Ellen Nussey "Dearest Nell""

Ellen Nussey (20 April 1817–26 November 1897), was a lifelong friend and correspondent of British author Charlotte Brontë and, through hundreds of letters received from her, was a major source for Elizabeth Gaskell's 1857 biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë.

Nussey was the twelfth child of John Nussey (1760-1826), a cloth merchant of Birstall Smithies in Yorkshire, and his wife Ellen, née Wade (c.1771-1857). Nussey first attended a small local school before progressing to the Gomersal Moravian Ladies Academy. Nussey and Brontë first met in January 1831, when they were both pupils at Roe Head School, near Dewsbury in Yorkshire. They corresponded with each other regularly over the next 24 years, each writing hundreds of letters to the other. In 1839, Ellen Nussey's brother, Henry, proposed marriage to Brontë, but she found him dull and refused him.

Through her frequent visits to the Parsonage at Haworth Nussey also became a friend of Anne and Emily Brontë, and was accepted as a suitable friend for his daughters by the Reverend Patrick Brontë. Indeed, when in May 1849, Anne decided to make a visit to Scarborough in the hope that the change of location and fresh sea air might be good for her failing health, and give her a chance to live, she went with Charlotte and Nussey. En route, the three spent a day and a night in York, where, escorting Anne around in a wheelchair, they did some shopping, and at Anne's request, visited the colossal York Minster. However, it was clear that Anne had little strength left.

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Her other friend, Miss Ellen Nussey, whose sweet and gentle character Charlotte afterward attempted to depict in Caroline Helstone, was drawn toward her by compassion on the first day of her arrival, upon seeing her standing alone by the school-room window watching the other girls at play yin the snow without, and crying from loneliness.

Letter from Charlotte to Ellen.

1843: Charlotte called herself "stunted and plain,

" in this sketch waving goodbye

to her friend Ellen