Patrick Brontë and Cambridge

Library of   St. John's College

Patrick Brontë, father of the famous literary sisters Charlotte, Anne and Emily, was born in the Banbridge District in 1777. Born in a tiny whitewashed cottage at Emdale kleurrijkbrontesisters patrick-bronte birthplace, he was the first child of Hugh and Alice Brunty. Patrick was apprenticed to a blacksmith, then to a linen weaver and draper. Patrick was tutored at an early age by Reverend Andrew Harshaw, who taught him in the early mornings before Patrick went on to his job as a linen weaver. By the time he was sixteen he was already teaching in the Presbyterian school at Glascar and then in the Parish Church School at Drumballyroney.

The Rev. Thomas Tighe, Rector of Drumballyroney, genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry/Drumballyroney was evidently much interested in young Bronte since he entrusted to him the education of his own children.

 

St. John's College The Great Gate  

Patrick moved to Cambridge in 1802 to study theology at St. John's College. http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/about/tour/   He gained his 
BA degree in 1806.

The following is a list of notable people educated at St John's College Cambridge. 

Arts and Literature

• Douglas Adams, author
• Samuel Butler, author
• William Wordsworth, poet
• Patrick Brontë, curate, father of the Brontë sisters
• Robert Greene, arguably the first professional English author of plays, poems and novels
• Thomas Nashe, pamphleteer, satirist & playwright
• Robert Herrick, poet.
• Louis Cha, famous Chinese novelist and newspaper editor
• Frederic Raphael, screenwriter, novelist and journalist
• Sir Cecil Beaton, photographer
• Herbert Howells, English composer (college organist).
• Geoffrey Paterson, conductor (college organist).
• Tom Rob Smith, award nominee author of Soviet-era novels; erstwhile writer for Channel 5's defunct soap opera Family Affairs.

St. John's College Cambridge