the importance of faith and religion. Published in 1811, it contains a lengthy introduction by Patrick in which he explains that his poetry is intended for those who would not normally read verse:

‘For the convenience of the unlearned and poor, the Author has not written much, and has endeavoured not to burthen his subjects with matter, and as much as he well could, has aimed at simplicity, plainness, and perspicuity, both in manner and style.’

Even in this early collection there are hints of themes that would later be brought to greater fulfilment by his youngest daughters Emily and Anne. The religious allegories in his verse have an echo in poems by Anne such as The Three Guides, and his poem ‘The Rainbow’ revels in the beauty of nature, in a manner that Emily would raise to a crescendo decades later.

Emboldened by his first book of verse, in 1813 Patrick followed this up with his second collection entitled ‘The Rural Minstrel’. By this time he had met, fallen in love with, and married Maria Branwell, and this influence too can be seen on Patrick’s poetry.

There now comes another similarity between Patrick’s writing and that of his daughters, as he abandoned poetry and turned instead to prose – just as Charlotte, Emily and Anne would do after the initial failure of ‘Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.’

In 1815 Patrick had an extended short story published in a magazine called ‘The Pastoral Visitor’. Patrick’s tale was called ‘The Cottage In The Wood or The Art Of Becoming Rich And Happy.’ It is perhaps hardly surprising that the magazine published Patrick, as it was run by his best friend Reverend William Morgan, the man who would later preside over the baptisms of the Brontë children, and most of their funerals.

The title of Patrick’s work makes it sound like an early self-help manual, but it’s easy to guess what Patrick’s solution is to find riches and happiness: turn to God and secure an education for yourself. It also shows the importance of Sunday Schools, something that Patrick was passionate about in real life; he built Sunday schools in both Thornton and Haworth, and Anne, Charlotte and Branwell Brontë were regularly called upon to teach at the Haworth School.

Patrick’s story was well received, and so he next turned to a novel. In 1818, the year that Emily Brontë was born, the company of Baldwin, Cradock & Joy published: ‘The Maid Of Killarney; or Flora and Albion; A Modern Tale.’ This time Patrick delves into political allegory, as an englishman called Albion falls in love with the Irish girl Flora, but their cultural and religious differences drive them apart. Albion disappears for many years, but returns a changed and wealthy man and in a happy ending he marries Flora.

There is a clear similarity here between Patrick’s Albion and Emily’s Heathcliff who also disappears and returns a rich and changed man. Where Emily’s greater genius and literary talent is apparent is that she makes her hero return a worse, not better, man, and she eschews the niceties of a happy ending and a loving marriage.

Patrick Brontë’s poetry and prose are very interesting to read simply because of what we know came next from his daughters; they could never be said to be of great literary value, but on the other hand they do have a charm, and are not badly written. Their importance comes because of their influence upon the Brontë sisters. From their earliest days they would have looked at their father’s bookshelf and seen his own books there. This must certainly have encouraged their own love of writing, their ‘scribblemania’ as Charlotte referred to it, and it must also have encouraged them in the dark days when they struggled to find a publisher: ‘our father did it, and so can we’ they would say, and thankfully they were right!

I leave you with an extract from the long poem ‘Kirskstall Abbey’, part of Patrick’s collection The Rural Minstrel. It was a sight that Patrick knew well, for he often courted his love Maria there. It is believed to be the sight of his proposal, around the time that he wrote this poem:

‘Hail ruined tower! That like a learned sage,
With lofty brow, looks thoughtful on the night;
The sable ebony, and silver white,
Thy ragged sides from age to age,
With charming art inlays,
When Luna’s lovely rays,
Fall trembling on the night,
And round the smiling landscape, throw,
And on the ruined walls below,
Their mild uncertain light.
How heavenly fair, the arches ivy-crowned,
Look forth on all around!
Enchant the heart, and charm the sight,
And give the soul serene delight!
Whilst, here and there,
The shapeless openings spread a solemn gloom,
Recall the thoughtful mind, down to the silent tomb,
And bid us for another world prepare.
Who would be solemn, and not sad,
Who would be cheerful, and not glad,
Who would have all his heart’s desire,
And yet feel as his soul on fire,
To gain the realms of his eternal rest,
Who would be happy, yet not truly blest,
Who in the world, would yet forget his worldly care,
With hope fast anchored in the sands above,
And heart attuned by sacred love,
Let him by moonlight pale, to this sweet scene repair.’

When Anne Brontë was writing her brace of great novels in the 1840s, she surely never imagined how many lives she would touch nearly two centuries later, how the power of her mind, the words she put onto a page, would bring pleasure to so many and make their days that much better.

Anne was acutely aware, however, of the opportunity to touch the lives of those she had close contact with – especially the charges that she was governess over. The children of the first family she served, the Inghams of Mirfield, were a lost cause. Barely educated and full of self-importance, they were, as Charlotte Brontë called them, ‘desperate little dunces.’The children of the second family Anne served were much more promising.

The Robinsons of Thorp Green Hall near York are depicted, with a little artistic license, as the Murrays of Agnes Grey, and while Anne finds fault with some of their behaviour she gives them a much more sympathetic portrayal than the Bloomfields who were based on the Inghams. They are most famous today because of Mrs Robinson, and the impact that she had upon Branwell after Anne obtained him a job at Thorp Green Hall. It was a disastrous move, but then when a young man falls for a middle aged woman named Mrs Robinson things are surely going to graduate!

We know, then, the impact the Robinsons had on the Brontës, but what impact did Anne Brontë have on the Robinsons? We can judge this both through clues within Agnes Grey, and by looking at what happened to the Robinsons after Anne Brontë left her post with them.

Anne Brontë spent five years as governess to the Robinson family, from 1840 until 1845, meaning that she held down a job for far longer than any of her siblings. This gave her time to teach the children, Lydia junior, Elizabeth and Mary, the things that she believed really mattered: honesty, truth and respect for themselves and others. These lessons may have taken a while to sink in, but it is clear that the Robinson girls really grew to love Anne, seeing her almost as a mother figure, even though she was in fact only a few years older than them. An indication as to why they liked her so much is given at the end of Chapter 7 of Agnes Grey. It is a strange end to the chapter, as it bears no relation to what comes before or after, and there is no indication of who is speaking. In truth, these are the words that Anne had heard the Robinson girls say about her:

‘Miss Grey was a queer creature. She never flattered, and did not praise them half enough; but whenever she did speak favourably of them, or anything belonging to them, they could be quite sure her approbation was sincere. She was very obliging, quiet, and peaceable in the main, but there were some things that put her out of temper: they did not care much for that, to be sure, but still it was better to keep her in tune; as when she was in a good humour she would talk to them, and be very agreeable and amusing sometimes, in her way; which was quite different to mamma’s, but still very well for a change. She had her own opinions on every subject, and kept steadily to them – very tiresome opinions they often were; as she was always thinking of what was right and what was wrong, and had a strange reverence for matters connected with religion, and an unaccountable liking to good people.’

Anne was the first person to instil discipline into the girls lives, and they grew to appreciate this as a great treasure. It was this respect that led the girls to buy Anne a very special gift – the cavalier spaniel puppy that she named Flossy. The girls must have been distraught when Anne left suddenly in the summer of 1845, but this was far from the end of her involvement in their lives.

One of the themes relating to the Bloomfield section of Agnes Grey is the importance of love in marriage. The Robinsons were a wealthy and well connected family, and Mrs Robinson tried to arrange exalted marriages for them based upon social standing rather than upon any idea of romance or partiality. This was perfectly normal for the time, but to Anne it was anathema. We hear from Charlotte how the Robinsons would write to Anne with their problems and worries, and she would write back offering them advice. This continued until the end of Anne’s life, as two of the girls Elizabeth (known as Bessie) and Mary made an arduous journey to see Anne in Haworth in December of 1848. Charlotte was amazed at the obvious love and respect between the girls and Anne, writing of it to Ellen Nussey:

‘The Robinsons were here about a week ago – they are attractive and stylish looking girls – they seemed overjoyed to see Anne; when I went into the room they were clinging around her like two little children – she, meantime, looking perfectly quiet and passive. Their manners evinced more levity and giddiness than pretension or pomposity.’

It should be noted that the oldest child, Lydia, did not make the journey, but by this time she had broken off contact with her mother of the same name, and perhaps we can see Anne’s hand in this event too. The young Lydia travelled to the fashionable resort of Scarborough every year, and Anne went along with them. It was a place to see and be seen for Lydia, and it was hoped and expected that she would pick up a suitably wealthy husband. Lydia had other plans. She fell in love with Henry Roxby, a circus and stage performer whose father Robert, a comedian and performer himself, owned Scarborough’s Theatre Royal. It seems reasonable, in light of the letters her sisters sent, to presume that Lydia opened up to Anne about her feelings. There is no doubt that Anne would have impressed upon her the importance of following her heart and marrying for love, just as Agnes Grey does to the oldest Bloomfield girl in Anne’s first novel. One night, Lydia Robinson and Henry Roxby eloped and married.

Mrs Robinson was outraged, and her eldest daughter became a persona non grata. She now turned her eyes onto her next child Bessie Robinson, and arranged a marriage to a rich mill owner named Milner. Bessie wrote despairingly to Anne, and we can be certain that Anne implored her to be firm with her mother, to follow her heart just as her eldest sister had.

An emboldened Bessie protested fiercely to her mother, and the engagement was broken off. It was a scandal that went to court, and Lydia Robinson had to pay substantial compensation of £90 (around ten thousand pounds today) to the Milners. When Bessie did marry it was to the factory owner William Jessop of Butterley Hall in Ripley, Derbyshire (that’s it at the top of this post). Anne’s influence could be seen here as well, as Bessie Jessop became known for her compassion and kindness to the poor. Every year she invited 200 local people to tea at Christmas, and gave them a shilling each. When she died in 1882 she left the equivalent of over two million pounds to her own daughters, and the local paper reported that ‘the poor people of Ripley had lost a true friend’. Factories closed for the day, and flags flew at half mast.

This was the true measure of Anne Brontë as a person. She is loved by us today from a distance, we see her through a glass darkly and still we are impressed, but to those who knew her closely she was adored. Anne Brontë gave Lydia and Bessie Robinson the courage to be true to themselves, to do what they knew was right rather than what was expected of them. It is a lesson we can all learn from today.