Ellen and Miss Wooler were brought over on the afternoon of 28-06-1854, in order to be present for the wedding next day. The long, summer afternoon and evening were spent together in the Parsonage. They packed the trunk with the new dresses from Halifax, laid out the white wedding dress with the veil and bonnet and prepared the wedding breakfast.
Mr. Nicholls and Mr. Sowden were installed in Oxenhope with the curate
Mr. Grant and his wife.
Victorian Wedding Customs
wikipedia/Trunk(luggage)
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The house next to Brookes Meeting Mill was formerly the vicarage for Oxenhope and is one of the few houses in the area to retain its original features. It was originally built in 1840’s for
Joseph Brett Grant, Oxenhope’s first vicar. Grant had previously been curate in Haworth, until Patrick Brontë appointed him to establish the new parish. He was a very active man, raising money to build the parish church, the vicarage and the national school. The story goes that he wore out 14 pairs of shoes in his travels seeking subscriptions and even succeeded in getting a donation from Queen Victoria. Brett’s energy, kindliness and dedication made him a popular figure amongst all villagers, not just the Anglicans. The exception however was Charlotte Brontë who rather unkindly portrayed him as the curate Mr Donne, a ‘champion beggar’ in her novel Shirley.
It's fascinating how of the curates, only Mr. Nicholls was spared the worst in Charlotte's book. She certainly did not think of him as a suitor then, but perhaps at least as a friend. Because they seemed to share a similar sense of humor. He roared over "Shirley" and well before Mr. N's proposal, Charlotte wrote to her father about an amusing church practice she witness and said "Mr N would have laughed out loud." That suggests there were other times of shared laughter
BeantwoordenVerwijderenVery interesting to see the old Oxenhope vicarage! It served as a base of operation in Mr.N's successful courtship. The Grants were good friends to him . Thanks for posting!