They say you can wait ages for a bus and then two come at once, as those waiting for the Brontë bus back to Keighley outside Haworth Park will readily testify. This week we have a rather more mournful pairing: for it has witnessed the anniversaries of the deaths of two vicars who had important parts to play in the Brontë story.
Firstly, yesterday 8th August marked the 165th anniversary of Reverend Sutcliffe Sowden. He was best friend of Arthur Bell Nicholls, and so it was he who acted as minister and married Arthur to Charlotte Brontë in 1854. Tragically, seven years later he was found dead with his face in the water in a canal. Some reports say that he fell into the canal on a foggy night, others that he had had a fit and then fallen in. Arthur carried out Sutcliffe’s funeral service, one of his last acts before leaving the clergy and returning to Ireland (his father in law Patrick Brontë had died two months earlier). It was a mournful time for Arthur, who said of Sutcliffe: ‘It will be hard work for me to read the Service over one, whose intimate friendship I have enjoyed for many years, and whom I have looked upon more as a relation than a friend.’
Today, 9th August, marks the 185th anniversary of the death of Reverend Hammond Roberson. He was 84 and had a long career as a Church of England curate, but during that time he didn’t exactly ingratiate himself with his parishioners.
Hammond was the long time vicar of Dewsbury in the West Riding of Yorkshire. At the time of the industrial revolution it grew rapidly, although not as rapidly as nearby Leeds, and found itself at the heart of what became known as the heavy woolen district. Factories and mills shot up, and much of the work became automated, meaning that traditional weavers were losing their livelihoods. It was this that led to the rise of Luddites, people who gathered in organised groups to smash machinery, mills and, sometimes, the mill owners.
In a famous incident in 1812, there was an armed attack on Rawfolds Mill in Cleckheaton, (pictured at the head of this post) and an attempt was made on mill owner William Cartwright’s life. Two of the Luddites were killed at the mill, others succumbed to their injuries and 17 were tried and executed. It is said that Patrick Brontë, then curate at nearby Hartshead, turned a blind eye to one of the insurrectionists being buried in his churchyard; the other nearby vicar, Dewsbury’s Hammond Roberson was less forgiving. He became known for being very outspoken in his condemnation of Luddites and of Chartists who demanded basic rights for working men and better working conditions. Reverend Roberson was a firm believer in the established order, and had no hesitation in railing against all who opposed it or wanted to overturn it. This meant that whilst Roberson was feared by many, he was also hated by many. It was a dangerous position to hold in a working class area of Yorkshire, but Roberson was not a man to be moved. His portrait gives a good indication of his nature, I feel.
On a more positive note, Roberson was also known for building churches and schools, and he turned his own home at Healds Hall near Dewsbury into a school. But why was Reverend Hammond Roberson connected to the Brontë story? Two reasons. Firstly, he and Patrick Brontë knew each other well; Patrick later defended the character of Roberson to Ellen Nussey, saying that he had ‘unflinching courage and dauntless self-reliance, but the ignorant and prejudiced population around misunderstood and misrepresented his worthiest deeds.’
Another local Church of England priest, Reverend William Heald praised Roberson as “one of the most admirable characters I ever knew.” It was not a universally held opinion. Mary Taylor, great friend of both Charlotte Brontë and Ellen Nussey, said Roberson was ‘one of the black-coated and Tory savages that kept the people down, that would walk in blood rather than have the existing state of things altered.
Charlotte Brontë herself only met Hammond Roberson once, but he must certainly have made an impression on her for it is he who formed the model for Reverend Matthewson Helstone in her great Luddite-inspired novel Shirley.
So we say farewell to two Church of England vicars who left their marks on the Brontë family, one of whom was immortalised in a Brontë novel. I hope you can join me next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.