the Brontë Sisters

On this day in 1840. 'Fair Ellen, Fair Ellen', 'Away fond Love' and 'Soul divine'.

2012-02-14T12:47:00.006+01:00

juniperbooks/bronte-sisters-purple

In Feb 1840, about six months after his arrival, Ellen Nussey came to the Parsonage for a three weeks stay. Neither she, nor the Brontë girls had ever received a Valentine card; so it caused quite a stir on the morning of February 14th. when they each received one.
Of course, the culprit was the scheming Weightman. In his usual mode of conduct, he had made a bold attempt to add a little sparkle to the girls' lives, and in a vain attempt to disguise his handiwork, had walked the ten miles to Bradford to post them.
He had written verses in each of the Valentines; however, only the titles of three of them are known, but these give a general idea of their content:

'Fair Ellen, Fair Ellen',

'Away fond Love'

'Soul divine'

The girls were not to be fooled by the Bradford post-mark, and soon realised that the chirpy curate was the guilty party.

read more: kleurrijk Bronte sisters
Margo Payne/a-valentine-from-Currer

The Red House has a charming homely feel to it and is so authentic that visitors can easily imagine Charlotte Brontë mingling with the Taylor family whom she loved. She said it was a happy house, full of laughter.

2012-02-13T13:55:00.009+01:00

The Spenborough Guardian publishes a letter from a reader who was outraged at the suggested closure of the Red House Museum:

In their “Vision and Strategic Objectives” outlined in the LDF Core Strategy, planners promised to retain the characteristics of Kirklees which make it attractive. This involved, among other issues, safeguarding the “distinctive and contrasting landscapes and legacy of historic buildings within and around Kirklees’ towns and villages.
So much for promises. The historic landscape from the Three Nuns to Hartshead and Roberttown has been earmarked for the biggest industrial development in West Yorkshire; totally ignoring its beauty and its close proximity to Robin Hood’s grave, the ruins of Kirklees Priory, the historic Armytage Estate, the Luddite heritage footpath, and Roe Head (now Hollybank school) the school to which all three Brontë sisters attended and at which Charlotte Brontë taught. And totally ignoring the seven presentations put forward last November to the extraordinary meeting of Kirklees Council.
And then we had the unbelievable threat to the only museum in the Spen Valley! The Red House Museum is a very precious and iconic building.
Built in 1660 by a typical entrepreneurial Spen clothier, William Taylor, it is now actually furnished in the style of the 1830’s when Joshua and Anne Taylor regularly enjoyed the company of their daughter Mary’s friend Charlotte Brontë. The house has a charming homely feel to it and is so authentic that visitors can easily imagine Charlotte Brontë mingling with the Taylor family whom she loved.
She said it was a happy house, full of laughter. And many visitors have felt this; almost 30,000 last year alone. They come to wander round the house and garden and the outbuildings which can absorb them for an afternoon. The cart-shed houses a unique history of the Spen Valley, painstakingly collected over many years. The barn has a wonderful exhibition dedicated to Charlotte Brontë’s book Shirley, based around the Luddite story.
Visitors come from schools, colleges and universities and from locally and far afield. It is well and truly on the Brontë trail for national and international enthusiasts. They all receive a warm welcome from the dedicated staff. What a tourist destination!
Most of all it is one of the most important buildings which make up the Spen Valley’s heritage. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to work out that this solution to saving money was a no-brainer.
Charlotte Brontë had another lifelong friend whom she met at Roe Head school – Ellen Nussey who lived near Birstall Smithies crossroads. Her home was the inspiration for Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre. This is now swamped by a paint manufacturer’s. We cannot go on losing our heritage. And why was North Kirklees being targeted in this way.

Grotere kaart weergeven

Photography of Mark Davis

2012-02-11T16:46:00.003+01:00

Mark makes his home in Haworth
amidst the rugged landscape
that inspired the Brontës
and which continues
to inspire him
to deliver world-class photographs.

Mark-Davis-photography/yorkshire/haworth/
Ferndean manor/mark-davis.html

Nature around Haworth

2012-02-10T19:54:00.008+01:00

February - an overview

February can be a cold unforgiving month with snow heavy rain and cold north winds, but it is also the month where the first signs that spring is not far away. Catkins sometimes called 'lambs tails' their golden tassels can be seen hanging from the branches of Hazel

Plants are beginning to show signs of life; the snowdrops are flowering, time-lapse of a snowdrop flowering here... Daffodils shoots are now above ground in readiness for flowering in March. Migrant

birds such as Redwing, Fieldfare and Waxwings which have spent the winter in Britain can still be seen. Later in the month Lapwings will return to moorland. Garden birds such as the Blackbird Blue Tit and Robin will still find food in short supply, putting out food for them will be help. This will encourage other birds such as Long Tailed Tits, Bullfinch and Goldcrests to visit. A period of fine weather and you will hear birds such as the Chaffinch singing. Frogs will move to breeding ponds to spawn.

Waxwing

Red House: cabinet sees sense

2012-02-08T13:45:00.001+01:00

Richard Wilcocks writes:
Good news! At the cabinet meeting at Huddersfield Town Hall yesterday afternoon it was recommended that the Red House Museum should not close. All the friends and campaigners who have been so wonderfully active in the past couple of weeks can now breathe more easily for a while, hoping that Kirklees Council as a whole will do the right thing when it meets on 22 February. Thanks to everybody who has been in touch, especially to you, Gordon North - your local knowledge is impressively wide-ranging and your alacrity is admirable.

The cabinet made it clear that there should be a new business plan for all the museums in the authority which would include ways of making museums pay their way. This means admission charges, increasing visitor numbers and allowing weddings to take place. All of which is much better than a crassly simple closure plan.

English Heritage has been approached to get the ball rolling to make Red House into a Grade One listed building. It is a Grade Two at the moment. Grade One status could be awarded not because of the architecture but because of the history. Let us hope for this, because it means that new grants would be available. bronteparsonage/red-house-cabinet-sees-sense

The Bronte museum in 1935 agreed to buy the Apostles cupboard for 25 pounds.

2012-02-07T18:58:00.000+01:00

Look for the story on Stubbs family history

North Lees Hall

2012-02-06T21:00:00.007+01:00

North Lees Hall is one of seven houses built by Sir Robert Eyre for his seven sons in and around the village of Hathersage. It is said to have been the inspiration for Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre after Charlotte Bronte visited it while staying at the vicarage.

The road to North Lees Hall is described in Charlotte Bronte’s book :
“the road ( to Thornfield Hall ) is a soft mantle of greens in spring and a blaze of gold in the Autumn, being gently sheltered by the thicket of foliage of the English summer days. Peace walks with he, who treads this way.

stubbs family history/the-eyres-north-lees-and-jane-eyre-also-little-john-buried-hathersage-church/

cathy-smith.suite101
-------------
Charlotte Bronte visited Hathersage in 1845 to stay with her old school friend Ellen Nussey at Hathersage Rectory, whose brother was the vicar of the village and it was while he was away on his honeymoon that Charlotte arrived to keep her friend company for a few weeks during the summer. On Irish rovers you see pictures how a Derbyshire summer looks.

Distance Haworth/ Hathersage. It was three stories high . . . a gentleman’s manor-house . . . battlements around the top gave it a picturesque look’

2012-02-06T20:21:00.005+01:00

Grotere kaart weergeven
peakdistrictinformation/towns/villages

In 1845 Charlotte Brontë stayed at Hathersage vicarage with her friend Ellen Nussey and regularly visited the locally important Eyre family at North Lees Hall. Charlotte’s letters reveal Hathersage as the village Morton in Jane Eyre (published 1847). The landlord of the George Inn was a Mr Morton at the time Brontë stayed here and she borrowed the Eyre family name for her heroine. There’s a reference in the novel to ‘Mr Oliver’s needle factory’ in Morton, and there were several needle mills in Hathersage then.

The novel’s crenellated Thornfield is clearly based on North Lees Hall. Robert Eyre is said to have built seven houses for seven sons and you can still see North Lees, an impressive Tudor manor just a short pleasant walk from the village. It is rumoured there was indeed a ‘mad woman in the attic’ in its early history, just like Bertha Mason in Brontë’s novel. Agnes Ashurst was ‘reputed to have become demented and was confined to a room on the second floor where the walls were padded for her safety’. She later died in a fire.

‘Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous.’
And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks.
the squeee/in-charlotte-brontes-footsteps
diane-heartshaped/hathersage-walk

Charlotte Bronte visiting Hathersage in Derbyshire.

2012-02-05T16:59:00.008+01:00

Charlotte Bronte is usually associated with the village of Haworth in Yorkshire as this is where most of her novels are set. But possibly her most famous novel, Jane Eyre, seems to be set in the small village of Hathersage in Derbyshire. In the summer of 1845 Charlotte visited this village in the heart of the Peak District. She was 29 and had come to stay with her old school friend Ellen Nussey at the Rectory.
Charlotte arrived by stage coach which stopped at the George Inn. Local historians are keen to point out how she used her visit to great effect in collecting impressions for her famously passionate novel, published a couple of years later. In Chapter 11 we find Jane newly arrived and waiting nervously in The George to meet her new employer; the dashing Mr. R.
" A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours’ exposure to the rawness of an October day… ":
It was on one of the tombstones in the graveyard of St. Michael’s Church that Charlotte saw the local family name ’Eyre’ which she chose to adopt for her heroine. During her stay she took the opportunity to explore, walking on the moors and visiting many of the houses scattered around the area. One of these houses, the crenellated North Lees, is said to be the model for Thorn Field Hall, home of Mr. Rochester and the place where he and Jane fell in love. The George Inn which still stands on the main street has been welcoming travellers for over 500 years, first as an alehouse, and, since 1770, as an inn. homesteadbb.free-online.co.uk/derbys
www.george-hotel

Inspiration and imagination of Charlotte Bronte: determined to make her heroine plain, small, and unattractive

2012-02-04T18:34:00.005+01:00

Anyone who has studied her writings,--whether in print or in her letters; any one who has enjoyed the rare privilege of listening to her talk, must have noticed her singular felicity in the choice of words. She herself, in writing her books, was solicitous on this point. One set of words was the truthful mirror of her thoughts; no others, however apparently identical in meaning, would do. She had that strong practical regard for the simple holy truth of expression, which Mr. Trench has enforced, as a duty too often neglected. She would wait patiently searching for the right term, until it presented itself to her. It might be provincial, it might be derived from the Latin; so that it accurately represented her idea, she did not mind whence it came; but this care makes her style present the finish of a piece of mosaic. Each component part, however small, has been dropped into the right place. She never wrote down a sentence until she clearly understood what she wanted to say, had deliberately chosen the words, and arranged them in their right order. Hence it comes that, in the scraps of paper covered with her pencil writing which I have seen, there will occasionally be a sentence scored out, but seldom, if ever, a word or an expression. She wrote on these bits of paper in a minute hand, holding each against a piece of board, such as is used in binding books, for a desk. This plan was necessary for one so short-sighted as she was; and, besides, it enabled her to use pencil and paper, as she sat near the fire in the twilight hours, or if (as was too often the case) she was wakeful for hours in the night. Her finished manuscripts were copied from these pencil scraps, in clear, legible, delicate traced writing, almost as easy to read as print.

The sisters retained the old habit, which was begun in their aunt's life-time, of putting away their work at nine o'clock, and beginning their study, pacing up and down the sitting room. At this time, they talked over the stories they were engaged upon, and described their plots. Once or twice a week, each read to the others what she had written, and heard what they had to say about it. Charlotte told me, that the remarks made had seldom any effect in inducing her to alter her work, so possessed was she with the feeling that she had described reality; but the readings were of great and stirring interest to all, taking them out of the gnawing pressure of daily-recurring cares, and setting them in a free place. It was on one of these occasions, that Charlotte determined to make her heroine plain, small, and unattractive, in defiance of the accepted canon.

She once told her sisters that they were wrong--even morally wrong--in making their heroines beautiful as a matter of course. They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine interesting on any other terms. Her answer was, 'I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.' Hence 'Jane Eyre,' said she in telling the anecdote: 'but she is not myself, any further than that.' As the work went on, the interest deepened to the writer. When she came to 'Thornfield' she could not stop. Being short-sighted to excess, she wrote in little square paper-books, held close to her eyes, and (the first copy) in pencil. On she went, writing incessantly for three weeks; by which time she had carried her heroine away from Thornfield, and was herself in a fever which compelled her to pause.

The-Life-of-Charlotte-Bronte-Volume-2

The relation between George Smith and Charlotte Bronte, Part 3

2012-02-03T20:57:00.002+01:00

Villette was published on 28 January 1853. The date of the publisher's catalogue varies in different copies, from January 1853 to December 1854, according to Smith. The novel was difficult and slow to complete for the author, partly because of the circumstances of her own life, with the unresolved personal relationships with George Smith and James Taylor in the background colouring and mirroring the tale itself. "Experience was slowly eradicating the ancient fallacies of her romantic girlhood. She was gradually moving towards a complete realization of the truth of her particular destiny, and instantly transmuting it into another truth--the truth of art..." (Winifred Gérin, Charlotte Brontë.

The Evolution of Genius, p.508) sothebys.com/en/

The relation between George Smith and Charlotte Bronte/ Part 2

2012-02-02T14:31:00.001+01:00

The last lecture was one from Margaret Smith, who talked about George Smith and William Smith Williams and their connection with Charlotte Brontë. Smith was a very good friend, gave her advice on financial matters and was even an alleged love interest, although he wasn’t in the least attracted to Charlotte. William Smith Williams sent her books and advised her to write a three-part work (Jane Eyre) rather than another two-part work like The Professor. Charlotte dissolved their correspondence with a rather cold letter.
brusselsbronte/ bronte-conference-in-york-2009

Blogs about this subject

Transforming her loneliness and personal sorrow into a triumph of literary art, Charlotte pens her 1847 masterpiece, Jane Eyre. Charlotte’s novel becomes an overwhelming literary success, catapulting the shy and awkward young woman into the spotlight of London’s fashionable literary scene—and into the arms of her new publisher, George Smith, an irresistibly handsome young man whose interest in his fiercely intelligent and spirited new author seems to go beyond professional duty. But just as life begins to hold new promise, unspeakable tragedy descends on the Brontë household, throwing London and George into the background and leaving Charlotte to fear that the only romance she will ever find is at the tip of her pen Scandalous Woman

Disappearing history

2012-02-02T14:11:00.003+01:00

Mary Taylor

BBC News covers the Red House story (don't forget to sign the petition if you haven't yet):

Joan Bellamy, author of a biography of Mary Taylor, said the sale of Red House would be a big loss to the history of the local area.
"It's a disaster. If it was sold then the history of the house would be in danger of disappearing," she said.
"The history of the area - the textiles, the Luddites and Charlotte Brontë's novel - all those elements represented by the house would disappear."
Kirklees Council said in its proposals for 2012 budget consideration that the possible closure of Red House at the end of September 2012 would mean a saving of £116,000 a year.
A council spokesman said: "Councillors have difficult decisions to make as there is a continuing need to achieve efficiencies from across the whole range of services in the three-year budget plan.
"The proposal to close Red House Museum is one of a large number of measures up for consideration which have been proposed to fill a very big gap in the council's budget and reduce expenditure."
The spokesman added that "no decision" had been made on the sale of Red House, and local residents were being invited to make their views known. documents/RedHouse-MaryTaylor

And the Yorkshire Evening Post has received a letter from a reader on the subject:

The Red House Museum is an integral part of the literary history of Yorkshire and of England.
Its value to the community and to the country is evidenced by the fact that it had 30,000 visitors from all over the world and is a place of learning and research.
In an age when much of Britain’s literary heritage is being lost, taking away such a valuable resource would be tantamount to permanantly removing a vital component of the literary history and traditions of a great people.
It also seems strange that when we are celebrating the 200th anniversay of Charles Dickens we should be considering closing a site of value to those other great literary giants – the Brontë sisters. It seems to me that Kirklees Council together with the Yorkshire Tourist Authority can make much more of the Museum and help, not only to increase its visitor numbers but to also use it as the Brontë sisters and the people of their times.
Judith Tampoe, by email bronteblog/disappearing-history

Brontë Parsonage Blog: Parsonage re-opens today

2012-02-01T20:23:00.000+01:00

Brontë Parsonage Blog: Parsonage re-opens today: The Brontë Parsonage re-opens today following a hectic month of activity including maintenance work, cleaning, conservation and developme...

The relation between George Smith and Charlotte Bronte/ part 1

2012-02-01T20:02:00.006+01:00

I am going to search what kind of a relationsship Charlotte Bronte had with George Smith, her publisher.

Who is George Smith?

George Murray Smith (19 March 1824^[1] – 6 April 1901) was the son of George Smith (1789–1846) who with Alexander Elder (1789–1846) started the Victorian publishing firm of Smith, Elder & Co.. His brainchild, The Cornhill Magazine, was the premier fiction-carrying magazine of the 19th century.^[2]

The firm was extremely successful. G. M. Smith succeeded his father and expanded the product and sales areas to cover most Victorian topics and the British Empire. The firm also supplied a catalogue full of other products desirable to British expatriates.

George Smith is widely acknowledged to have inspired the character of Graham Bretton inCharlotte Brontë's novel Villette (as he himself believed).

From 1890 until his death, Smith lived at Somerset House, in Park Lane, having bought the lease from Lady Hermione Graham, a daughter of the twelfth Duke of Somerset. The house became known as 40, Park Lane.^[3] He died at St. George's Hill, Byfleet, Surrey on 6 April 1901.

His son was George Murray Smith the Younger.

-------------------------

Charlotte ﬁrst met George Smith in July 1848 when she and Anne had travelled overnight to London to prove the separate identity of the brothers Bell; for T. C. Newby had told an American publisher that he and not Smith, Elder would be publishing ‘Currer Bell’s’ next novel. Newby had assured George Smith that ‘to the best of his belief’ all three Bells were one writer. Charlotte and Anne convinced the astonished George Smith that Newby had lied. Smith’s natural reaction was the wish to make a show of his best-selling author. Charlotte’s resistance to this, and her excitement and exhaustion, gave her ‘a thundering head-ache & harassing sickness’. Thus she did not at ﬁrst like her young and handsome publisher. A better understanding and warm friendship developed after she had stayed with Smith, his mother, and his sisters in December. There were to be other friendly visits, companionable outings in London, and an exhilarating stay in Edinburgh. From mid-1850 Smith became Charlotte’s principal London correspondent. The brief business letters she had previously written to him gave place to their friendly correspondence of late 1850, followed by twenty-four long, candid, often affectionately teasing or cheerfully satirical letters in 1851. There were fewer letters in 1852, though the friendship continued; and then a marked falling off in their correspondence from the spring of 1853, caused in part by the long strain of overwork on Smith’s part as the ﬁrm expanded its banking and export business. Charlotte could not know that Smith was also more happily preoccupied with the beautiful Elizabeth Blakeway, whom he ﬁrst met in April 1853. On 10 December 1853 Charlotte wrote a curt, contorted letter of congratulation to him on his engagement to Elizabeth. She wrote more warmly to him on 25 April 1854, when she had received his congratulations on her engagement to Arthur Nicholls. fds.oup.com

----------------------------------
Few episodes in the publishing history of the nineteenth century are of higher interest than the story of his association with Charlotte Brontë. In July 1847 Williams called Smith's attention to a manuscript novel entitled 'The Professor,' which had been sent to the firm by an author writing under the name of 'Currer Bell.' The manuscript showed signs of having vainly sought the favour of other publishing houses. Smith and his assistant recognised the promise of the work, but neither thought it likely to be a successful publication. While refusing it, however, they encouraged the writer in kindly and appreciative terms to submit another effort. The manuscript of 'Jane Eyre' arrived at Cornhill not long afterwards. Williams read it and handed it to Smith. The young publisher was at once fascinated by its surpassing power, and purchased the copyright out of hand. He always regarded the manuscript, which he retained, as the most valued of his literary treasures. He lost no time in printing it, and in 1848 the reading world recognised that he had introduced to its notice a novel of abiding fame. Later in 1848 'Shirley,' by 'Currer Bell,' was also sent to Cornhill. So far 'Currer Bell' had conducted the correspondence with the firm as if the writer were a man, but Smith shrewdly suspected that the name was a woman's pseudonym.

wiki/Memoir_of_George_Smith

Biographical Information

The publishing firm of Smith, Elder and Company was founded in 1816 by George Smith (1789-1846) in partnership with Alexander Elder. In 1843, Smith's son, George Smith (1824-1901), took over much of the firm's operations, and, upon the death of his father in 1846, became sole head of the company. Smith lived in London with his mother, Elizabeth Murray Smith (1797-1878), until 1854, when he married Elizabeth Blakeway. They had two sons and three daughters.

Smith, Elder and Company prospered under George Smith's leadership. Early in his tenure, the firm published works by John Ruskin, Charlotte Bronte ( Jane Eyre in 1848), and William Makepeace Thackeray ( Esmond in 1851). In 1859, Smith started The Cornhill Magazine with Thackeray as editor; in 1865, The Pall Mall Gazette, an evening newspaper with literary leanings, began publication. Both the magazine and the newspaper attracted contributions from leading writers and artists.

In his later years, Smith's chief authors were Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, and Leslie Stephen, all of whom were close personal friends. Smith was also the founder, in 1882, of the Dictionary of National Biography.

In 1894, Reginald J. Smith, husband of George Smith's youngest daughter, joined Smith, Elder and Company, and, in 1899, became sole head. Smith,Elder_and_Co

'I think the Brontë sisters are mad'

2012-02-01T12:25:00.001+01:00

The Red House story (sign the petition here) continues being featured in local newspapers such as the Yorkshire Post:

This is not a 'difficult decision to make'. It's just a silly, self-damaging decision. Good for the 100 letters an emails, though - keep those coming and get as many people as possible to sign the petition.
The story has also reached a national newspaper: the Guardian.

The blog Secluded Charm is appalled by the story.
The Telegraph reports adapter Andrew Davies's thoughts on the Brontës:

'I think the Brontë sisters are mad'

Visiting Haworth in 1971

2012-01-30T22:20:00.010+01:00

These photographes are from Georges Renaux

I met Georges through Facebook

These photographes are taken in 1971

when he and his wife were visiting Haworth

Thank you George for sharing.

This letter George received from The Bronte Society

Aspect of that wintery afternoon

2012-01-30T15:33:00.001+01:00

"Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves in my book, I studied the aspect of that wintery afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near, a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast."

Chapter 1 in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

bronteweather/failing-eyesight

Michele Howarth Rashman

2012-01-30T15:27:00.004+01:00

Fiona Russell meets Michele Howarth Rashman, an artist who likes to work with a material she can afford.

High above St George’s Square in Hebden Bridge, at the top of a rickety wooden staircase, is the attic studio of Michele Howarth Rashman. Like the talented girls from Haworth Parsonage, Michelle spends her days engaged in meticulous, minute work (“developing long-sight and a dowager’s hump”) and she has a keen eye, which can get her into trouble (“I do use people I know and it can get a bit tricky”). And while she chooses to base herself in Yorkshire, she exhibits with the best of her London contemporaries.
Yorkshire Post

2012-01-29T21:27:00.002+01:00

Christopher Fry's The Brontës of Haworth

2012-01-29T17:45:00.000+01:00

BlogCritics reviews the upcoming The Brontës of Haworth DVD release:

Playwright Christopher Fry's The Brontës of Haworth, a five-episode dramatization of the lives of the 19th century literary sisters and their tortured brother televised in England in 1973 but never shown in the United States will be available in February in a two-disc DVD set from Acorn Media. Beginning with their widowed father's birthday gift to the young Branwell of the set of toy soldiers which became the inspiration for the children's early imaginative efforts as they joined together to create a fictional world modeled on the Byronic romances popular at the time, Fry traces their attempts to make their way in the world, their failures and their success, culminating in the sister's monumental achievement and early deaths. (...)
Clearly it is [Michael] Kitchen and perhaps [Alfred] Burke who are the stars of this production. Perhaps not as oddly as it would seem in a film about the Brontë family, much of the early episodes are concerned with the tragic life of Branwell rather than that of his sisters. He is after all a man haunted by demons beyond his control, the kind of fodder no dramatist can resist. (...)
The DVD runs approximately 260 minutes. The only bonus material it contains is a short prose essay on the Brontë's home in Haworth. (Jack Goodstein)

2012-01-28T22:57:00.000+01:00

http://www.shout.net/~dsears/

Red House still looks very much as it would have in Charlotte's day. Each of the rooms brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its Yorkshire range, jelly moulds and colourful crockery.

2012-01-28T22:49:00.002+01:00

Bronteblog/red-house-combining-bronte-history

The Red House story is beginning to reach local papers. The Spenborough Guardian reports many locals are against the closure:

Red House – ‘a cultural and educational gem’ – could be lost forever under council plans to sell it off.
Kirklees says closing the award-winning Gomersal museum and moving its exhibits to other museums would save £116,000 over two years.
However the plans have caused anger with critics saying it is yet another example of north Kirklees making the biggest sacrifices.
MP Mike Wood said: “We knew Kirklees was considering reducing the opening hours, and that was bad enough, but to hear they want to close it altogether was a bombshell.
“Red House is a credit to our area, and we cannot sacrifice it in a forlorn attempt to save money at all costs. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. [...]”
Gomersal councillor Lisa Holmes, said she and her Tory ward colleagues would do their utmost to fight the plans.
“It’s an absolute shame,” she said. “I have spoken to the staff who are devastated, not just for their jobs but because they know the vital service it provides. We realise we have massive savings to make, but we will do whatever we can to find an alternative to closure. There is a big challenge ahead of us but we must protect our heritage.”
Vice-chairman of Spen Valley Civic Society Gordon North said: “People cherish Red House and I am sure they will be as disgusted as we are that the one museum in the Spen Valley could go.
“It attracts local, national and international visitors, and it’s not just because of its Brontë links. The Taylor family was incredibly important in the story of the Spen Valley – Mr Taylor was one of the first woollen manufacturers and opened the Bank of Gomersal, while his daughter Mary Taylor was at the forefront of the feminist and equality movements – and you might think that a Labour council might recognise that.”
Red House was bought by the old Spenborough Council in 1969 to be opened as a museum telling the story of the Spen Valley.
Former Spenborough councillor Michael McGowan, who went on to become an MEP, said only last year he had taken a group of visitors from New Zealand to Red House, because of Mary Taylor’s links with their country.
“It’s a fantastic resource, a cultural and educational gem, and we mustn’t lose it,” he said.
The move has also been condemned by Carol Brontë, who first visited Red House as curator of the Brontë Museum in Northern Ireland. Her husband, James Wallace Brontë, is the great-great-grandson of the Rev Patrick Brontë’s youngest brother.
“I’m absolutely devastated,” she said. “Why close this famous tourist destination? It’s a very special place and I would urge Kirklees to think again.”
Brontë Society trustee Stephen Whitehead said: “The Taylor family was so important to Charlotte that she featured them as the Yorkes in Shirley and Briarmains is an exact description of Red House. It is an irreplaceable asset and this is not the way to manage your heritage.”
President of Cleckheaton Rotary Club Bill Stevenson said they had great concerns about the length of time for objections – February 7 – and urged the public to attend Tuesday’s Spen Valley area committee meeting to air their views.
The meeting is at 7pm at the town hall, Cleckheaton.
A spokeswoman for Kirklees said difficult decisions had to be made.
“The proposal to close Red House Museum is one of a large number of measures up for consideration which have been proposed to fill a very big gap in the council’s budget and reduce expenditure,” she said.
No decision has been made yet and people are invited to make their views know by contactingcommunication@kirklees.gov.uk or Communities and Leisure, Museums and Galleries, The Stables, Ravensknowle Park, Wakefield Road, Dalton, Huddersfield, HD5 8DJ. (Margaret Heward)

The Telegraph and Argus looks at it from a Brontë point of view:

The director of the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth has condemned proposals to close a popular museum with strong connections to the famous literary family.
The future of Red House Museum, Gomersal, will be discussed at Kirklees Council’s Cabinet meeting on February 7 as part of budget talks.
But parsonage director Andrew McCarthy said: “We appreciate the challenges faced by local authorities in terms of balancing the budgets at the moment but it does seem a pretty drastic step that can be made in haste and repented at leisure.” [...]
It is said ‘Briarmains’ – the house Charlotte wrote about in her second novel, Shirley – was based on Red House and some of the characters were thought to have been inspired by the Taylor family.
Mr McCarthy said: “The Taylor family as merchants, bankers and mill-owners did a huge amount to shape that part of the West Riding and they are a great part of the heritage of the area and there is this very strong link with the Brontës, particularly Charlotte.
“She stayed there on many occasions in the 1830s as a guest of her close friends Mary and Martha Taylor.
“There are very few buildings which combine Brontë history and Brontë fiction in the way Red House does. It would be a huge loss.” (Sally Clifford)

Please keep letters/email coming to local authorities (see list in this post) and if you haven't yet, do sign this online petition. And spread the word too!

Patrick Bronte baptised.....

2012-01-27T23:00:00.006+01:00

My Great-Grandfather, Matthew Nicholson and his wife Alice. Standing behind is my

Grandmother, Emma, who was to marry Spencer Butterfield.
Matthew was baptised by Patrick Bronte, father of the Bronte sisters, in 1827 at Haworth.

From: Family_Album

Save Red House

2012-01-26T14:15:00.000+01:00

Save Red House

More information about the Red House.

Red House Museum

2012-01-25T21:17:00.001+01:00

In addition to the recently publicised reduction in the opening times of Museums and Galleries across Kirklees, the proposals now include the complete closure of Red House Museum in Gomersal.

If these proposals are passed, Red House would be closed in September and the buildings sold - not necessarily as a museum.

Red House was built in 1660 and was the home of the Taylor Family until 1920. It has important Brontë connections and is now furnished as a home in the 1830s when Charlotte Brontë was a frequent visitor. Red House, the Taylor family and the Spen Valley area were all featured in Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley.

Also on site are the recreated 1830s gardens, the restored Barn which illustrates the numerous Brontë connections in the area and the renovated Cartsheds which houses the 'Spen Valley Stories' gallery.

Last year the site received almost 30,000 visitors and was recently awarded its second Sandford Award for the quality of its heritage educational services for schools. Read more on: Bronte Parsonage

What did the Bronte Sisters look like?

2012-01-25T20:37:00.003+01:00

I receided this reaction:
Hi Kluerrijk- There is confusion about Charlotte's appearance. Presently, the only dependable 'bench-mark' is Branwell's 'Pillar' portrait, and to qualified extent Richmond's drawing- compromised by Charlotte's 'discomfort' in his company (no Landseer he)and his sternly bi-tonal choice of media- this 'puritan' indulgance often interpreted as suggesting Charlotte had 'hazel' eyes. Mrs Gaskill's description is sometimes believed to suggest Charlotte had 'brown' eyes, but in fact confirms she had eyes 'the same colour' as Mrs Gaskill's- blue. All other contemporary descriptions corroborate blue/grey eyes. Charlotte's off-set 'crooked mouth' is unanimously recognised, cleverly avoided by Branwell who turned her 'off-set' aspect towards the viewer. In the 'fresh' group portrait Landseer achieved the same 'illusion' by tilting her head. Rotating her image upright reveals the famed 'crooked mouth'. Two of the bona fide 'Charlotte' images above are mis-catalogued. The photo, a robust, healthy woman of several years beyond Charlotte's 39, suggests she completely recovered from the gaunt, anorexic grief described by Richmond in 1850, yet within a few months this chubby 'old' lady married, got pregnant and died of malnutrition. Not chronologically plausable, besides, it's Ellen Nussey. The 'Bonnet' pastel can't be consolidated with any known image of Charlotte- it's Mrs Elizabeth Gaskill- a formulaic 'outdoor' sketch, possibly by a London street artist- this mis-attribution now admitted by the Bronte Museum, since the pastel has been withdrawn from display- and mention. The 'fresh' group portrait magically embodies all the distinctive individual features of the 3 subjects according to the most authentic descriptions, and subtly records the 'pretty, dove-coloured tint' of bare walls (q. Ellen Nussey), the extravagant beaded curves and 'whorled' carving of the surviving William 4th sofa, and exacting renditions of rare items and unique, hand-made accessories (eg; Anne's 'herringbone' plaited hair & amythist bracelet) which remain at the parsonage Museum. Another recovered Emily is going under the hammer next month at Humberts- unreserved. BM refute the lovely thing by suggesting 'no one would want to paint her' (although probably painted by family friend J H Thompson, Emily had lot's of fellow-artist friends) she is bone and breath the same girl Branwell painted (and the same hot-seated fidgit Landseer captured in 1838). I'm sure she will be recognised by the buyer.

I have some questions by this reaction:

Why do you think this is a portrait of Ellen Nussey? I cannot find any article to give this conclusion. ( I, myself, saw this portrait for the first time linked to this website: charlottecory.com/bronte/afriendofcharlotte).

Why do you think Emily had lot's of fellow-artist friends?

About the colours of the eyes: Mrs. Gaskell to Catherine Winkworth: "" soft brown hair, not very dark; eyes (very good and expressive, looking straight and open at you) of the same colour as her hair. classiclit/egaskell/bl-egaskell-cbronte
Mrs. Gaskell to Catherine Winkworth : soft brown hair not so dark as mine, eyes (very good and expressive, looking straight and open at you) of the same colour/ Juliet Barker's The Brontes
You write "All other contemporary descriptions corroborate blue/grey eyes".
Can you give me some off these other contemperary descriptions?

Failures: Spinsters & Old Maids in Victorian England

2012-01-23T17:26:00.002+01:00

The proper purpose of a Victorian woman’s life, of whatever class, was to marry suitably. It was not essential for the marriage to be happy, but marriage in itself was, “the crown and joy of a woman’s life – what we were born for.” A woman who did not marry became a spinster, old maid or maiden aunt, a figure of fun, pity and derision.
The Victorians became particularly exercised about redundant women after the 1851 Census showed that there were nearly 1.5 million spinsters, aged between about 20 and 40, and 350,000 old maids over 40. In the 1851 Census, there were 104 women for every 100 men in England and Wales. Victorian England was also about the British Empire. Although, as now, more men wore born than women, boys were more likely to die than girls in childhood, and men more likely than woman to die young.
Men emigrated, to the old and new commonwealth, America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India and other places in the British Empire. For every woman who emigrated, three men did so. Men also served time abroad either as colonial administrators or as soldiers. There was an increasing tendency for middle and upper class men to marry later. Between about 1840 and 1870, the average age at marriage for middle and upper class men was 30. At the age of 30, however, a spinster was definitely past her sell-by date.
Life for the Victorian Spinster
About the only respectable forms of employment that any middle or upper class Victorian spinster could undertake were as a teacher, a governess, or a companion. Many couples with large families liked to keep an unmarried daughter at home to tend to their every whim and care for them in their old age. Although often obliged to do so, the unmarried stay at home daughter was nevertheless incomplete. She’d failed to undertake her primary duty, to be a wife and mother. Many women who didn’t marry in Victorian England lived first in their parents’ house, and when their parents died, in the house of a brother or nephew. Although such women tended to work extremely hard, provided a useful second mother and unpaid housekeeper, they were undervalued.
Although until the Married Woman’s Property Act in 1868 a wife had no separate legal existence from her husband, and did not own property unless he chose to allow her to do so, nevertheless a married woman had a social status and respect that her single sister would always struggle to achieve.
An individual spinster or old maid could be pitied and patronised. As a group, spinsters were damaging to society, and redundant. Although it was rarely mentioned specifically, there was a general view that celibacy in women was unnatural. Of course, an old maid or a spinster was according to social norms considered to be a virgin. That was unnatural, and a waste.
Edward Gibbon talked about single English women as, “growing thin, pale, listless and cross”.
Thackeray described Charlotte Brontë as, “a noble heart longing to mate itself and destined to wither away into old maidenhood”.
John Stewart Mill argued against the spinster stereotype and said that the problem was that women were badly educated.
Many, such as WR Gregg, urged that single women be almost obliged to emigrate. WR Gregg went on to discuss the semi forced emigration of women that he proposed. England must restore by an emigration women that natural proportion between the sexes in the old country and in the new one, which was disturbed by an emigration of men, and the disturbance of which has wrought so much mischief in both lands.
The literary Brontë sisters often wrote about women who did not marry in their books. None of them married, and they were themselves brought up by a spinster aunt, after the early death of their mother.
Charlotte Brontë turned down four separate marriage proposals as she was determined not to live with a man she did not think her intellectual moral equal. The difficulties that respectable but impoverished women faced in Victorian England is clear from Charlotte Brontë’s second book, Shirley.
Being a spinster did not only involve economic insecurity and precarious dependence on male relatives. But a woman was unable to bring about marriage on her own behalf.
An old maid’s life must doubtless be void and vapid, her heart strained and empty; had I been an old maid I should have spent existence in efforts to fill the void and ease the aching I should have probably failed, and died weary and disappointed, despised and of no account, like other single women.
webhistoryofengland

Dresses like the Brontes could have worn

2012-01-22T13:33:00.003+01:00

abigailsateliers

soeursbronte

Haworth in literary amber

2012-01-21T19:18:00.000+01:00

The Haworth Parish Church has been able to raise the money for the reparations but it now seems that they need even more.We read on BBC News:

The Haworth housing development projects are discussed in a very good article in The Telegraph:

Haworth in literary amber

Railway investments

2012-01-21T17:04:00.004+01:00

turniprail

Although the public railway and the application of steam power to transport were pre-Victorian concepts, the widespread development of local, national and international railway networks was a Victorian phenomenon. The combination of great public enthusiasm, massive investment, highly skilled engineering and the application of modern technology ensured the rapid growth of railways in Britain and abroad. By 1850, 6000 miles of railway were in use, and throughout Victoria's reign British engineers were involved in railway construction and operation in many parts of the world, which in turn created new export markets for British locomotive and vehicle builders.
Although the public railway and the application of steam power to transport were pre-Victorian concepts, the widespread development of local, national and international railway networks was a Victorian phenomenon. The combination of great public enthusiasm, massive investment, highly skilled engineering and the application of modern technology ensured the rapid growth of railways in Britain and abroad. By 1850, 6000 miles of railway were in use, and throughout Victoria's reign British engineers were involved in railway construction and operation in many parts of the world, which in turn created new export markets for British locomotive and vehicle builders.
/other-forms-of-victorian-transport-and-communication/
-------------

Charlotte proclaims in a private letter that Emily was handling financial investments for the entire family:

Emily has made herself mistress of the necessary degree of knowledge for conducting the matter, by dint of carefully reading every paragraph & every advertisement in the news-papers that related to rail-roads and as we have abstained from all gambling, all mere speculative buying-in & selling-out—we have got on very decently. claredunkle

---------------

"January 30th, 1846.
"MY DEAR MISS WOOLER, - I have not yet paid my visit to ----; it is, indeed, more than a year since I was there, but I frequently hear from E., and she did not fail to tell me that you were gone into Worcestershire; she was unable, however, to give me your exact address. Had I known it, I should have written to you long since.
I thought you would wonder how we were getting on, when you heard of the railway panic, and you may be sure that I am very glad to be able to answer your kind inquiries by an assurance that our small capital is as yet undiminished. The York and Midland is, as you say, a very good line; yet, I confess to you, I should wish, for my own part, to be wise in time. I cannot think that even the very best lines will continue for many years at their present premiums; and I have been most anxious for us to sell our shares ere it be too late, and to secure the proceeds in some safer, if, for the present, less profitable investment. I cannot, however, persuade my sisters to regard the affair precisely from my point of view; and I feel as if I would rather run the risk of loss than hurt Emily's feelings by acting in direct opposition to her opinion. C.B.
------------------

The damage to the ﬁnances of the middle and upper classes was widespread. In the words of Charlotte Bronte:

The business is certainly very bad–worse than I thought, and much worse than my father has any idea of. In fact, the little railway property I possessed, ... scarcely any portion of it can with security be calculated on. ... However the matter may terminate, I ought perhaps to be rather thankful than dissatisﬁed. When I look at my own case, and compare it with that of thousands besides–I scarcely see room for a murmur. Many–very many are–by the late strange Railway System deprived almost of their daily bread; such then as have only lost provision laid up for the future should take care how they complain.

Charlotte Bronte could aﬀord a relatively calm view of the situation, since by the time of that letter she had achieved literary success, with her novel Jane Eyre one of the bestsellers of 1847. But most railway shareholders could not, and neither could she have had a
few years earlier.
dtc.umn.edu

Public transport in Victorian London

2012-01-21T16:46:00.003+01:00

During Queen Victoria's reign, London's population grew at an astonishing rate and the central area became increasingly congested. The development of cheaper, horse-drawn public transport enabled more people to travel than ever before and this influenced the growth of the suburbs.

In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, public transport in London was expensive and offered passengers little choice. Short stage coaches ran regular services to the City from outlying villages like Camberwell, Paddington and Blackheath. Hackney carriages had a monopoly in the City, where they alone were permitted to set down or pick up passengers on demand. Travelling by short stage or hackney coach was expensive and could only be afforded by the better off, the most wealthy of whom owned their own carriages. Another key route was the river, where traffic continued as it had for centuries. Wherry boats or river taxis could be hailed from various parts of the riverbank. The vast majority of working people could not afford to use public transport at all and so were obliged to live within walking distance of their work.

An artist impression of Shillibeer's Omnibus, 1829.

Horsebuses

In 1828 George Shillibeer, a London coachbuilder, visited Paris where he was impressed by the efficiency of its new horse-drawn bus service. The following year he imported the idea to London and began operating a single horse-drawn omnibus, connecting the suburbs of Paddington and Regent's Park to the City. This service was quite revolutionary: Shillibeer's omnibus ran to a strict timetable, regardless of whether it was full; it picked up and set down passengers anywhere along the route; and fares could be paid on board, unlike the short-stage coaches, which had to be booked in advance. The omnibus was pulled by three horses and carried 22 passengers, who sat inside protected from the weather. The fares of sixpence and one shilling were less than those charged by hackney cab and short-stage coach. Even so, travelling on Shillibeer's omnibuses was not cheap, and they were used mainly by the middle classes.

Nevertheless, the service proved very popular and other operators set up in fierce competition. Soon there were 90 omnibuses on the same route, sometimes racing each other to pick up the most passengers. After many complaints the operators set up an Omnibus Association, with Shillibeer as Chairman, to regulate the busy route. The operators realized that the number of passengers was limited so the Association agreed to reduce competition by restricting the number of omnibuses to 57, running at 3 minute intervals, with inspectors to enforce the new rules. The Association was London's first coordinated attempt to provide a regular bus service.

In 1832 the monopoly of the hackney carriages was removed, allowing horse buses to operate in the City. Within two years there were 620 licensed horse buses in London and by 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, when business was booming due to an influx of visitors to London, this total had more than doubled and the number of routes had increased to 150. Service intervals varied from 5 to 20 minutes in Inner London to an hour or longer in the outlying suburbs.

Whilst many different omnibus companies existed, in 1856 several operators were taken over by the new London General Omnibus Company (LGOC), originally a French operator. After a year spent buying out rivals the LGOC had a fleet of 600 omnibuses and was the largest bus company in the world. Other larger operators included Thomas Tilling and the London Road Car Company. Major companies began to cooperate, forming associations to regulate buses, restricting their numbers, setting timetables and sharing revenue between owners.ltmcollection/resources/Public+transport+in+Victorian+London

Anne Bronte 192nd birthday.

2012-01-19T20:30:00.005+01:00

"Anne, dear gentle Anne was quite different in appearance from the others, and 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 a clear almost transparent complexion. She still pursued her studies and especially her sewing, under the surveillance of her aunt." (Ellen Nussey)

Anne's studies at home included music, which she always enjoyed, and drawing. Later, she began more formal studies at Roe Head School.

Little is known about the next year, but by 1839 Anne was actively looking for a teaching position. She left home on April 8, 1839, and travelled alone, at her own request, to Mirfield. There she began work as a governess at Blake Hall, the home of the Ingham family.

Anne seems to have assessed her situation quickly and accurately, and determined that she would make the best of it. An early letter home was summarized by Charlotte in a letter to Ellen Nussey:

"she expresses herself very well satisfied–and says that Mrs Ingham is extremely kind... both her pupils are desperate little dunces–neither of them can read and sometimes they even profess a profound ignorance of their Alphabet–the worst of it is the little monkies are excessively indulged and she is not empowered to inflict any punishment " (Barker, p. 308)

Anne obtained a second post: this time as a governess to the children of the Reverend Edmund Robinson and his wife Lydia, at Thorp Green, a wealthy country house near York

Anne probably left home for Thorp Green on May 8, 1840. She could not know it at the time, but for the next 5 years she would spend no more than 5 or 6 weeks a year with her family, during holidays at Christmas and in June. The rest of her time would be spent with the Robinsons at their home Thorp Green, or on holiday with them in Scarborough. While living with the Robinsons, Anne first saw York Minster, which she found moving and inspirational. She also visited the seaside at Scarborough, and loved it for both its beauty and the benefits to her health. Her employers were satisfied with her work, and as Bessy and Mary Robinson grew older, Anne became close to them. Of all her sisters, Anne spent the most time away from Haworth, establishing fond associations elsewhere.

St. Nicholas Cliff c. 1935An aerial view of the Scarborough locality most familiar to Anne, though, shown here some 86 years after she died. The Grand Hotel, which replaced Wood's Lodgings; and Christ Church, where Anne's funeral was conducted, are indicated. The Grand Hotel's three story 'down-the-cliff extension' is clearly visible. An almost identical extension was added to Wood's Lodgings in 1842 - the year of Anne's third visit to the resort. The Spa bridge, where Anne took many walks, is on the left, with the Rotunda museum just beyond it (extreme left). In the foreground are the South Sands, where Anne loved to walk beside the sea, and that inspired some of the concluding scenes of her novel, Agnes Grey.

mick-armitage/anne/scarboro

oldukphotos.com/graphics/EnglandPhotos/Yorkshire,

There is no question that she missed her home and family. "Lines Written at Thorp Green", vt. "Appeal", was written only a few months after her arrival there. It speaks of "loneliness" and "repining"; the identity of its longed for visitor has been much speculated upon. "Home" pleads for the "grey walls" of Haworth rather than the beautiful grounds of Thorp Green. Yet while Anne repeatedly writes of her depression and unhappiness, these are not her only emotions. In "Retirement" , she turns from "earthly cares" and "restless wandering thoughts" to seek comfort in God. In "In Memory of a Happy Day in February" and "Music on Christmas Morning", she rejoices in her religious belief. She exults in the beauty and wildness of nature in "Lines composed in a Wood on a Windy Day".

The sisters went instead to York, where Anne showed her sister the York Minster. Emily, however, was more interested in playing at the Gondals than in any of the sights Anne wanted to show her. Emily describes the trip in her diary paper of July 31st, 1845.

"Anne and I went our first long Journey by ourselves–leaving Home on the 30th of June–monday–sleeping at York–returning to Keighley Tuesday evening sleeping there and walking home on wedensday morning–though the weather was broken, we enjoyed ourselves very much except during a few hours at Bradford and during our excursion we were Ronald Macelgin, Henry Angora, Juliet Augusteena, Rosobelle Esraldan, Ella and Julian Egramont Catherine Navarre and Cordelia Fitzaphnold escaping from the Palaces of Instruction to join the Royalists who are hard driven at present by the victorious Republicans" (Barker, pp. 450-451)

After leaving her teaching position, she fulfilled her literary ambitions. She wrote a volume of poetry with her sisters (Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, 1846) and in short succession she wrote two novels. Agnes Grey, based upon her experiences as a governess, was published in 1847. Her second and last novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hallappeared in 1848. Anne's life was cut short with her death of pulmonary tuberculosis when she was 29 years old.
digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bronte/bronte-anne
scribblemaniac/the-sisters-side-trip-to-beautiful-york/
york-minster-pictures/

This description from Elisabeth Gaskell is what the Bronte's saw when they came from Keighley ststion. Most of the time they have to walk this distance. Sometimes they could use a gig. When Charlotte and Anne wanted to go to London, to make clear to their publisher, that they were several writers ( and not one as some suggested) they were walking through heavy rain and arrived soaking wet at the station of Keighley. Part 7

2012-01-18T16:38:00.010+01:00

lostrailwayswestyorkshire

lostrailwayswestyorkshire/Queensbury/Keighley

The Leeds and Bradford railway runs along a deep valley of the Aire; a slow and sluggish stream, compared to the neighbouring river of Wharfe. Keighley station is on this line of railway, about a quarter of a mile from the town of the same name.

In a town one does not look for vivid colouring; what there may be of this is furnished by the wares in the shops, not by foliage or atmospheric effects; but in the country some brilliancy and vividness seems to be instinctively expected, and there is consequently a slight feeling of disappointment at the grey neutral tint of every object, near or far off, on the way from Keighley to Haworth. The distance is about four miles; and, as I have said, what with villas, great worsted factories, rows of workmen's houses, with here and there an old-fashioned farm-house and outbuildings, it can hardly be called" country" any part of the way.
For two miles the road passes over tolerably level ground, distant hills on the left, a "beck" flowing through meadows on the right, and furnishing water power, at certain points, to the factories built on its banks. The air is dim and lightless with the smoke from all these habitations and places of business. The soil in the valley (orbottom,' to use the local term) is rich; but, as the road begins to ascend, the vegetation becomes poorer; it does not flourish, it merely exists; and, instead of trees, there are only bushes and shrubs about the dwellings.
Stone dykes are everywhere used in place of hedges; and what crops there are, on the patches of arable land, consist of pale, hungry-looking, grey-green oats.
Right before the traveller on this road rises Haworth village; he can see it for two miles before he arrives, for it is situated on the side of a pretty steep hill, with a background of dun and purple moors, rising and sweeping away yet higher than the church, which is built at the very summit of the long narrow street. All round the horizon there is this same line of sinuous wave-like hills; the scoops into which they fall only revealing other hills beyond, of similar colour and shape, crowned with wild, bleak moors - grand, from the ideas of solitude and loneliness which they suggest, or oppressive from the feeling which they give of being pent-up by some monotonous and illimitable barrier, according to the mood of mind in which the spectator may be.
For a short distance the road appears to turn away from Haworth, as it winds round the base of the shoulder of a hill; but then it crosses a bridge over the "beck," and the ascent through the village begins. The flag-stones with which it is paved are placed end-ways, in order to give a better hold to the horses' feet; and, even with this help, they seem to be in constant danger of slipping backwards. The old stone houses are high compared to the width of the street, which makes an abrupt turn before reaching the more level ground at the head of the village, so that the steep aspect of the place, in one part, is almost like that of a wall.
But this surmounted, the church lies a little off the main road on the left; a hundred yards, or so, and the driver relaxes his care, and the horse breathes more easily, as they pass into the quiet little by-street that leads to Haworth Parsonage. The churchyard is on one side of this lane, the school-house and the sexton's dwelling (where the curates formerly lodged) on the other.

The parsonage stands at right angles to the road, facing down upon the church; so that, in fact, parsonage, church, and belfried school-house, form three sides of an irregular oblong, of which the fourth is open to the fields and moors that lie beyond. The area of this oblong is filled up by a crowded churchyard, and a small garden or court in front of the clergyman's house. As the entrance to this from the road is at the side, the path goes round the corner into the little plot of ground. Underneath the windows is a narrow flower-border, carefully tended in days of yore, although only the most hardy plants could be made to grow there. Within the stone wall, which keeps out the surrounding churchyard, are bushes of elder and lilac; the rest of the ground is occupied by a square grass plot and a gravel walk. The house is of grey stone, two stories high, heavily roofed with flags, in order to resist the winds that might strip off a lighter covering. It appears to have been built about a hundred years ago, and to consist of four rooms on each story; the two windows on the right (as the visitor stands, with his back to the church, ready to enter in at the front door) belonging to Mr. Brontë's study, the two on the left to the family sitting-room. Everything about the place tells of the most dainty order, the most exquisite cleanliness. The door-steps are spotless; the small old-fashioned window-panes glitter like looking-glass. Inside and outside of that house cleanliness goes up into its essence, purity. EG-Charlotte

Four miles is 6.4 kilometer ( for the Dutch readers)

Old picture of the grave stone of Anne Bronte.

2012-01-18T13:49:00.001+01:00

Old Pictures
On the Facebook site of Liliya Kobzar

I saw an old picture of the grave stone of Anne Bronte.

Alone in the city. Part 6

2012-01-17T22:19:00.002+01:00

'Punch' cartoon, 1894: Train travel increased women's opportunities for independence

The letters document key life events, such as Roper's engagement and first pregnancy, but they also record a multitude of incidental experiences, of journeys, meetings and conversations, which constitute the everyday in any historical period. Roper did not move widely around the city - her experience was defined by a limited number of routes, for a specific range of purposes.

In relating these journeys in her letters, however, she generates a different story of Victorian society from the one of confined womanhood that we so often hear about, and a new way of understanding women and the city in this period. In a postscript to a letter dated 4 January, 1856, Amelia revealed to her friend:

'When I had gone to the station on Tuesday, the train had gone so I walked to town. I had not gone far when a gentleman in a four-wheel chaise offered me a ride but I was like you bashful and said no. If you had been [there] I should [have] said yes.'

'It speaks of embarrassment, apprehension, and possibility.'

This apparently throwaway anecdote tells us so much. It shows a young woman who travels alone into the city and who takes decisions about her journey. It also describes an encounter with a male stranger. There is an exchange, a refusal and a momentary reflection on the alternative outcomes. It speaks of embarrassment, apprehension, and possibility.

Anyone who lives in or visits cities today is familiar with the need to negotiate social space and to read the identities of passing strangers from their dress and appearance. This was also the world of the Victorian city. Women of all kinds were part of this complex social environment, with its changing class and gender relations. The unpublished letters of Amelia Roper offer the historian unprecedented access to the everyday experience of this world.

Published: 2004-11-05 bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain

It was not considered quite proper for "genteel" unmarried young women to travel on public coaches unescorted. Part 5

2012-01-17T16:17:00.007+01:00

It was not considered quite proper for "genteel" unmarried young women to travel on public coaches unescorted (Lady Catherine is even more severe: "I cannot bear the idea of two young women travelling post by themselves").
--------

After the marriage proposal from Harris Bigg-Wither Jane announced her change of mind and left the house hurriedly in the Bigg-Wither carriage, accompanied by Cassandra, Alethea and Catherine, fleeing to her brother James and his wife Mary at Steventon. Alethea and Catherine bade a tearful farewell to the Austen sisters; Jane forcefully persuaded James to take her and Cassandra back to Bath the next day, refusing to tell James and Mary what the trouble was.

By no way, Jane could have travel alone or with Cassandra, back to Bath.

One of the most prominent features of the time period was the propriety expected between members of the opposite sex. This was the beginning of the social restrictions that were one of the defining characteristics of the Victorian period, which directly followed the Regency period. A young unmarried women should not be alone with a man without a chaperone; likewise, women were never to travel unescorted. annemace.net

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BUT Agnes Grey is traveling alone.

""But the morning brought a renewal of hope and spirits. I was to depart early, that the conveyance which took me, (a gig, hired from Mr Smith, the draper, grocer, and tea-dealer of the village) might return the same day. I rose, washed, dressed, swallowed a hasty breakfast, received the fond embraces of my father, mother, and sister, kissed the cat, to the great scandal of Sally, the maid, shook hands with her, mounted the gig, drew my veil over my face, and then, but not till then, burst into a flood of tears.

The gig rolled on–I looked back–my dear mother and sister were still standing at the door, looking after me, and waving their adieux: I returned their salute, and prayed God to bless them from my heart: we descended the hill, and I could see them no more""

And Anne Bronte was traveling alone.

------------

Charlotte was traveling alone and even talking to a gentleman.

Charlotte's return from this short visit to her friend, she travelled with a gentleman in the railway carriage, whose features and bearing betrayed him, in a moment, to be a Frenchman. She ventured to ask him if such was not the case; and, on his admitting it, she further inquired if he had not passed a considerable time in Germany, and was answered that he had; her quick ear detected something of the thick guttural pronunciation, which, Frenchmen say, they are able to discover even in the grandchildren of their countrymen who have lived any time beyond the Rhine. EG-Charlotte

And so her journey back to Haworth, after the rare pleasure of this visit to her friend, was pleasantly beguiled by conversation with the French gentleman; and she arrived at home refreshed and happy.

Foreigners say that it is only English girls who can thus be trusted to travel alone, and deep is their wonder at the daring confidence of English parents and guardians. From Vilette. Part 4.

2012-01-16T20:12:00.005+01:00

Vilette :
""My state of mind, and all accompanying circumstances, were just now such as most to favour the adoption of a new, resolute, and daring-- perhaps desperate--line of action. I had nothing to lose. Unutterable loathing of a desolate existence past, forbade return. If I failed in what I now designed to undertake, who, save myself, would suffer?""
Read Vilette: villette/e-text/section2

PATERNOSTER ROW. The "Chapter Coffee House"".

2012-01-16T20:03:00.003+01:00

Charlotte Bronte had intended to seek out the Chapter Coffee-house, where she had stayed before, and which would have been near the place where the steam-boats lay.......

The "Chapter Coffee House," at the corner of Chapter House Court, was in the last century famous for its punch, its pamphlets, and its newspapers. As lawyers and authors frequented the Fleet Street taverns, so booksellers haunted the "Chapter." Bonnell Thornton, in the Connoisseur, Jan., 1754, says:—"The conversation here naturally turns upon the newest publications, but their criticisms are somewhat singular. When they say a good book they do not mean to praise the style or sentiment, but the quick and extensive sale of it. That book is best which sells most."

Mrs. Gaskell has sketched the "Chapter" in 1848, with its low heavy-beamed ceilings, wainscoted rooms, and its broad, dark, shallow staircase. She describes it as formerly frequented by university men, country clergymen, and country booksellers, who, friendless in London, liked to hear the literary chat. Few persons slept there, and in a long, low, dingy room up-stairs the periodical meetings of the trade were held. "The high, narrow windows looked into the gloomy Row." Nothing of motion or of change could be seen in the grim, dark houses opposite, so near and close, although the whole width of the Row was between. The mighty roar of London ran round like the sound of an unseen ocean, yet every footfall on the pavement below might be heard distinctly in that unfrequented street.

The frequenters of the "Chapter Coffee House" (1797—1805) have been carefully described by Sir Richard Phillips. Alexander Stevens, editor of the "Annual Biography and Obituary," was one of the choice spirits who met nightly in the "Wittinagemot," as it was called, or the north-east corner box in the coffee-room. The neighbours, who dropped in directly the morning papers arrived, and before they were dried by the waiter, were called the Wet Paper Club, and another set intercepted the wet evening papers. Dr. Buchan, author of that murderous book, "Domestic Medicine," which teaches a man how to kill himself and family cheaply, generally acted as moderator. He was a handsome, white-haired man, a Tory, a good-humoured companion, and a bon vivant. If any one began to complain, or appear hypochondriacal, he used to say—

"Now let me prescribe for you, without a fee. Here, John, bring a glass of punch for Mr.— unless he likes brandy and water better. Now, take that, sir, and I'll warrant you'll soon be well. You're a peg too low; you want stimulus; and if one glass won't do, call for a second."

Dr. Gower, the urbane and able physician of the Middlesex Hospital, was another frequent visitor, as also that great eater and worker, Dr. Fordyce, whose balance no potations could disturb. Fordyce had fashionable practice, and brought rare news and much sound information on general subjects. He came to the "Chapter" from his wine, stayed about an hour, and sipped a glass of brandy and water. He then took another glass at the "London Coffee House," and a third at the "Oxford," then wound home to his house in Essex Street, Strand. The three doctors seldom agreed on medical subjects, and laughed loudly at each other's theories. They all, however, agreed in regarding the "Chapter" punch as an infallible and safe remedy for all ills.

The standing men in the box were Hammond and Murray. Hammond, a Coventry manufacturer, had scarcely missed an evening at the "Chapter" for forty-five years. His strictures on the events of the day were thought severe but able, and as a friend of liberty he had argued all through the times of Wilkes and the French and American wars. His Socratic arguments were very amusing. Mr. Murray, the great referee of the Wittinagemot, was a Scotch minister, who generally sat at the "Chapter" reading papers from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. He was known to have read straight through every morning and evening paper published in London for thirty years. His memory was so good that he was always appealed to for dates and matters of fact, but his mind was not remarkable for general lucidity. Other friends of Stevens's were Dr. Birdmore, the Master of the Charterhouse, who abounded in anecdote; Walker, the rhetorician and dictionary-maker, a most intelligent man, with a fine enunciation, and Dr. Towers, a political writer, who over his half-pint of Lisbon grew sarcastic and lively. Also a grumbling man named Dobson, who between asthmatic paroxysms vented his spleen on all sides. Dobson was an author and paradox-monger, but so devoid of principle that he was deserted by all his friends, and would have died from want, if Dr. Garthshore had not placed him as a patient in an empty fever hospital. Robinson, "the king of booksellers," and his sensible brother John were also frequenters of the "Chapter," as well as Joseph Johnson, the friend of Priestley, Paine, Cowper, and Fuseli, from St. Paul's Churchyard. Phillips, the speculative bookseller, then commencing his Monthly Magazine, came to the "Chapter" to look out for recruits, and with his pockets well lined with guineas to enlist them. He used to describe all the odd characters at this coffee-house, from the glutton in politics, who waited at daylight for the morning papers, to the moping and disconsolate bachelor, who sat till the fire was raked out by the sleepy waiter at half-past twelve at night. These strange figures succeeded each other regularly, like the figures in a magic lantern.

Alexander Chalmers, editor of many works, enlivened the Wittinagemot by many sallies of wit and humour. He took great pains not to be mistaken for a namesake of his, who, he used to say, carried "the leaden mace." Other habitués were the two Parrys, of the Courier and Jacobite papers, and Captain Skinner, a man of elegant manners, who represented England in the absurd procession of all nations, devised by that German revolutionary fanatic, Anacharsis Clootz, in Paris in 1793. Baker, an ex-Spitalfields manufacturer, a great talker and eater, joined the coterie regularly, till he shot himself at his lodgings in Kirby Street. It was discovered that his only meal in the day had been the nightly supper at the "Chapter," at the fixed price of a shilling, with a supplementary pint of porter. When the shilling could no longer be found for the supper, he killed himself.

Among other members of these pleasant coteries were Lowndes, the electrician; Dr. Busby, the musician; Cooke, the well-bred writer of conversation; and Macfarlane, the author of "The History of George III.," who was eventually killed by a blow from the pole of a coach during an election procession of Sir Francis Burdett at Brentford. Another celebrity was a young man named Wilson, called Langton, from his stories of the haut ton. He ran up a score of £40, and then disappeared, to the vexation of Mrs. Brown, the landlady, who would willingly have welcomed him, even though he never paid, as a means of amusing and detaining customers. Waithman, the Common Councilman, was always clear-headed and agreeable. There was also Mr. Paterson, a long-headed, speculative North Briton, who had taught Pitt mathematics. But such coteries are like empires; they have their rise and their fall. Dr. Buchan died; some pert young sparks offended the Nestor, Hammond, who gave up the place, after forty-five years' attendance, and before 1820 the "Chapter" grew silent and dull.

Read more british-history/report

Charlotte Bronte travelling alone to Brussels. The first time her father, Emily, Mary Taylor were her companions. But the second time she traveled alone. Part 3.

2012-01-16T19:47:00.008+01:00

The London & Birmingham Railway’s Euston Square Station in 1838

Towards the end of January, the time came for Charlotte to return to Brussels. Her journey thither was rather disastrous. She had to make her way alone; and the train from Leeds to London, which should have reached Euston-square early in the afternoon, was so much delayed that it did not get in till ten at night. She had intended to seek out the Chapter Coffee-house, where she had stayed before, and which would have been near the place where the steam-boats lay; but she seems to have been frightened by the idea of arriving at an hour which, to Yorkshire notions, was so late and unseemly; and taking a cab, therefore, at the station,

she drove straight to the London Bridge Wharf, and desired a waterman to row her to the Ostend packet, which was to sail the next morning. She described to me, pretty much as she has since described it in Villette her sense of loneliness, and yet her strange pleasure in the excitement of the situation, as in the dead of that winter's night she went swiftly over the dark river to the black hull's side, and was at first refused leave to ascend to the deck. "No passengers might sleep on board," they said, with some appearance of disrespect. She looked back to the lights and subdued noises of London--that "Mighty Heart" in which she had no place--and, standing up in the rocking boat, she asked to speak to some one in authority on board the packet. He came, and her quiet simple statement of her wish, and her reason for it, quelled the feeling of sneering distrust in those who had first heard her request; and impressed the authority so favourably that he allowed her to come on board, and take possession of a berth. The next morning she sailed; and at seven on Sunday evening she reached the Rue d'Isabelle once more; having only left Haworth on Friday morning at an early hour.

Mrs. Gaskell describes the Capter Coffeehouse as it was in those July days.

It had the appearance of a dwelling-house two hundred years old or so, such as one sometimes sees in ancient country towns; the ceilings of the small rooms were low, and had heavy beams running across them; the walls were wainscoted breast-high; the stairs were shallow, broad, and dark, taking up much space in the centre of the house. The gray-haired elderly man who officiated as waiter seems to have been touched from the very first by the quiet simplicity of the two ladies, and he tried to make them feel comfortable and at home in the long, low, dingy room upstairs. The high, narrow windows looked into the gloomy Row; the sisters, clinging together in the most remote window-seat (as Mr. Smith tells me he found them when he came that Saturday evening), could see nothing of motion or of change in the grim, dark houses opposite, so near and close, although the whole breadth of the Row was between. building history/inns/coffee-houses

Women and Urban Life in Victorian Britain By Lynda Nead. Part 2

2012-01-16T19:40:00.004+01:00

Current views concerning Victorian femininity continue to be dominated by the 19th-century concept of domestic purity and the associated figure of the ideal woman, the 'angel in the house', carrying out her mission as wife, mother and daughter.

But we should not allow this particular conception of Victorian femininity to blind us to the existence of different, sometimes conflicting, versions of female respectability in this period. Are we really to believe that upstanding women of the Victorian middle classes did not travel alone in the city? That they did not walk to visit friends and relatives, or travel on the omnibus or underground railway?

'Respectability was not as clear-cut as Victorian domestic values would suggest.'

It is time to take the angel out of the house and place her back on the pavements of the city - not as a victim, but as a confident pedestrian. Evidence of the everyday presence of ordinary women on the city streets can be found in many historical sources from the period.

Women were evidently quick to exploit the new opportunities offered by technology and industrialisation. One lithograph from the 1860s (London Transport Museum) depicts King's Cross, one of the original stations of the underground railway. The focus is on the architecture and the engine, but the incidental details of the figures on the platform show women of respectable dress and appearance, on their own, travelling independently across the city. Indeed, female use of the underground was so extensive that the Illustrated London Newswelcomed the publication, in 1868, of a new railway map which 'appears to be exactly that for which the British matrons are urgent'.

Kings Cross station, Metropolitan Railway, 1863 ©

But respectability was not as clear-cut as Victorian domestic values would suggest. The urban crowd brought together strangers of all classes in greater numbers than ever before and offered unprecedented opportunities for social interaction. So we can begin to imagine women as far more active and independent participants in the social and economic world of Victorian cities. Certainly there were dangers in the city (as there still are) but there were also immense possibilities and sources of pleasure and excitement.
bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_out

I am always surprised, when I read how free, without male escort, the Bronte Sisters could travel by train or by carriage through the country and abroad. I always thought it was not allowed in the Victorian period. I'll search the Internet for an answer. What was the situation in the period 1800 - 1900 when a woman wanted to travel? Part 1

2012-01-16T14:41:00.013+01:00

First some information about the public transport in the period 18.00-19.00.

The railways moved goods, foods and people faster than canals or horse drawn wagons. They were the greatest factor in transforming Britain into an industrial nation. They were a huge employer of people either on the railways, building new tracks or being a goods delivery service. Government legislation was affected as suddenly Members of Parliament could get to London with relative ease from far flung country regions.

The lives of millions were changed as suddenly the masses were able to travel further than ten miles in one direction. Now all could manage rare day trips to the new coastal seaside.

Left - The Railway Station 1862 by William Frith. (Paddington, London, UK)

Carriages were divided into categories called classes and the 1st class rail carriage was designed like a horse drawn coach. It had foot warmers, oil lamps and closed sides and roof. 2nd class carriages were roofed, but open sided.

Picture to right - To Brighton and Back for 3s and 6d by Charles Rossiter.

3rd class carriages were simple unroofed trucks without seats. In third class, passengers could be blistered by sparks and choked. In the open sided carriage illustrated above an umbrella and a parasol are used for protection. The man protects his top hat from flying sparks and another man dons a blanket to keep off the chill and dusty smoke.

By 1846 all carriages had to be roofed by law.

Victorians/A Symbol Of Victorian Progress

The Omnibus

“Omnibus” is a Latin word meaning “For all”. These buses (yes, that’s what they are, horse-drawn buses!) were popular from the early 19th century until the early 20th century, when the first motorised buses took their place. Horse-drawn omnibuses were either one or two-decker buses pulled by a pair of horses along fixed omnibus lines within crowded cities, and they were an effective way to move large numbers of people quickly around a city along a predetermined and fixed route.

they-go-together-like-a-horse-and-carriage-the-variety-of-horse-drawn-transport/

Keighley railway station.

The Bronte Sisters traveled by train from the station of Keighley. They walked to the station or travelled by the town gig.

First opened in March 1847 by the Leeds and Bradford Extension Railway (although rebuilt on the present site in 1883),^[1] the station is located on the Airedale Line 17 miles (27 km) north west of Leeds. It is managed by Northern Rail, who operate most of the passenger trains serving it. Electric trains operate frequently from Keighley towards Bradford Forster Square, Leeds and Skipton. Longer distance trains on the Leeds to Morecambe Line andSettle to Carlisle Line also call here.

Keighley is also the northern terminus of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. This is a heritage branch-line railway run by volunteers that was originally built by the Midland Railway and opened in 1867.

More: information/history/

2012-01-14T19:35:00.002+01:00

look on

soeursbronte

you see paintings, portraits, photographs

about how the Bronte Sisters may have looked.

Film Jane Eyre

2012-01-13T22:37:00.001+01:00

focusfeatures.com/slideshow/the_real_places_of_jane_eyre_s_world

Parsonage

2012-01-13T22:30:00.001+01:00

Interesting photostream about the parsonage

flickr/oxfordshirechurches/in/photostream/

Weblog with pictures

2012-01-12T17:45:00.000+01:00

On the weblog

the Time Sculptor

you can see pictures

about Haworth and

the Parsonage

Just a week to save Bronte church

2012-01-12T17:17:00.006+01:00

Published on Thursday 12 January 2012 09:11

TOURISTS from all over the world may come to visit it but time is running out for campaigners fighting to save the church where Jane and Emily Bronte lie buried.

Fundraisers at St Michael and All Angels, Haworth, say they just have a handful of days in which to raise the money to guarantee builders can start £1.25 million of vital works to the famed place of worship.

English Heritage has offered £100,000 towards the scheme to repair its badly leaking roof but to secure it fundraisers were told they needed to raise a total of £65,000 in match funding.

And although polite Victorian society, including the Brontes, would no doubt have not approved, these are desperate times.

So well-wishers of the church, agreed to bare almost all in charity calendars to raise thousands of pounds to help the appeal.

By Boxing Day the amount needed was £31,000 but with the calendars selling well, John Huxley, who is spearheading the fundraising, said he thought D-Day - January 20 - was within sight.

Read more. You can also look to a video. Yorkshire Post

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A glimpse at the women's calendar

Yorkshiretimes/Haworth-couldnt-wear-less

“Both men and women of the Worth Valley agreed to take part in calendar shoots entitled Haworth Couldn’t Wear Less - with the male version outselling its female counterpart by a factor of three to one at the moment.

Emily Bronte portrait goes under the hammer

2012-01-12T16:58:00.006+01:00

An oil painting believed to be of author Emily Bronte will be the latest item relating to one of the literary sisters to go under the hammer. The piece is being sold by Northamptonshire firm JP Humbert Auctioneers after the sale of another painting of the reclusive writer for £23,836 in December. It also follows the sale of an unpublished manuscript by sibling Charlotte Bronte at auction to a Paris museum for a record value of nearly £700,000 last month. The hitherto unseen painting of Emily Bronte measures 33cm by 24cm and depicts a pensive-looking Victorian woman, auctioneer Jonathan Humbert said. Annotated Emily Jane Bronte, it has more unclear writing, possibly an artist’s name or title, he said. The painting was handed to the auctioneers by a private owner after seeing publicity around the previous portrait, and is expected to fetch at least £3,000. “I am amazed that this second painting has turned up on our doorstep,” Mr Humbert said. “One unknown portrait of Emily Bronte is luck enough but two in two months is quite remarkable. “This painting is definitely mid-19th century and has been attributed to Miss Bronte by the artist at the time of painting.” The portrait is set to go on sale, unreserved, on February 23 at JP Humbert’s sale room in Towcester, Northants, with a provisional estimate of £3,000-4,000.

Read the comment of Graham Watson:

Grahamwatson

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 11:26 PM

This portrait is a fake. It's not of Emily Bronte. Given its style, I think it would also be reasonable to doubt that it was painted before the 1960s. For one thing it doesn't match descriptions of Emily Bronte, or resemble the authenticated portraits of her. Ellen Nussey, a friend of the Bronte family, described Emily having dark blue-grey eyes. This blueish colour can be seen in the group portrait painted by her brother and now in the National Portrait Gallery. The woman in this painting clearly has brown eyes. Let the potential buyer of this be warned!

Read more:emily_bronte_portrait_goes_under_the_hamme
guardian/emily-bronte-portrait-under-hammer

Moorland

2012-01-10T17:31:00.000+01:00

The weather is one of the very reasons the moors exist at all. The wet, cool conditions allows peat and other organic soils to develop - this weather stops plants from fully decaying and so the peat builds up over time - thereby storing carbon - and thereby cooling global temperatures by taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Bronte Weather/wiley-windy-moors

Graveyard around the Parsonage

2012-01-08T22:53:00.001+01:00

Very special pictures

of the graveyard

around the Parsonage

on the weblog

black-swans-pond/heathcliff-its-me

Old pictures from London

2012-01-07T15:13:00.001+01:00

Old pictures from London

images/victorian+london

flickr/victorian+london

Charlotte Bronte's comment on the visit of Queen Victoria to Brussels

2012-01-06T21:06:00.012+01:00

Read the comment from Charlotte Bronte on:

thebrusselsbrontegroup/leopoldqueenvictoria

You ask about Queen Victoria's visit to Brussels. I saw her for an instant flashing through the Rue Royale in a carriage and six, surrounded by soldiers. She was laughing and talking very gaily. She looked a little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed, not much dignity or pretension about her. The Belgians liked her very well on the whole. They said she enlivened the sombre court of King Leopold, which is usually as gloomy as a conventicle.

Well wishers from around the world have donated cash to church repair fund

2012-01-05T12:31:00.007+01:00

The Telegraph and Argus

Benefactors across the UK and in the US have pledged their support to Haworth Parish Church £1.25 million restoration appeal.
Donations totalling almost £5,000 have flooded in from as far afield as London, Gloucester, Northern Ireland and the US following a call for help made in the Telegraph & Argus on Boxing Day.
Before Christmas, church leaders warned they could lose a £100,000 English Heritage grant to repair the badly leaking south roof unless they raised £65,000 in match funding before the middle of January.
An appeal started last spring had only raised £33,000 meaning fundraisers had to find the remaining £32,000 in a matter of weeks.
Haworth Parish Council chairman John Huxley, who is also chairman of the church’s Future Group and secretary of the Parochial Church Council said: “The response has been superb and we feel deeply humbled by it.
“Since Boxing Day we have received more than £4,500 from well wishers. Obviously we have still got to raise a lot more but it is a big step along the way.
“People are now aware of the situation and we have more hope than we had before.”
Following the report in the T&A, the church’s plight was also publicised in the national and international media, including in Ulster, Wales and the US.
In the last seven days, a donation of £1,000 was made through the parish church website and Haworth Primary School gardening club donated a further £500. A charitable trust in Ilkley has also contacted the church to discuss a possible donation.
Priest-in-charge of the Parish Church The Reverend Peter Mayo-Smith said: “It has been wonderful really to realise that so many people do care so passionately about the church. A lot of people have been putting their hands in their pockets and sending us donations. It is very humbling and we are extremely grateful. I am now optimistic we will reach our target.”
The church is visited by more than one million people every year. Its crypt contains the bodies of famous literary sisters Charlotte and Emily Bronte.
The sisters’ father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte, was the vicar in the 1800s.
Donations can be made online at haworthchurch.co.uk or cheques made payable to Haworth Church Restoration Fund can be sent c/o the treasurer, 17 North View Terrace, Haworth, BD22 8HJ

Parsonage

2012-01-05T12:03:00.000+01:00

Parsonage

January. What did the bronte Sisters see when they were walking over the moors?

2012-01-05T12:00:00.010+01:00

The cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

Jane Eyre/ Charlotte Bronte

January marks the start of the new year, the shortest day has passed and the days are lengthening, will be some time before we see any effect. Cold days with heavy frosts and snow are a feature of the month.

As winter progresses food is scarce for wildlife, any snow on the ground compounds the problem. There are fewer berries such as Holly, Rowan Hawthorn on the branches in the hedgerows. Birds are active after dawn foraging for food and hour before sunset eating in readiness for the long night ahead. This is a good time to feed birds as they will appreciate a meal and you may be rewarded by seeing other species such as Bullfinch as their need for food makes them less timid.

Redwing and Fieldfare which migrated from Northern Europe to winter in Britain can be seen. If you are lucky you may also see Waxwings; a winter visitor from Russia and Northern Europe. They are usually spotted where berries such as Rowan are found.

Plants are in their dormant stage, the exception are bulbs such as Snowdrops which have energy stored from the previous growing season, later in the month their new shoots can be seen just poking through the soil. Time-lapse of a snowdrop flowering here...

Photo's parsonage

2012-01-05T11:56:00.000+01:00

flickr.com/photos/oxfordshirechurches//photostream/

Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle, by Clement K. Shorter

2012-01-03T20:46:00.010+01:00

Many changes have been made since Mr. Brontë died, but the house still retains its essentially interesting features. In the time of the Brontës, it is true, the front outlook was as desolate as to-day it is attractive. Then there was a little piece of barren ground running down to the walls of the churchyard, with here and there a currant-bush as the sole adornment. Now we see an abundance of trees and a well-kept lawn.

Miss Ellen Nussey well remembers seeing Emily and Anne, on a fine summer afternoon, sitting on stools in this bit of garden plucking currants from the poor insignificant bushes.

There was no premonition of the time, not so far distant, when the rough doorway separating the churchyard from the garden, which was opened for their mother when they were little children, should be opened again time after time in rapid succession for their own biers to be carried through. This gateway is now effectively bricked up. In the days of the Brontës it was reserved for the p. 60passage of the dead—a grim arrangement, which, strange to say, finds no place in any one of the sisters’ stories.

We enter the house, and the door on the right leads into Mr. Brontë’s study, always called the parlour; that on the left into the dining-room, where the children spent a great portion of their lives. From childhood to womanhood, indeed, the three girls regularly breakfasted with their father in his study.

In the dining-room—a square and simple room of a kind common enough in the houses of the poorer middle-classes—they ate their mid-day dinner, their tea and supper.
Mr. Brontë joined them at tea, although he always dined alone in his study. The children’s dinner-table has been described to me by a visitor to the house. At one end sat Miss Branwell, at the other, Charlotte, with Emily and Anne on either side. Branwell was then absent. The living was of the simplest. A single joint, followed invariably by one kind or another of milk-pudding. Pastry was unknown in the Brontë household. Milk-puddings, or food composed of milk and rice, would seem to have made the principal diet of Emily and Anne Brontë, and to this they added a breakfast of Scotch porridge, which they shared with their dogs. It is more interesting, perhaps, to think of all the daydreams in that room, of the mass of writing which was achieved there, of the conversations and speculation as to the future.
Miss Nussey has given a pleasant picture of twilight when Charlotte and she walked with arms encircling one another round and round the table, and Emily and Anne followed in similar fashion. There was no lack of cheerfulness and of hope at that period.

Behind Mr. Brontë’s studio was the kitchen; and there we may easily picture the Brontë children telling stories to Tabby or Martha, or to whatever servant reigned at the time, and learning, as all of them did, to become thoroughly domesticated—Emily most of all. Behind the dining-room was a p. 61peat-room, which, when Charlotte was married in 1854, was cleared out and converted into a little study for Mr. Nicholls. The staircase with its solid banister remains as it did half a century ago; and at its foot one is still shown the corner which tradition assigns as the scene of Emily’s conflict with her dog Keeper. On the right, at the back, as you mount the staircase, was a small room allotted to Branwell as a studio.

On the other side of this staircase, also at the back, was the servants’ room. In the front of the house, immediately over the dining-room, was Miss Branwell’s room, afterwards the spare bedroom until Charlotte Brontë married. In that room she died.

On the left, over Mr. Brontë’s study, was Mr. Brontë’s bedroom. It was the room which, for many years, he shared with Branwell, and it was in that room that Branwell and his father died at an interval of twenty years. On the staircase, half-way up, was a grandfather’s clock, which Mr. Brontë used to wind up every night on his way to bed. He always went to bed at nine o’clock, and Miss Nussey well remembers his stentorian tones as he called out as he left his study and passed the dining-room door—

‘Don’t be up late, children’—which they usually were.

Between these two front rooms upstairs, and immediately over the passage, with a door facing the staircase, was a box room; but this was the children’s nursery, where for many years the children slept, where the bulk of their little books were compiled, and where, it is more than probable, The Professor and Jane Eyre were composed.

Gutenberg

On this day in 1844

2012-01-01T19:19:00.001+01:00

Charlotte Bronte left the Penssionat at Brussels for home. While studying there she had received a Diploma.

TO MISS EMILY J. BRONTË

‘Brussels, December 19th, 1843.

‘Dear E. J.,—I have taken my determination. I hope to be at home the day after New Year’s Day. I have told Mme. Héger. But in order to come home I shall be obliged to draw on my cash for another £5. I have only £3 at present, and as there are several little things I should like to buy before I leave Brussels—which you know cannot be got as well in England—£3 would not suffice. Low spirits have afflicted me much lately, but I hope all will be well when I get home—above all, if I find papa and you and B. and A. well. I am not ill in body. It is only the mind which is a trifle shaken—for want of comfort.
‘I shall try to cheer up now.—Good-bye.

‘C. B.’

What will happen in 2012 in Brontëland?

2012-01-01T14:18:00.003+01:00

2012 in Brontëland

Brontë landscape's battle for survival as new housing threatens tourist trade Haworth's church roof needs repairs, while plans for housing estates overshadow moors where the sisters walked

2012-01-01T14:16:00.001+01:00

The Rector of Haworth's three daughters were with him last week as he prepared his sermons for Christmas and the new year, given in the church at the top of the steep hill of Main Street.

"Yes, I have three daughters, but they are not Charlotte, Emily and Anne, and happily they have all grown up to have families of their own," said the Rev Peter Mayo-Smith, incumbent at St Michael and All Angels parish church, where 190 years ago the Rev Patrick Brontë lived in the adjacent parsonage with his own three girls, the writers now established as among the most famous Englishwomen ever to have lived. "I did discover I was married on the same day as Rev Brontë married his Maria though, which was rather spooky."

But the Anglican clergyman does not really have to search about for reminders of his celebrated predecessor. Any time he steps into his church he finds 30 or 40 visitors clustered around the floor plaque that marks the early graves of Charlotte and Emily Jane. "It is very definitely a place of pilgrimage," he said. "People leave money and flowers, poems and books, every day."

Leaflets in the West Yorkshire church are being translated into Japanese, Chinese and Korean and visitors from Europe, Australia, New Zealand and America are commonplace.

"We have come here because of the books, of course," say an Italian couple, shaking off the cold rain in the porch of the church on Friday. "I studied them at university and I love them very much. Wuthering Heightsis my favourite," explains the young woman, who plans to stay for a week. In the old parsonage, which houses the Brontë museum, custodians often have to put up the sign asking tourists to wait outside for 10 minutes because the place is full.

But all is not well in "Brontëland". This winter Mayo-Smith has found himself at the centre of a battle to communicate to the wider world just how popular Haworth is as a tourist destination. The fate of the historic parish church, together with the future appearance of the whole Pennine village, is soon to be decided. In the middle of this month time will run out both on an appeal for maintenance funds for St Michael's and on a plan to build more modern housing estates in Haworth.

Regardless of the sale at auction last month of a miniature handwritten manuscript penned by the 14-year-old Charlotte for £690,850 and of the recent release of two new acclaimed film versions of Brontë novels,Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, the geographical legacy of the writers, a crucial source of local income, is in peril.

Along with John Huxley, secretary of the parochial church council and chairman of the parish council, the rector is fighting to preserve his church. Since the duo revealed its plight a year ago they have found staunch support among parishioners and from the international Brontë fan club, but they still need to find tens of thousands of pounds more.

St Michael's roof is leaking badly in several places and the plasterwork and rare wall paintings above the altar are disintegrating. Unsightly plastic sheeting covers the beams over the organ console at the entrance to the corner of the church which is now designated the Brontë Chapel.

Of equal importance to many in Haworth this new year is the parallel struggle to deter developers from building further housing estates across the hills once crossed by the literary sisters and their potent cast of characters.

"There is an assault on the Brontë landscape going on," said Huxley. "It is not deliberate, but the reason so many people come here is to see the streets and the hills and moor that the sisters wrote about. Some of these views should be sacrosanct."

Campaigners point out that the village is already dotted with new housing estates and several of the older villagers already regard their Haworth as a distant memory. The narrow, cobbled streets, or more correctly "setted" streets, that the Brontës walked may survive, but cul-de-sacs of bungalows and modern terraces are visible at every turn. Nevertheless, a further 14 potential development sites have been identified in a Local Development Framework document under consultation.

Huxley is bemused. "The document says it wants to preserve and promote Haworth as a tourist destination," he continued. "After all, it's perhaps second in England only to Stratford. Then, just a few pages on, it says we have to have new housing estates."

On the other side of the valley from the parish church stands the former home of the Merrall family, one-time mill owners and village benefactors who are commemorated in the stained-glass windows of the church. It has been usefully converted into an imposing youth hostel, but the once wild land surrounding the house has been covered with new builds and another planning application is lurking in the wings.

Huxley understands the need for new housing, he said, particularly for young first-time buyers, and he and his fellow campaigners are not opposed to shouldering some of the burden imposed by Bradford council's edict that 45,500 new homes must be built in the wider area, but they are desperate to protect what they – and English Heritage – regard as a location of international significance.

"There are three old mills in the village," said Huxley. "Surely we can develop a couple of these as brownfield sites, without going out into the greenfield areas?"

Mayo-Smith adds that Haworth may have craft shops and the Villette Coffee Shop, but it is not a well-to-do area and cannot look after its own future unaided: "There are houses I go to around here with no carpet and no paint or paper on the walls. There is need in Haworth."

This year the campaigners will be launching fresh strategies to get across their case. Not only will they be making a new appeal for repairs to the dilapidated roof of the Old School Room, built by Patrick Brontë and once taught in by Charlotte, but they are also planning to cost repairs to the wall paintings and sound out support for an annual Haworth Festival.

Since the villagers have begun to realise the parlous state of the church roof, they have rallied round. The Baptist, Catholic and Methodist congregations have offered support. Calendars with photographs of assorted naked villagers, one including the Baptist minister, are being sold to raise money. Small sums of money have also arrived in envelopes from Brontë readers in America.

Now 20 January looms large in Haworth, which is when English Heritage will come back to see if the church has raised the required £65,000 in order for it to release a pot of £100,000 to repair the worst side of the roof. So far the parish has raised just under £30,000. By chance 20 January is also the last day for objections to be registered to the planned housing developments before Bradford council rules on Haworth's future.

The isolated hill village, 700ft above sea level and still buffeted even in middling winter weather by the "wuthering" winds, is waiting to learn its fate. guardian/bronte-landscape-housing-tourist-trade

2011-12-31T15:33:00.001+01:00

2011-12-31T00:08:00.001+01:00

Brontë in Paris; pity poor Haworth

2011-12-30T23:08:00.000+01:00

My news from Paris is that on Jan 30 this cultural jewel, a tiny manuscript written by a youthful Charlotte Brontë in 1830, will go on public display for the first time.

That is an awful long time for the public to have had to wait. So it is good to be able to add that there is a geographical bonus: there are far worse places to find yourself on a winter's day than the vicinity of 222 Boulevard Saint-Germain.

Le Musée des lettres et manuscrits - someone please explain to me why Le not La, but do NOT get me on to the subject of the accent in Brontë - was successful in an auction at Sotheby's in London on Dec 14 in securing the "little book", which measures just 35 x 61mm but nevertheless contains 20 pages with more than 4,000 words of minuscule script. Read more: France salut

Portrait of Emily.

2011-12-29T21:43:00.005+01:00

From: bronteblog/better-disputed-bronte-than-none.html

It is well known what our opinion and the Brontë Society's opinion is about this alleged portrait of Emily Brontë (attributed to John Hunter Thompson of Bradford around 1840) recently auctioned at J.P. Humbert Auctioneers. This is the press release of its auction sale:

Emily Brontë 'Bonnet' Portrait sells in excess of £23000
A portrait of Emily Brontë has sold at a Northamptonshire auction house for £23,836 (premium inclusive) against a pre-sale estimate of £10,000-15,000. It will stay in England after a fierce bidding battle with a prospective buyer in America.
After much speculation over the past month as to whether the 7 'A' x 5 '/4" oil on board was of the reclusive English writer or not, the evidence as produced by the auctioneers seemed to stack up meeting much international interest and buyers in the room and online.
Auctioneer Jonathan Humbert of J.P. Humbert Auctioneers Ltd of Towcester said: "we are delighted with the result which seems to prove our contention that this was in fact a hitherto unknown portrait of Emily Brontë."
"During viewing, at least four independent authorities on the Brontë family concurred with our view, one of whom has written a definitive publication on Wuthering Heights."

We wonder who these anonymous independent authorities are. bronteblog/better-disputed-bronte-than-none.html

2011-12-29T21:40:00.001+01:00

Frocktalk posts a very interesting interview with Michael O'Connor, costume designer of Jane Eyre 2011 in which he says thinks like this:

Tell me about how you arrived at the color palette. It was exquisite. Was it a result of conversations with the Production Designer and DP, or was it something the director had in mind?
The colour palette really is about the balance between Jane and other characters. The book often describes Jane as wearing plain black. I thought this would be too severe so chose shades of grey, dark blue and slate colours with subtle patterns to reflect the mood of the scene. Once these colours were established, other characters fit in around her. So, for example Rochester has a brown frock coat and not the more usual black; likewise Mrs. Fairfax is mostly in brown. Blanche Ingram, where the temptation is to be brash and colourful, could be designed more subtly. bronteblog

2011-12-29T19:56:00.004+01:00

Bronte blog:

A Brontë mention in the Downton Abbey Christmas special, the book title they have to guess in the Christmas charade is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. You can see a complete photoset on Sunny Dreams.

The new black in economy and politics is, of course, budget cuts. They know no limits and we wonder if when they are planned someone looks beyond the sheer figures and thinks of the consequences (social and economical) of many of these (improvised) decisions. The latest in this series comes from Kirkless Council:

Museums could close for a quarter of the year to cut costs.
Kirklees Council officials have drawn up plans to shut cultural centres across the district in December, January and February.
The move would affect sites including: (...)
Red House Museum in Gomersal, an 1830s home which featured in the Charlotte Brontë novelShirley.
Oakwell Hall in Birstall, a 17th Century stately home with extensive grounds which also featured in Shirley. (...)
The proposal is set to be formally unveiled next month, with the museums due to close in December 2012.
Unison’s chief steward for wellbeing and communities Kath McHendry told the Examiner yesterday: “We haven’t got firm details but the thing they are looking at is closing them in December, January and February.
“The museums would be closed for three months, unless there was a special event. That seems to be the proposal they want to run with.” (...)
Huddersfield Civic Society chairman Chris Marsden also attacked the plan yesterday.
“I think it’s a miserable idea to close the council’s cultural offering for a quarter of the year,” he said.
“The education of schoolchildren should be higher up the council’s agenda. This plan would spread ignorance.”
Mr Marsden believes the closures would harm Huddersfield’s tourism industry.
“It’s discouraging people from visiting the town,” he said.
“If you bring someone to Huddersfield, you would expect to be able to offer people some insight into the town through art and museums.”
Mr Marsden added that Kirklees should consider less radical ways to save money.
“I would like to know the rationale behind this,” he said.
“Closing museums for one day a week, or shutting earlier in the evening would be kinder.
“Closing for three months would be hard. The winter is a good time to visit museums, in the summer people want to do outdoor things, like go to Yorkshire Sculpture Park.” (Barry Gibson in The Huddersfield Daily Examiner)

UK DVD Releases: March 2012

2011-12-28T09:16:00.001+01:00

The DVD (and Blu-Ray) release of Jane Eyre 2011 in the UK will be next March 12 (thanks to Traxy for telling us). It seems that the edition will contain the same extras as the Region 1 edition:T

Jane Eyre (Triple play Blu-ray+DVD+Digital Copy)

Universal Pictures UK
March 12, 2011

Additional Material:
Audiocomentary by Cary Fukunaga
A Look Inside Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre Featurette 03:39)
Deleted Scenes
00:02:47 (JANE LOST ON THE MOORS) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:48 (MRS. REED PUTS JANE BACK INTO THE RED ROOM) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:59 (MRS. REED TALKS TO JANE IN BED) (DELETED SCENE)
00:02:47 (BADMINTON IN THE GARDEN) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:47 (JANE MEETS ROCHESTER ON THE STAIRCASE) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:29 (ADELE SCREAMS IN JANE'S ROOM) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:29 (JANE OVERHEARS THE INGRAMS TALKING) (DELETED SCENE)
00:03:12 (BERTHA RIPS WEDDING VEIL IN JANE'S ROOM) (DELETED SCENE)
00:03:44 (ROCHESTER PLEADS WITH JANE TO STAY) (DELETED SCENE)
Easter Egg: Audiocomentary by Rob Meyer and Ameer Youssef, close associates of director Cary Fukunaga.
To Score Jane Eyre (02:11)
The Mysterious Light of Jane Eyre (01:50) — Interviews with cast and crew on the cinematography and the novel's gothic aspect.Bronteblog

The Rylands Online Collection

2011-12-27T19:42:00.001+01:00

Browse images related to Mrs. Gaskell at the Rylands Online Collection. Including some of her letters, plates of drawings that originally appeared in first editions or the magazine publications of her works, and the famous miniature portrait. I highly recommend you to visit it:enriqueta.man.ac.uk Gaskell

Haworth

2011-12-26T14:22:00.006+01:00

WEBLOGS about Haworth

Eves Alexandria

Things mean a lot

Rachel Lucie

A Christmas Carol

2011-12-25T21:31:00.002+01:00

object width="420" height="315">

MERRY CHRISTMAS

2011-12-25T16:32:00.005+01:00

Happy Christmas to all Bronte Sisters readers!

The Bronte Sisters and their Christmas holidays.

2011-12-25T00:26:00.008+01:00

Only two months later, when Charlotte was home for the Christmas holidays, the sisters had a chance to test this power further. The Brontë household servant Tabby had broken her leg on the frozen Mainstreet of Haworth and was to be sent away to recover at her sister's cottage. Emily, Charlotte and Anne protested, but were ignored. They initiated a hunger strike that only lasted 24 hours before their Aunt and father gave in, and allowed Tabby to be nursed at Haworth.

As late as 1833, when Charlotte was seventeen, her father"s Christmas present to her was a notebook at the front of which he thought it necessary to make the written plea that 'all that is written in this book, must be in a good, plain and legible hand' (Barker, The Brontës, p. 201).

But, in the Christmas holidays, the three sisters again met at their home, and discussed their hopes and prospects

It was about Christmas time of 1836 that Miss Wooler transferred her school from the fine, open and breezy Roe Head, to Heald House, Dewsbury Moor a much less bracing situation, which was sure to be less healthy to anyone accustomed, as the Brontes were, to the moors at Ha worth ; Charlotte very much regretted the change, especially for the sake of her sister Anne. Charlotte returned to the school after the holidays

When returning home for her Christmas holidays, Anne informs the Robinsons that she wishes to terminate her employment with them. She wants to stay at home, taking the place of Emily, who will soon be leaving, with Charlotte, to attend a school in Brussels. However, Anne has made herself so indispensable at Thorp Green that the Robinsons plead with her to return, which she ultimately decides

to do.

Christmas 1839 saw the whole Bronte family reunited in Haworth, all four children having failed to hold a job and all four now unemployed.

Charlotte to Miss Wooler
"Dec. 12th, 1853.

"I wonder how you are spending these long winter evenings. Alone, probably, like me. The thought often crosses me, as I sit by myself, how pleasant it would be if you lived within a walking distance, and I could go to you sometimes, or have you to come and spend a day and night with me.

Reincarnation of Emily Bronte

2011-12-24T18:21:00.003+01:00

Cailin McGlory from the weblog

Personality Spirituality

sent me an email.

She told me about her weblog

and wrote:

" I feel about Branwell the way your feel about the girls"

On this weblog

you can read this story:

" There is a very strong likelihood that Jewelle St. James, a health-care worker from British Columbia, is the reincarnation of the nineteenth-century novelist Emily Brontë, author of Wuthering Heights. ""

and about the

The Lennon-Bronte Connection

The Bronte Sisters in winter walking over the moors

2011-12-22T19:40:00.006+01:00

With a lot of thanks to Lynn Marie Cunliffe. She gave permission to use these photographs: See for more information on www.abigailsateliers.com and http://abigailsateliers.wordpress.com

Christmas Customs in Bronte Country

2011-12-22T19:19:00.004+01:00

hristmas with the Bronte Family, and a look at the festivities celebrated in Yorkshire in the 19th century. Christmas in the Bronte Household; vessel maids and spice cake and Christmas accounts from the Bronte novels - all these and more are described in The Brontes Christmas. No matter how sheltered from the 'excesses' of Christmas, the Bronte children must have heard the Waits. They were the official city watchmen whose job was to patrol the streets at night and keep the peace. However, as they invariably played musical instruments and/or sang, to show they were on duty, that peace cannot have been kept very quietly! At Christmas time, hey played and sang the familiar Christmas carols and songs, and were occasionally rewarded with a few coppers, a pie or a hot drink, it being the season of goodwill. Carols were also sung at the houses by the choirs of local churches. Carols were also sung at the houses by the choirs of local churches. We've little information about the services held under the Revd Patrick Bronte, the father of the literary family. The children, after the death of their mother, were cared for by their aunt Branwell, a strict Wesleyan. Maybe, just maybe, their father's little church sang out with Christmas hymns. christmasarchives/brontechristmas

A Bronte meets her sister’s ghost - Reviews - Halifax Courier

2011-12-22T19:08:00.003+01:00

The play was acted out in the bleak location of Moor Lodge near Stanbury and iIn a strange twist, Ian Howard (Branwell) interrupts the performance to reveal his theory that the building where we sit was possibly the inspiration for Ferndean in Jane Eyre. Lynn Marie Cunliffe, who played Charlotte, exhibited her range of exquisite hand-made period gowns. Ten year-old Tom Howard played the flute. A Bronte meets her sister’s ghost - Reviews - Halifax Courier
abigailsateliers/a-bronte-christmas-carol-ferndean-manor-dec-19th/

Bronte Weather Project: Anne Bronte's letters

2011-12-21T15:22:00.001+01:00

Bronte Weather Project: Anne Bronte's letters: "Charlotte is well, and mediates writing to you. Happily for all parties the east wind no longer prevails - during its continuance she co...

A XMAS VIDEO's FROM DARREN

2011-12-20T21:01:00.002+01:00

Photos Like Postcards from Darren Hayman on Vimeo.

Lost in the Snow from Darren Hayman on Vimeo.

fikarecordings.com/christmasinhaworth/

Restauration of Top Withens

2011-12-19T19:03:00.000+01:00

Look at: bbc Restoration of 'Wuthering Heights' farmhouse

On the Death of Emily Jane Brontë By Charlotte Brontë

2011-12-19T10:45:00.006+01:00

163 years ago today Emily Brontë turned 'her dying eyes reluctantly from the pleasant sun' as Charlotte put it.

"Dec. 21st, 1848.

"Emily suffers no more from pain or weakness now. She never will suffer more in this world. She is gone, after a hard short conflict. She died on Tuesday, the very day I wrote to you. I thought it very possible she might be with us still for weeks; and a few hours afterwards, she was in eternity. Yes; there is no Emily in time or on earth now. Yesterday we put her poor, wasted, mortal frame quietly under the church pavement. We are very calm at present. Why should we be otherwise? The anguish of seeing her suffer is over; the spectacle of the pains of death is gone by; the funeral day is past. We feel she is at peace. No need now to tremble for the hard frost and the keen wind. Emily does not feel them. She died in a time of promise. We saw her taken from life in its prime. But it is God's will, and the place where she is gone is better than that she has left.

EG-Charlotte-

.My darling, thou wilt never know

The grinding agony of woe

That we have borne for thee.

Thus may we consolation tear

E’en from the depth of our despair

And wasting misery.

The nightly anguish thou art spared

When all the crushing truth is bared

To the awakening mind,

When the galled heart is pierced with grief,

Till wildly it implores relief,

But small relief can find.

Nor know’st thou what it is to lie

Looking forth with streaming eye

On life’s lone wilderness.

‘Weary, weary, dark and drear,

How shall I the journey bear,

The burden and distress?’

Then since thou art spared such pain

We will not wish thee here again;

He that lives must mourn.

God help us through our misery

And give us rest and joy with thee

When we reach our bourne!

Read also:
kleurrijkbrontesisters22-12-1848
kleurrijkbrontesisters/on-tuesday-morning-19-12-1948-emily

Top Withens

2011-12-19T10:37:00.000+01:00

From: news.dalesman.co.uk

Why do the Bronte worshippers take that more-often-than-not-soggy trail up to Top Withens? It’s a question I’ve often asked myself as the place has no proven link with the family. Okay, maybe it was the inspiration behind Emily’s Wuthering Heights – we’ll never know for sure – but the old farmhouse, derelict since the 1930s, continues to attract thousands of visitors every year. A while back I overtook two inadequately dressed Japanese visitors as I walked over the moor. They asked me ‘How faah Top Rivvens?’. They were relieved and excited as I pointed to the blackened ruin on the hillside and I wondered how deflated they might be when they eventually got there. The tourism bodies are certainly never going to play down its importance and I see this week that Yorkshire Water, who own the land and property, have been repointing and blocking off more dangerous areas. The place can be atmospheric and the views are tremendous. You can feel the building bracing itself against the elements but most of all you can let your imagination run riot.

00:02:47	(JANE LOST ON THE MOORS) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:48	(MRS. REED PUTS JANE BACK INTO THE RED ROOM) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:59	(MRS. REED TALKS TO JANE IN BED) (DELETED SCENE)
00:02:47	(BADMINTON IN THE GARDEN) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:47	(JANE MEETS ROCHESTER ON THE STAIRCASE) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:29	(ADELE SCREAMS IN JANE'S ROOM) (DELETED SCENE)
00:00:29	(JANE OVERHEARS THE INGRAMS TALKING) (DELETED SCENE)
00:03:12	(BERTHA RIPS WEDDING VEIL IN JANE'S ROOM) (DELETED SCENE)
00:03:44	(ROCHESTER PLEADS WITH JANE TO STAY) (DELETED SCENE)

the Brontë Sisters

On this day in 1840. 'Fair Ellen, Fair Ellen', 'Away fond Love' and 'Soul divine'.

The Red House has a charming homely feel to it and is so authentic that visitors can easily imagine Charlotte Brontë mingling with the Taylor family whom she loved. She said it was a happy house, full of laughter.

Photography of Mark Davis

Nature around Haworth

February - an overview

February can be a cold unforgiving month with snow heavy rain and cold north winds, but it is also the month where the first signs that spring is not far away. Catkins sometimes called 'lambs tails' their golden tassels can be seen hanging from the branches of Hazel

Red House: cabinet sees sense

The Bronte museum in 1935 agreed to buy the Apostles cupboard for 25 pounds.

North Lees Hall

Distance Haworth/ Hathersage. It was three stories high . . . a gentleman’s manor-house . . . battlements around the top gave it a picturesque look’

Charlotte Bronte visiting Hathersage in Derbyshire.

Inspiration and imagination of Charlotte Bronte: determined to make her heroine plain, small, and unattractive

The relation between George Smith and Charlotte Bronte, Part 3

The relation between George Smith and Charlotte Bronte/ Part 2

Disappearing history

Brontë Parsonage Blog: Parsonage re-opens today

The relation between George Smith and Charlotte Bronte/ part 1

Biographical Information

'I think the Brontë sisters are mad'

Visiting Haworth in 1971

Aspect of that wintery afternoon

Michele Howarth Rashman

Christopher Fry's The Brontës of Haworth

Red House still looks very much as it would have in Charlotte's day. Each of the rooms brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its Yorkshire range, jelly moulds and colourful crockery.

Patrick Bronte baptised.....

Save Red House

Red House Museum

What did the Bronte Sisters look like?

Failures: Spinsters & Old Maids in Victorian England

Dresses like the Brontes could have worn

Haworth in literary amber

Railway investments

Public transport in Victorian London

Anne Bronte 192nd birthday.

Old picture of the grave stone of Anne Bronte.

Alone in the city. Part 6

About the author

It was not considered quite proper for "genteel" unmarried young women to travel on public coaches unescorted. Part 5

Foreigners say that it is only English girls who can thus be trusted to travel alone, and deep is their wonder at the daring confidence of English parents and guardians. From Vilette. Part 4.

PATERNOSTER ROW. The "Chapter Coffee House"".

Charlotte Bronte travelling alone to Brussels. The first time her father, Emily, Mary Taylor were her companions. But the second time she traveled alone. Part 3.

Women and Urban Life in Victorian Britain By Lynda Nead. Part 2

First some information about the public transport in the period 18.00-19.00.

Film Jane Eyre

Parsonage

Weblog with pictures

Just a week to save Bronte church

Emily Bronte portrait goes under the hammer

Grahamwatson

Moorland

Graveyard around the Parsonage

Old pictures from London

Charlotte Bronte's comment on the visit of Queen Victoria to Brussels

Well wishers from around the world have donated cash to church repair fund

Parsonage

January. What did the bronte Sisters see when they were walking over the moors?

Photo's parsonage

Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle, by Clement K. Shorter

On this day in 1844

What will happen in 2012 in Brontëland?

Brontë landscape's battle for survival as new housing threatens tourist trade Haworth's church roof needs repairs, while plans for housing estates overshadow moors where the sisters walked

Brontë in Paris; pity poor Haworth

Portrait of Emily.

UK DVD Releases: March 2012

The Rylands Online Collection

Haworth

A Christmas Carol

MERRY CHRISTMAS

The Bronte Sisters and their Christmas holidays.

Reincarnation of Emily Bronte

The Bronte Sisters in winter walking over the moors

Christmas Customs in Bronte Country

A Bronte meets her sister’s ghost - Reviews - Halifax Courier

Bronte Weather Project: Anne Bronte's letters

A XMAS VIDEO's FROM DARREN

Restauration of Top Withens

On the Death of Emily Jane Brontë By Charlotte Brontë

Top Withens