Lydia Robinson, née Gisborne, was the youngest daughter of the Reverend Thomas Gisborne (1758-1846), a well-known Anglican priest and writer who lived at Yoxall Lodge in Staffordshire.
Thomas Gisborne and his wife
The Gisbournes had eight children, of whom the youngest was Lydia.
By the time Lydia met Branwell Brontë, she was in her thirties and had been the wife of the Rev. Edmund Robinson, a curate from Derby, for at least fifteen years.
In 1840, the 20-year-old Anne Brontë (the youngest of the Brontë girls) had started working for the Rev. and Mrs. Robinson as a governess to their four children. Anne had moved in with the Robinsons, living in their family home at Thorp Green Hall, a wealthy country house near York.
In 1843, Anne also secured a position there for her unsettled brother Branwell, then aged 26. While Anne continued to tutor the three Robinson girls, Branwell was to take over from her as tutor to the Robinsons’ only son, Edmund (junior), who was now growing too old to be under Anne’s care.
Branwell did not live in the Hall itself with the Robinson family as Anne did, but in a smaller building nearby on the same grounds, known as The Monk’s Lodge.
During this time he corresponded with a number of old friends about his increasing infatuation with Robinson's wife Lydia, who was the daughter of Rev. Thomas Gisborne. He was dismissed on unspecified charges in 1845. It is thought, according to his account to his own family, the Robinson family's silence on the reason for his dismissal, and subsequent gifts of money from Mrs. Robinson through her servants, that he had an affair with Mrs. Robinson and that the affair had been discovered by her husband.
When his mistress' husband died in May 1846, Branwell was convinced he would now marry Mrs. Robinson, though she had no intention of marrying a penniless man seventeen years her junior. She kept Branwell away by telling him that Mr. Robinson's will required her to stay away from him, never mind marrying him.
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Such a mess...and poor Anne, I'm sure she knew and was mortified by it all. Mrs. Gaskell certainly had 'words' about Lydia, she was not very fond of her.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenxo J~
In this sad history , one thing is often over looked. That a large measure of Mrs Robinson's attraction for Branwell was bound up imo in the fact she was mistress of Thorpe Green .
BeantwoordenVerwijderenBranwell wanted the house as much if not more than the Lady. In all his rants there was never a suggestion he and she should run off together . No . He would go on and on about being master of such a fine home.
Branwell's love for " his Lydia" was not for herself alone and it was this mercurial nature of his involvement that was a great heartbreak for his sisters. The Bronte women valued a guinea as well as anyone. But money would never be a motivation for personal relations . It was hard for them to even grasp such a concept and that one of their number joyfully embraced it .
It would be too much to ask Branwell to take a good look at himself because he was trained from birth to think he was without peer...but even so, he should have been able to see the social impossibility of Mrs.R marrying her son's former tutor who is 17 years younger than herself .
They would be an unending laughing stock, if not scandal .The very thing Branwell craved most , care free social standing and an admiring public, would be forever out of reach. They would have wound up on the Continent, so to not hear the laughter, Mrs. R was not so foolish.
He is to be pitied Rather than grow up, Branwell chose to live and die in Angria
As a novelist Mrs. G likes villains and heroes. and brackets people accordingly. Where she got this reputation for wisdom I don't know She was extraordinarily foolish in the cavalier way she treated living people in her book and had to take back her words on several points ....not just from Mrs R .
Mrs G treated Patrick Bronte quite badly. But he unconsciously paid her back when he told her all about the evil seductress of the Thorpe Green who ruined his boy .A story the old man had to believe himself . Mrs G published it all without checking it out...as she did with gossip about Rev Bronte himself , but this time she paid a price
Mrs R, now Lady Scott, was having none of it and made Mrs. Gaskell publicly consume a health slice of humble pie