Author: insearchofannebronte@hotmail.com

The 24^th of September is a solemn day for Brontë lovers, as it marks the anniversary of the death of Patrick Branwell Brontë on that day in 1848. That itself was a significant loss to his family and posterity, if we look beyond the two dimensional ‘ogre’ often portrayed. It is even more significant, and moving, however, when we consider that it was the first of three sibling deaths in little over eight months, and that all too soon his sisters Emily and Anne Brontë would follow him out of this world.

Branwell Brontë was a complex man who undoubtedly had serious issues that contributed to his decline and death. He was an alcoholic and frequently throughout his life he was also addicted to opium (of which heroin is the modern day equivalent) and laudanum, the tincture of opium mixed with spirits that was cheap, easily available in Haworth, and terrifyingly addictive and powerful. Like Lord Lowborough in Anne’s ‘The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall‘ he managed to beat this addiction by going ‘cold turkey’ but he also returned to its embrace. Branwell’s addictions, and his recurring boutsof depression and mental anguish, were in all probability linked to issues relating to the childhood losses he suffered – the devastating early deaths of his mother and then his eldest sisters Maria and Elizabeth; we should not, however, let the form of his end cloud our impression of his life as a whole.

Branwell could be a happy, generous brother – it was he after all who shared the gift of twelve toy soldiers with Charlotte, Emily and Anne in July 1826, a gift that was to prove pivotal in unlocking the childhood creativity within the Brontës. Patrick had brought other gifts for his daughters, including a paper doll for Anne, but the soldiers he bought for his son were shared immediately among his siblings as a young Branwell himself remembered:

‘I carried them [the soldiers] to Emily, Charlotte and Anne. They each took up a soldier, gave them names, which I consented to, and I gave Charlotte Twemy, to Emily Pare, to Anne Trot to take care of them, although they were to be mine and I to have the disposal of them as I would.’

These twelve soldiers became the young men who populated their childhood world of the Great Glasstown Confederacy, which in turn became Angria. This is the land behind the incredibly tiny and intricate little books that can still be seen at Harvard University and in the Brontë Parsonage Museum today. It is Branwell that took the lead role in this early creative outburst, as evidenced by the initial name of their books being ‘Branwell’s Blackwood Magazine.’

Branwell was possibly the most enthusiastic early poet of the four remaining siblings, and he was not lacking in ambition, as the conclusion to his letter to Blackwood’s Magazine of Edinburgh in December 1837 showed:

‘Now, sir, do not act like a commonplace person, but like a man willing to examine for himself. Do not turn from the naked truth of my letters, but prove me – and if I do not stand the proof, I will not further press myself upon you. If I do stand it, why, you have lost an able writer in James Hogg, and God grant you may gain one in Patrick Branwell Brontë’

Branwell was also not lacking in talent as a poet, and we do well to remember that Branwell was the first of the Brontë siblings to find themselves in print (Anne was the only other sibling who had her poetry published without paying for it). His verse appeared in a number of local publications under the pseudonym of ‘Northangerland’, a complex character from the Angrian saga, one readily identified with by his creator. Under this guise his work appeared in publications ranging from the Yorkshire Gazette and Leeds Intelligencer to the Halifax Guardian which on June 5^th 1841 published his poem ‘Heaven an Earth’.

Branwell had twelve poems published by the Halifax Guardian alone, and this was no mean feat as they took their poetry very seriously, and the standard was very high. Reading Branwell’s poetry today reinforces the impression of a good poet with a real love of verse. It is sad, therefore, that by 1846 his addictions made him unable to be considered for inclusion within ‘Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell’.

Branwell was a talented man in many areas; a skilled musician from an early age, a fine artist, and a loving brother who drew sketches for his baby sister Anne – a kindness she never forgot. He could write with both hands at once, composing a Greek letter with his left hand and a Latin letter with his right – an incredible testimony to the talents that lay within him. If Branwell had reached creative maturity I have little doubt that the results would have been brilliant, and with modern day medicines, treatments and understanding he could have lived a longer and productive life. As it is, the last creation we have from Branwell’s hands is entitled ‘A Parody’ and shows himself being visited by death (it’s at the head of this post.)

What is, perhaps, strange, however, is that it was not his addictions which killed Branwell, but tuberculosis, the same consumptive condition which would wrest Emily and Anne away too. Haworth was a sickly village at this time, with rampant epidemics of the likes of cholera and typhoid, but tuberculosis was relatively rare – it was a disease of densely packed urban areas.

It seems likely that either Anne or Charlotte inadvertently brought the disease back from their voyage to London in July 1848. Branwell, his immune system seriously weakened by his addictions, succumbed first. Kind, caring Emily would no doubt have nursed Branwell, even if she was ordered not to, and so she caught the disease from her brother and in stoic silence she perished next. Anne was next to fall, like a series of dominoes whose conclusion is certain once the first one has been pushed.

It is a terrible sequence for literary lovers, a tragedy for Brontë fans, and a disaster for Patrick and Charlotte Brontë and for those across the world who to this day hold the Brontë family close in their hearts. But let us not mourn, but rather let us remember the kind, talented brother Branwell could be and the great works that his early help and support led to. In his last moments Branwell showed his true character once more, saying ‘amen’ to his father’s prayers, and with a great strength of will rising shakily to his feet and dying in Patrick’s arms. It was the death of a hero, if a tragic one. Perhaps, as so often, the case Emily Brontë sums it up best in her conclusion to her 1839 poem ‘Stanzas To ‘:

“Do I despise the timid deer,
Because his limbs are fleet with fear?
Or, would I mock the wolf’s death-howl,
Because his form is gaunt and foul?
Or, hear with joy the leveret’s cry,
Because it cannot bravely die?
No! Then above his memory
Let Pity’s heart as tender be;
Say, ‘Earth, lie lightly on that breast
And, kind Heaven, grant that spirit rest!'”

Yesterday, the 22^nd of September, marked a sad anniversary in the Brontë story, as it was on that day in 1821 that Maria Brontë was buried in the vault of St. Michael and All Angels’ church in Haworth, leaving Anne Brontë and her five siblings without a mother (although Maria’s sister Elizabeth ‘Aunt’ Branwell filled that void in some ways in the years to come). Maria had died exactly a week earlier on 15^th September after a long illness, but if we look closely we can still see a lot of Maria reflected in her children.

We learn from Charlotte, after she perused the letters that Maria had sent to Patrick Brontë during their courtship, that she had a fine mind which reminded her of her own:

‘It was strange now to peruse for the first time the records of a mind whence my own sprang – and most strange – and at once sad and sweet to find that mind of a truly fine, pure and elevated order. They were written to papa before they were married – there is a rectitude, a refinement, a constancy, a modesty, a sense, a gentleness about them indescribable. I wished she had lived and that I had known her.’

From these letters of Maria’s, we also learn that she was an excellent and expressive writer, a woman full of love but who also had a sense of humour. These qualities, I feel, are also in the writing of Anne Brontë. There is one other piece of writing that Maria has left us, a short yet remarkable essay called ‘The Advantages of Poverty in Religious Concerns.’

It’s a very revealing essay, and shows how religion and faith were central to Maria’s life, and also how highly she valued stoicism, a quality associated with both Emily Brontë and Elizabeth Brontë. Maria Branwell, as she was known before her marriage, was from a wealthy Cornish family with a very different social background to Patrick Brontë. She could have seen a match with him as unsuitable, but she valued his piety and faith much greater than his lack of wealth and private income. This too is reflected in the opening to Anne Brontë’s ‘Agnes Grey’ when Agnes reflects on the social differences between her mother and father:

‘My mother, who married him against the wishes of her friends, was a squire’s daughter, and a woman of spirit. In vain it was represented to her, that if she became the poor parson’s wife, she must relinquish her carriage and her lady’s-maid, and all the luxuries and elegance of affluence… but she would rather live in a cottage with Richard Grey than in a palace with any other man in the world.’

Anne was just one year old when her mother died, but if she had read ‘The Advantages of Poverty in Religious Concerns’ she would have found a heart and soul akin to her own. Maria begins with this proclamation:

‘Poverty is generally, if not universally, considered an evil; and not only an evil in itself, but attended with a train of innumerable other evils. But is not this a mistaken notion – one of those prevailing errors which are so frequently to be met with in the world and received as uncontroverted truths? Let the understanding be enlightened by divine grace, the judgement improved and corrected by an acquaintance with the holy Scriptures, the spirit of the world subdued, and the heart filled with the earnest desires for heavenly attainments and heavenly enjoyments, and, then, what is poverty? Nothing.’

In a moving section, particularly in the light of how Maria would all too soon have to leave her own children, she considers that people would say she couldn’t understand poverty because she had never experienced it, and that they would say:

‘Is it not an evil to be deprived of the necessaries of life? Can there be any anguish equal to that occasioned by objects, dear as your own soul, famishing with cold and hunger? Is it not an evil to hear the heart-rending cries of your children craving for that which you have it not in your power to give them? And, as an aggravation of this distress, to know that some are surfeited by abundance at the same time that you and yours are perishing for want?’

Maria’s response is that yes, this is an evil, but people can overcome even this when they have been transformed by God and the divine message. She ends her essay with the words:

‘It surely is the duty of all Christians, to exert themselves in every possible way, to promote the instruction & conversion of the Poor: and, above all, to pray with all the ardour of Christian faith, and love, that every poor man, may be a religious man.’

We can see then that Maria placed faith above all other things, and believed it was better to be poor and have faith in God, than to be wealthy and lack faith. It’s a view that some in today’s increasingly secular society would find hard to understand, but it was the driving force behind Maria’s life, and found its closest match in Anne, the one year old baby she had to leave behind. The manuscript can today be read in the Brotherton Library, Leeds. Just below Maria’s conclusion is another hand; it’s that of her late husband Patrick Brontë, a moving footnote that reveals his unending love and admiration for his wife:

‘The above was written by my dear Wife, and sent for insertion in one of the periodical publications – Keep it as a memorial of her.’

The 13^th September marks World Sepsis Day, and it’s a condition that we should all be aware of as it can strike at any age, and accounts for around 44,000 deaths every year. It’s also claimed many lives throughout the centuries of course, and one of those may well have been Maria Brontë, nee Branwell, mother of the six Brontë siblings.

This week also marks the 197^th anniversary of the death of Maria Brontë. She had suffered a long and painful illness that left Patrick distraught and facing financial ruin (he was helped out by friends and well wishers, one of whom is believed to be Yorkshire philanthropist Frances Mary Richardson Currer), and six children without a mother. By the time of Maria’s death, her sister Elizabeth had arrived at the parsonage, and the woman who became known as Aunt Branwell never saw her beloved Cornwall again. Nevertheless the loss of Maria had a huge impact on the Brontë children, and perhaps particularly on Branwell and Charlotte.

‘Hang on’, I hear you say, ‘Maria Brontë died of uterine cancer!’. This is the commonly accepted theory of her death, but I believe an expert source who looked at the facts of the matter in 1972 gave a compelling case for the cause of death being sepsis.

Professor Philip Rhodes was one of the foremost gynaecologists and obstetricians of his day; he was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and a Professor at the University of London’s St. Thomas’s Hospital Medical School. He was also a huge Brontë fan, and this led him in 1972 to write the article ‘A Medical Appraisal of the Brontës’. Here is his opinion on Maria:

“Mrs. Brontë died in September 1821. It seems that she had taken to her bed and had slowly succumbed to illness over the course of seven months. According to Mrs. Gaskell she was in agonising pain for most of this time, and this evidence is given on the strength of a letter from Mr. Brontë to his former vicar. Mrs. Brontë was born in 1783, so that at the time of her death she was only 38. The pain from which Mrs. Brontë suffered was presumably abdominal, and in view of her obstetric history it is probable that her symptoms were related to her pelvic generative organs. It is obvious that she did not die as an immediate result of her rapid childbearing, but probably because of some chronic disorder consequent upon it. The common causes of death during or just following childbirth are haemorrhage and infection. She could possibly have had a lingering chronic pelvic inflammation for this would be painful and debilitating and would cause heavy periods so that she would gradually become anaemic. Another possibility might have been a chronic inversion of the uterus giving rise to pain, bleeding and anaemia. The ultimate cause of death in both instances would be cardiac failure due to the anaemia. Of course there is an outside possibility of cancer of some organ within the abdomen, but it is unusual for this to occur before the age of forty. Certainly genital cancer would be very unlikely when the previous normality of reproductive function was so well displayed. There is no reference to vomiting so that a malady of the alimentary tract is less likely than some chronic disease of the pelvic organs. All in all, I would lean to to the idea of chronic pelvic sepsis together with increasing anaemia as the probable cause of her death. It is to be remembered that this was before the age of bacterial knowledge so that almost nothing was known of infectivity by extraneous organisms. Gynaecological knowledge was primitive, there was no ante-natal care and no attempt at follow-up after childbirth.”

Maria’s death was a tragedy for all who knew her, but from adversity came the strength the Brontë children found with each other, and the works of genius that eventually resulted from their mutual love, support and brilliance. Here are the symptoms to look for in sepsis, if you see or experience them seek medical help immediately:

September is now in full swing and the glorious gold leafed autumn is preparing to make its entrance. For parents of young children that means it’s back to school time, whilst young men and women prepare to head back to University.

Education in the first half of the nineteenth century was very different to how it is today, and how much you received, or whether you received any at all, was down to two factors: class and wealth. Their position as children of a Church of England vicar gave the Brontë siblings lower middle class respectability, but their father lacked the independent wealth of many vicars of this time. For that reason, Anne Brontë’s time as a formal student was limited to little over two years at Roe Head School at Mirfield. Nevertheless, she was a highly accomplished scholar and her student days prepared her for her brilliant, yet all too brief, adulthood ahead.

As the youngest child of the family, Anne was spared the horrors of the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge, horrors that would claim the lives of Maria Brontë and Elizabeth Brontë, and leave an indelible mark upon Charlotte and Emily. Remaining at home, however, did not preclude her from being educated, primarily at the hands of Patrick and her Aunt Branwell who became very fond of her youngest niece.

Aunt Branwell has often unfairly been portrayed as teaching her nieces needlework and little else. This is largely due to a recollection of Mary Taylor, a great friend of Charlotte Brontë, who stated: ‘She [Aunt Branwell] made her nieces sew, with purpose or without, and as far as possible discouraged any other culture. She used to keep the girls sewing charity clothing, and maintained to me that it was not for the good of the recipients but of the sewers.’

Mary Taylor did not see Elizabeth Branwell on a regular basis, and was equally sniffy about the old fashioned clothes the aunt wore without thinking why she wore them and the sacrifices she was making, so may have been ignorant of the other lessons she provided to her nieces, but their intelligence and accomplishments are testaments to the fact that she gave them a rounded education.

Anne Brontë entered Roe Head in October 1835, aged 15, and she quickly demonstrated her keenness to learn and her polite, well behaved manner. Before the 1836 Christmas break, the school’s head Miss Margaret Wooler presented her with a book by Isaac Watts, and a certificate that read: ‘A prize for good conduct presented to Miss A. Brontë with Miss Wooler’s kind love, Roe Head, Dec. 14th 1836.’

Anne also made a close friend at the school in Ann Cook but in 1837, while her studies were as fruitful as ever, her mind became troubled by religious doubts brought on by the sermons of harsh Calvinist preachers. By the close of 1837, Anne had recovered from what was a potentially life threatening bout of typhoid and was back at Haworth, but the two years and two months she spent as a student were more than any of her sisters had managed.

We can see Anne’s great intelligence and knowledge in her writing. In the Tenant of Wildfell Hall she shows her deep understanding of the Bible and the true meaning of ‘eternal’, something she was able to do as she could read Latin and Greek fluently. In another document she talks in great detail about the geological processes that shaped the earth as we know it, with comments such as:

‘When these volcanic revolutions became less frequent, and the globe became still more cooled, and the inequalities of its temperature preserved by the mountain chains, more perfect animals became its inhabitants, many of which, such as the mammoth, megalonix, megatherium, and gigantic hyena, are now extinct.’

Anne used her knowledge not only in her writing but also in real life, during her career as a governess. She was highly regarded by the Robinson family and especially by her charges, who continued to correspond with her on an almost daily basis after she had returned to Haworth from Thorp Green Hall near York.

We have a poem from Anne that shows her attitude to studies, both at school, and later as she studied alone in her spare time (as she was wont to do). The poem is called ‘The Student’s Serenade’ and was written at Thorp Green in February 1844. Anne has a book propped before her, but she has drifted into a dream where she sees the things that really matter to her. I leave you with that poem now; if you are a student heading to University I wish you the best of luck, if you are a parent of school going children I hope they have a happy and productive year, and if you’re a teacher yourself then give yourself a pat on the back and keep up the great work:

“I have slept upon my couch
But my spirit did not rest,
For the labours of the day
Yet my weary soul opprest.
And before my dreaming eyes
Still the learned volumes lay,
And I could not close their leaves
And I could not turn away.
While the grim preceptors laughed
And exulted in my woe:
Till I felt my tingling frame
With the fire of anger glow.
But I oped my eyes at last,
And I heard a muffled sound,
‘Twas the night breeze come to say
That the snow was on the ground.
Then I knew that there was rest
On the mountain’s bosom free;
So I left my fevered couch
And I flew to waken thee.
I have flown to waken thee
For if thou wilt not arise,
Then my soul can drink no peace
From these holy moonlight skies.
And this waste of virgin snow
To my sight will not be fair
Unless thou wilt smiling come,
Love, to wander with me there.
Then awake! Maria, wake!
For if thou couldst only know
How the quiet moonlight sleeps
On this wilderness of snow
And the groves of ancient trees
In their snowy garb arrayed,
Till they stretch into the gloom
Of the distant valley’s shade.
O, I know thou wouldst rejoice
To inhale this bracing air,
Thou wouldst break thy sweetest sleep
To behold a scene so fair.
O’er these wintry wilds alone
Thou wouldst joy to wander free,
And it will not please thee less
Though that bliss be shared with me.”

We may be becoming a more secular society, but Sunday morning is still a day when many of us go to church – and it can be an energising experience, one that fills us with love and makes us think about deeper aspects of life that can so easily be lost in the hustle and bustle of the modern world.

Church going was certainly something that Anne Brontë loved, and of course church attendance as a whole was much greater in the early nineteenth than the early twenty first century. Not everyone in Haworth attended the Reverend Patrick Brontë‘s church however, far from it. St. Michael’s and All Angels at the summit of Main Street was the official Church of England church, and every household had to pay dues to the church, whether they attended it or not. This caused great anger among the Haworth dissenters, as followers of the Baptist and Wesleyan (or Methodist) faiths were known, and in fact they were greatly in the majority.

An ecclesiastical survey taken on Sunday May 30 1851 revealed that 383 people had attended the three services that day at Patrick’s church. However, 422 had attended Lower Town Wesleyan Methodist church, 424 had attended West Lane Baptist church, and 900 had attended Hall Green Baptist church, showing that only 15% of church goers in Haworth went to the official Church of England services.

Anne Brontë was undoubtedly the most religious of the Brontë sisters, and her deep love and understanding of the Bible is shown in her great novels ‘Agnes Grey‘ and ‘The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall‘. In one passage we see how Anne had read the Bible in its original Greek, and come to understand that the translation of eternal within its chapters, meaning forever, is wrong – the original meaning was actually enduring or for a long time, but not without end, not without hope. It was this that led Anne to realise that people were not damned for ever as many hardline Calvinist preachers, men such as William Carus Wilson, stated, but rather that forgiveness would come eventually, that salvation was available for all in the next world.

This belief in a loving God was, strange as it sounds today, controversial and unconventional in its time, and it’s expressed beautifully in a letter she wrote to the Reverend David Thom of Liverpool. He had been so moved by ‘The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall’, recognising a kindred spirit, that he wrote to the author. 30^th December 1848 was a time of trauma for Anne, her beloved Emily had died less than two weeks earlier, and she herself was clearly now gravely ill, and yet it was on this date that she replied to Reverend Thom:

‘I have seen so little of controversial Theology that I was not aware the doctrine of Universal Salvation had so able and ardent an advocate as yourself; but I have cherished it from my very childhood – with a trembling hope at first, and afterwards with a firm and glad conviction of its truth. I drew it secretly from my own heart and from the word of God before I knew that any other held it. And since then it has ever been a source of true delight to me to find the same views either timidly suggested or boldly advocated by benevolent and thoughtful minds; and I now believe there are many more believers than professors in that consoling creed… I thankfully cherish this belief; I honour those who hold it; and I would that all men had the same view of man’s hopes and God’s unbounded goodness as he had given to us.’

This doctrine of love and beauty and salvation was at the heart of all Anne believed and did, and it’s also at the heart of her wonderful poem ‘The Narrow Way’ (which has itself been adopted as a hymn by the Moravian church). I will leave you with this poem of Anne’s, and whatever your beliefs I wish you a blessed, happy, reflective and love filled Sunday:

‘Believe not those who say
The upward path is smooth,
Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way
And faint before the truth.
It is the only road
Unto the realms of joy;
But he who seeks that blest abode
Must all his powers employ.
Bright hopes and pure delights
Upon his course may beam,
And there amid the sternest heights,
The sweetest flowerets gleam;
On all her breezes borne
Earth yields no scents like those;
But he, that dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.
Arm, arm thee for the fight!
Cast useless loads away:
Watch through the darkest hours of night;
Toil through the hottest day.
Crush pride into the dust,
Or thou must needs be slack;
And trample down rebellious lust,
Or it will hold thee back.
Seek not thy treasure here;
Waive pleasure and renown;
The World’s dread scoff undaunted bear,
And face its deadliest frown.
To labour and to love,
To pardon and endure,
To lift thy heart to God above,
And keep thy conscience pure,
Be this thy constant aim,
Thy hope and thy delight,
What matters who should whisper blame,
Or who should scorn or slight?
What matters – if thy God approve,
And if within thy breast,
Thou feel the comfort of his love,
The earnest of his rest?’

Anne Brontë died tragically young, aged just 29 (whatever it may say on her Scarborough tombstone), but the last week has marked the anniversary of the death of a man who could only have dreamt of reaching such an age. Thomas Chatterton, as we shall see, has a Brontë connection, he was a great poet, a great dreamer, he cheated the experts of his day but he couldn’t cheat fate, and he died on 24^th August 1770 – he was just 17 years old.

Chatterton’s story is a rather unique one from beginning to end. He was born in Bristol in November 1753, where his father, another Thomas Chatterton who wrote poetry that was in no way the equal of his son’s, was a church sexton and musician, but also a firm believer in the occult.

Chatterton senior died four months before the birth of his son, meaning that Thomas was born into complete poverty, and thrown upon the mercies of a charity school. Here he made rather peculiar progress; he failed to interact with his fellow pupils and often sat in a trance for hours at a time. When asked what he would like painted onto a bowl, he replied: ‘paint me an angel with wings and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world’.

He was considered educationally backward, but as he was to show he was far from it. By the age of 11 he had begun writing incredible poetry, but what was most remarkable was that it was written in a medieval style rather than the vernacular. Chatterton loved medieval verse, and composed a succession of poems supposedly by a 15^th century monk named Thomas Rowley. Despite being in his mid teens, Chatterton’s Rowleyan verse fooled much of the establishment, and Rowley was hailed as a great and newly discovered poet.

Eventually it was discovered that the Rowley poems were forgeries, and that the schoolboy Chatterton was behind the literary hoax, but undeterred the 16 year old then started writing political tracts and essays. He moved to London where he hoped to sell his writing to magazines. His work was published but he received very little money, and eventually he slipped towards starvation and poverty.

A bizarre incident occurred on the last reported sighting of Thomas Chatterton. A friend saw Chatterton walking deep in thought across Old St Pancras Churchyard (a spot I like to walk through myself on visits to London) but he failed to spot an open grave and walked right into it. The friend hauled Chatterton out, at which point he stated: ‘My dear friend, I have been at war with the grave for some time now.’

Three days later, a wealthy man named Fry visited Chatterton in his attic room in Brook Street, intending to give him financial support (Chatterton’s poverty was well known, and he often went days without eating); alas, he found the 17 year old poet dead on his bed. He had committed suicide by drinking arsenic, and by his body was a fragment of a final Rowley poem.

Chatterton must have thought he was a failure, to borrow the words of John Keats (another poet who died much younger than Anne Brontë) he would not last as ‘here lies one whose name is writ on water’. Keats was very wrong of course, and so was Chatterton to an extent. His work is still read today, but more than that he became a romantic figure for poets and dreamers everywhere, as well as a huge inspiration for the Romantic poets that followed such as Wordsworth and Shelley. This status was summed up in a portrait that has brought him everlasting fame: the 1856 painting ‘The Death Of Chatterton’ by Henry Wallis.

I mentioned a Brontë connection? Chatterton, in his brief and torrid spell in London mixed with the literary greats of the day. He was admitted into the circle of the likes of Oliver Goldsmith and Samuel Johnson, and where did they and Chatterton meet? The Chapter Coffee House on Paternoster Row. In the succeeding century, it was the place that Charlotte and Anne Brontë stayed in on their 1848 visit to London. Did they know that Chatterton’s shade stalked the corridors, or that he looked out onto the shadow of St. Paul’s, wondering which outcome was to be his: triumph or death?

Thomas Chatterton burned brightly at 11 and by 17 he was burnt out. He tried and failed, but his heroism is still acknowledged because he certainly didn’t fail to try. I will leave you with his poem ‘Resignation’, one of the masterpieces written in his own tongue rather than obscured by faux medievalism, and one which showed his thoughts and feelings as his end approached:

“O God, whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,
Thy mercy in thy justice praise.
The mystic mazes of thy will,
The shadows of celestial light,
Are past the pow’r of human skill,–
But what th’Eternal acts is right.
O teach me in the trying hour,
When anguish swells the dewy tear,
To still my sorrows, own thy pow’r,
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear.
If in this bosom aught but Thee
Encroaching sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
And Mercy look the cause away.
Then why, my soul, dost thou complain?
Why drooping seek the dark recess?
Shake off the melancholy chain.
For God created all to bless.
But ah! my breast is human still;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
My languid vitals’ feeble rill,
The sickness of my soul declare.
But yet, with fortitude resigned,
I’ll thank th’ inflicter of the blow;
Forbid the sigh, compose my mind,
Nor let the gush of mis’ry flow.
The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
Which God, my East, my sun reveals.”

Anne Brontë’s second novel, ‘The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall‘, was published by Thomas Cautley Newby in late June 1848, and it proved an instant and huge success. Most people today would be surprised to hear that it sold even faster than her sister’s ‘Jane Eyre‘ of the previous year, and within six weeks a second edition was already being printed and distributed.

In this short interlude, reviews for the book were already appearing, and whilst many acknowledged the force and power of the novel, others condemned it as a book unworthy of being published. Examples of this include The Rambler’s assertion that, ‘the scenes which the heroine relates in her diary are of the most disgusting and revolting species’ and that it was, ‘one of the coarsest books which we have ever perused.’ Coarseness was a common theme in reviews of Anne’s novel as Sharpe’s London Magazine railed against, ‘profane expressions, inconceivably coarse language, and revolting scenes and descriptions by which its pages are disfigured’ and The Spectator warned readers of Acton Bell‘s ‘morbid love of the coarse, not to say of the brutal.’

Coarseness and brutality are far removed from Anne Brontë’s character, and far removed from the true nature of this brilliant novel. Anne’s intention in her book was to entertain, yes, but primarily to educate, and we have the proof of this in her brilliant preface to the second edition of ‘The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall’. Some still think of Anne as meek and mild, but in this preface she put her critics to the sword and stood up for what she believed in above all other things – the truth. I leave you now with the full text of Anne Brontë’s preface, as powerful and revealing today as it was when it was published in mid-August 1848:

“WHILE I acknowledge the success of the present work to have been greater than I anticipated, and the praises it has elicited from a few kind critics to have been greater than it deserved, I must also admit that from some other quarters it has been censured with an asperity which I was as little prepared to expect, and which my judgement as well as my feelings, assures me is more bitter than just. It is scarcely the province of an author to refute the arguments of his censors and vindicate his own productions, but I may be allowed to make here a few observations with which I would have prefaced the first edition, had I foreseen the necessity of such precautions against the misapprehensions of those who would read it with a prejudiced mind or be content to judge it by a hasty glance.

My object in writing the following pages was not simply to amuse the Reader, neither was it to gratify my own taste, nor yet to ingratiate myself with the Press and the Public: I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it. But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of a well, it needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so will be likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures; as, in like manner, she who undertakes the cleansing of a careless bachelor’s apartment will be liable to more abuse for the dust she raises than commendation for the clearance she effects. Let it not be imagined, however, that I consider myself competent to reform the errors and abuses of society, but only that I would fain contribute my humble quota towards so good an aim, and if I can gain the public ear at all, I would rather whisper a few wholesome truths therein than much soft nonsense.

As the story of ‘Agnes Grey’ was accused of extravagant over-colouring in those very parts that were carefully copied from the life, with a most scrupulous avoidance of all exaggeration, so, in the present work, I find myself censured for depicting con amore, with ‘a morbid love of the coarse, if not of the brutal,’ those scenes which, I will venture to say, have not been more painful for the most fastidious of my critics to read than they were for me to describe. I may have gone too far; in which case I shall be careful not to trouble myself or my readers in the same way again; but when we have to do with vice and vicious characters, I maintain it is better to depict them as they really are than as they would wish to appear. To represent a bad thing in its least offensive light is, doubtless, the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest? Is it better to reveal the snares and pitfalls of life to the young and thoughtless traveller, or to cover them with branches and flowers? O Reader! if there were less of this delicate concealment of facts this whispering, ‘Peace, peace’ when there is no peace, there would be less of sin and misery to the young of both sexes who are left to wring their bitter knowledge from experience.

I would not be understood to suppose that the proceedings of the unhappy scapegrace, with his few profligate companions I have here introduced, are a specimen of the common practices of society the case is an extreme one, as I trusted none would fail to perceive; but I know that such characters do exist, and if I have warned one rash youth from following in their steps, or prevented one thoughtless girl from falling into the very natural error of my heroine, the book has not been written in vain. But, at the same time, if any honest reader shall have derived more pain than pleasure from its perusal, and have closed the last volume with a disagreeable impression on his mind, I humbly crave his pardon, for such was far from my intention; and I will endeavour to do better another time, for I love to give innocent pleasure. Yet, be it understood, I shall not limit my ambition to this or even to producing a perfect work of art: time and talents so spent, I should consider wasted and misapplied. Such humble talents as God has given me I will endeavour to put to their greatest use; if I am able to amuse, I will try to benefit too; and when I feel it my duty to speak an unpalatable truth, with the help of God, I will speak it, though it be to the prejudice of my name and to the detriment of my reader’s immediate pleasure as well as my own.

One word more, and I have done. Respecting the author’s identity, I would have it to be distinctly understood that Acton Bell is neither Currer nor Ellis Bell, and therefore let not his faults be attributed to them. As to whether the name be real or fictitious, it cannot greatly signify to those who know him only by his works. As little, I should think, can it matter whether the writer so designated is a man, or a woman, as one or two of my critics profess to have discovered. I take the imputation in good part, as a compliment to the just delineation of my female characters; and though I am bound to attribute much of the severity of my censors to this suspicion, I make no effort to refute it, because, in my own mind, I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so

whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are, or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.”

In this extra mid week post I’m going to take a look at a man who played a central part in Anne Brontë’s life: William Weightman. I believe that Weightman was loved by Anne and that he loved her back, and if they hadn’t been torn apart by tragedy they may have married – I believe that’s a message contained in ‘Agnes Grey‘ and much of Anne’s poetry, but I accept that others may have different opinions. Anyway, that’s a subject I will look at in a future post, but today we are looking back at an event that happened on this day 176 years ago, and on the reputation that Weightman has now and had then.

On this day, 14^th August, in 1842 William Weightman presided over his final duties as assistant curate to Patrick Brontë at Haworth’s St. Michael and All Angels’ church. Weightman, a native of Appleby, Westmorland (that’s it at the head of this post), first arrived in Haworth in August 1839, having recently graduated with a Master of Arts degree from the newly created Durham University. At Durham he would have met three people with links to the Robinson family of Thorp Green Hall, Charles Thorp, Thomas Gisborne and Lionel Gisborne, but again this link and the implications it had for Anne will be looked at in another post.

He replaced a previous assistant curate, William Hodgson, who had left under a cloud in 1837, and Patrick seems rarely to have hit it off with his assistants (most obvious when one, Arthur Bell Nicholls, dared to ask for his daughter Charlotte’s hand in marriage). Nevertheless, Patrick and William got on brilliantly together, which is testimony to his good character. In his elegy for William Weightman, Patrick went so far as to say he had been like a son to him, and paid him this fulsome tribute:

“There are many who for a short time can please, and even astonish – but who soon retrograde and fall into dispute. His character wore well; the surest proof of real worth… but what he gained at first he did not lose afterwards. He had those qualities which enabled him rather to gain ground.”

Weightman was also hugely popular with the villagers of Haworth, who as previous ministers had found out, weren’t always easy to please. Some portraits of Weightman show him as being flirtatious or insincere, but he was anything but. Even Charlotte had to admit that she had got this aspect of his character wrong. She saw him return to the Parsonage late one evening looking sad and tired. Patrick asked him what was wrong and he replied that he was in low spirits because he has just been to see a poor young girl who was dying. The girl turned out to be Susan Bland, one of Charlotte’s Sunday school pupils. She visited the house the next day, and found that Susan was indeed dying, but also that Weightman had not only visited them but that he’d taken them a bottle of wine and a jar of preserves. Mrs Bland further told Charlotte that ‘he was always good-natured to poor folks, and seemed to have a deal of feeling and kind-heartedness about him.’ It was this that led Charlotte to concede in a letter to Ellen Nussey that ‘he is not all selfishness and vanity.’

Alas, Charlotte discovered too late this kindness that Anne and the villagers of Haworth had long known. The reason that this day marked the last duty of William Weightman is that on the night of the 14^th he once again visited a sick parishioner, contracted cholera from them and died aged 26 three weeks later.

The man by Weightman’s side as he breathed his last is also testament to his character; it was Branwell Brontë who despite being a non-believer himself had found a firm friend in the assistant curate. In October 1842 he wrote to Francis Grundy:

‘I have had a long attendance at the deathbed of the Rev. William Weightman, one of my dearest friends’.

The parishioners loved Weightman, and they too were devastated by his death; so much so that they begged Reverend Brontë to deliver a written speech on Weightman, so that it could be published and they could then buy it. This is indeed what happened, and it marked a departure for Patrick who usually preached ex tempore, that is without notes. This funeral sermon painted Weightman in a brilliant light, stating that he: ‘had classical attainments of the first order, and above all, his religious principles were sound and orthodox.’

From Patrick there was no greater praise, and an obituary in local newspaper the Leeds Intelligencer painted a similar picture:

‘He was admired and beloved for his sterling piety, his amiability, and cheerfulness, and the loss of so zealous and useful a Minister of Christ is deeply felt by those among whom he lived and laboured. This discourse [the funeral sermon], plain and touching in its language, simple yet expressive, pays a well deserved tribute to the memory of the preacher’s beloved and lamented fellow labourer.’

There was one further tribute, and it can be seen today by visitors to Haworth’s parish church. There are a number of tributes around the walls, but the largest of them all is to Weightman. The parishioners collected for two years to raise money to pay for this loving tribute to a man who had been their assistant curate for just three years, and yet he left a lasting impression. It reads:

‘This monument was erected by the inhabitants in memory of the late William Weightman, M.A. who died September 6th. 1842, aged 26 years [actually 28] and was buried in this church on the tenth of the same month. He was three years curate of Haworth and by the congregation and parishioners in general was greatly respected for his orthodox principles, active zeal, moral habits, learning, mildness, and affability: his useful labours will long be gratefully remembered by the members of the congregation; and Sunday school teachers, and scholars.’

It’s time to put aside any doubts about William Weightman for we see here glowing tributes to him from Patrick Brontë, Branwell Brontë, a Leeds newspaper and the people of Haworth, and perhaps the most beautiful tributes of all are contained in Anne Brontë’s mourning poems and the character of the supremely kind assistant curate Weston in ‘Agnes Grey’. He was a great man who brought happiness into Anne’s life, if all too briefly, and for that we should be thankful.

1855 was a tumultuous year in and around the Haworth Parsonage, one that had started with such promise and happiness, as the newly married Charlotte Nicholls, nee Brontë of course, found that she was pregnant, ended with three families inextricably linked to the parsonage losing a loved family member.

The first 1855 death came on 17^th February, when the loving, kind, long standing servant Tabby Aykroyd died. Like many people born in the 18^th century, her exact date and even year of birth is unknown, but it is believed that she was aged around 84 at death. She had been a permanent fixture in the lives of the Brontë siblings since her arrival in the parsonage in 1824, and she had seen them sadly dwindle from six to one – she was spared at least the sight of seeing her beloved Charlotte die, who succumbed to excessive morning sickness just a month and a half later.

Two great lights had now been extinguished within the Parsonage’s walls, and it must have been a dreadfully sombre place in that spring of 1855. Alongside the grieving father and bereaved husband, there was now only one more figure – the then 27 year old Martha Brown.

Martha too enjoyed long and distinguished service at the parsonage. She first entered it as a 13 year old girl in 1841 and remained in service there until Patrick Brontë’s death in 1861. At first enjoying a junior role she became more involved in the everyday management of parsonage life as Tabby grew older, and she would have worked closely alongside Emily Brontë after her return from Brussels in 1842.

In 1848 and 1849 she must have played a close role in nursing first Branwell, and then Emily and Anne Brontë, although Emily would not have welcomed such molly coddling, and she would have repeated this task in 1855 with first Tabby and then Charlotte. Despite this, it is thought that Martha herself was often unwell, not uncommon in pestilential Haworth of course, and she may also have been slight, as Charlotte Brontë herself advised Martha not to undertake the heavier domestic duties.

Alongside the above photograph of Martha Brown, we have a glowing description of her from Meta Gaskell, who visited the parsonage in company with her mother, Charlotte’s friend and biographer Elizabeth Gaskell, calling Martha, “a blooming, bright, clean young woman.”

We know for sure that Martha was loved and respected by all the Brontës, something evidenced in Charlotte’s letters to her and by the fact she was left £30 in Patrick’s will, which was equivalent to three years’ wages for her. She also had a large amount of Brontë memorabilia, and Martha’s collection, sold after her death, provides a large amount of the items on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum today.

One mystery about Martha is what happened to her after Patrick Brontë’s death. Juliet Barker has stated that she left the parsonage and travelled to Banager in Ireland where she then lived as a servant to Arthur Bell Nicholls (who himself had left England and given up the priesthood after being strangely overlooked for the role as Haworth’s new parish priest); others however have said that she remained in Yorkshire, but made visits as a friend to Arthur in Banagher.

Martha had an impeccable reference when she came to the parsonage in 1841, and she was well known to the Brontë family as she was the daughter of village sexton John Brown, whose Sexton’s House dwelling was a stone’s throw from the parsonage, across from St. Michael and All Angel’s church and next door to the school house.

The role of sexton was an important one, as he was an important church official as well as the man who maintained church property and the graveyard. This was a very busy task in Haworth, as he had to facilitate the huge amount of funerals taking place there, liaising with the likes of coffin maker William Wood, nephew of Tabby Aykroyd. He was also the stonemason, so those in the parsonage would often hear the clink clink of his chisel upon stone, an almost relentless task in Haworth.

John Brown was born in 1804, and inherited the prestigious roles from his father. He would have worked closely with Patrick Brontë on many occasions, and the acceptance of his daughter Martha into the parsonage shows that he was held in esteem. He was in fact held in high regard within Haworth society as a whole, as shown by his position of Master of Haworth’s Three Graces Masonic Lodge.

Brown managed to get Branwell Brontë initiated into this lodge as well, even though he was at the time too young to meet the Masonic rules, which shows how close the two had become. Being a stonemason was hard work, it was thirsty work, and we know that John Brown and Branwell became close drinking companions in public houses such as the nearby Black Bull. Nevertheless, it seems that he was regarded as a stable figure who could be trusted rather than a reckless drinker, as it was John who was chosen to accompany Branwell to Liverpool in 1845 in an attempt to help him recover from the stresses of his dismissal from Thorp Green and all that came after it.

John Brown was also, be necessity, a strong man, and it’s believed that he taught Branwell Brontë to box; it seems clear that Branwell looked up to the man 13 years his senior as almost an elder brother, and it was to John that he cried out that he was dying on 24^th September 1848. John Brown was obviously a hard worker, and he died on 13^th August 1855, with the official cause of death given as ‘dust on the lungs’. That may have been an emphysema type illness caused by the dusty years spent creating gravestones, but of course it may also have been the same disease which claimed five of the Brontës, tuberculosis.

For Martha Brown it was a bitter pill to swallow. Within six months she had lost her initial mentor Tabby Aykroyd, her employer and friend Charlotte Brontë, and now her own father. Without her hard work and dedication, and John Brown’s influence too, the Brontë story may have been very different.

Last Tuesday I was privileged to present a talk at the stunningly beautiful Morrab Library in Penzance, where I discussed the Branwell family of Penzance and the Brontë family of Haworth. The Branwell influence can clearly be seen in Anne Brontë’s character and writing, I believe, and this is perhaps to be expected as Aunt Elizabeth Branwell was like a mother figure to Anne, sharing a room with her during her childhood. It could also be, however, that the Branwell influence was evident in Anne’s face, for as Ellen Nussey stated:

‘Anne, dear, gentle Anne, was quite different in appearance from the others. She was her aunt’s favourite. Her hair was a very pretty, light brown, and fell on her neck in graceful curls. She had lovely violet-blue eyes, fine pencilled eyebrows, and clear, almost transparent complexion.’

Could it be then that Anne had inherited the Branwell looks from her mother, whilst Charlotte and Emily had the Irish appearance of the Bruntys, and could this be a reason that her aunt felt so drawn to her? Certainly there seems to be some similarity, to my eyes, between the image of Maria Branwell drawn in Penzance in 1799 and this picture of a young Anne drawn by Charlotte Brontë over thirty years later.

Undoubtedly the best known portrait of Anne Brontë was drawn by her brother Branwell when she was thirteen or fourteen years of age, as she features as the left hand figure (as we look at it) in the infamous pillar portrait. It is interesting to note that Emily is close by Anne’s side in the portrait, emphasising the twin like closeness that Ellen had noted at this time, where they would invariably walk together with their arms intertwined.

Did Branwell paint another picture of Anne? The image below is commonly claimed as the only existing portrait of Emily Brontë other than in the pillar portrait. This is a surviving fragment of a lost painting known as the ‘gun group’ because this time Branwell does feature, holding a shotgun. Is it, however, a picture of Emily at all or actually another picture of Anne Brontë?

This picture of ‘Emily’ is all that survived of the completed portrait, but we do have a badly damaged early photograph of the picture, tracings used for the sketch, and an engraving based upon the photography. Here is the engraving:

It is clearly seen that the surviving portion is of the woman to the right of Branwell; it can also be seen that she bears resemblance to Anne in Branwell’s pillar portrait. The tracings seem further to confirm that Anne is the woman on the right, and Emily would have been on the far left, one of the portions that’s been lost for ever. Take a look at the engraving again, it’s been initialled, but by who? These initials were added by lifelong friend Ellen Nussey to show who sat where. Again this shows the portrait must be Anne and not Emily, but why does it continue to be attributed to Emily? Perhaps the answer is that we long, quite understandably, to have a portrait of Emily. Daphne du Maurier put it best when she wrote, in her ‘The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë’:

“Sentiment and tradition give this lovely portrait to Emily, but the resemblance to the figure of Anne in the pillar portrait group would suggest otherwise.”

There are two further disputed pictures (as well as the portraits made by her sister Charlotte) that may be of Anne Brontë, and the artist? Anne herself! Like all the Brontë siblings, Anne was a keen and fine artist, and it seems likely to me that this ‘Portrait Of A Young Woman’ is a self portrait. The exact date of composition is unknown, although we know it was painted between 1840 and 1845; this was during Anne’s stint as a governess to the Robinson family of Thorp Green Hall near York, so some speculate that it may be a picture of one of Anne’s charges. To my mind, however, this could easily be an Anne that is older than in the pillar portrait; she is now in her twenties, her face is more rounded, and she has straightened her hair but her eyes, nose and mouth look familiar. It is the beautiful, thoughtful face of Anne Brontë as a woman.

There is one more picture that I feel is of Anne, a view also shared by Christine Alexander and Jane Sellars in their brilliant book ‘The Art of the Brontës’. Dated 24^th June 1842, Anne has entitled it ‘A Very Bad Picture’, which indicates of course that she was far from happy with the likeness – perhaps it was drawn for a special reason? The summer of 1842 is the time, I believe, when Anne’s love for William Weightman was at its height, and it had found itself reciprocated. Could she have been trying to draw herself to present it as a gift to the assistant curate who meant everything in the world to her? Her left arm looks strangely larger than we would expect, but her right arm is hidden, why is this? The simple answer is that Anne drew this picture from her reflection in a mirror; her left arm is closer to the mirror while the right hand out of view is drawing the picture itself.

We see Anne Brontë and her family at a distance now of course, and that, and this mirror drawn self portrait, brings to my mind the words of St. Paul in his magnificent ‘Hymn To Love’:

‘Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will fail; where there are tongues, they will cease; where there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’

Looking at these pictures of Anne Brontë can be thrilling, but after all, we only see her through a glass, darkly. When we pick up her books, however, we get a real glimpse into her heart and soul – and then we can see and know her face to face, and love her all the more for it.