Lyn Marie Cunliffe, who is the maker of Abigails Ateliers, creates beautifull gowns, like the one Charlotte Bronte was wearing. In this blog she is talking about this portrait of Charlotte, about Charlotte's dress and about Charlotte's hair.

Day one of the Haworth 1960's weekend brought a rash of colour to the village.

 brontemedia peace-love-and-flower-power

The creation of Jane Eyre

The creation of Jane Eyre.   
                            

In the stillness of the rooms in Manchester, rarely going outside the house, Charlotte wrote incessantly for three weeks, haunted she said by Sin and Suffering. She told later Harriet Martineau that when she came to Thornfield and Mr. Rochester, she could not stop. Charlotte wrote on feverely, until she had carried her heroine away from Thornfield, and was herself in a fever which compelled her to pause.

Yet there were long stretches Charlotte could not write at all, and she had to wait for inspiration to strike. Those were low periods. As she later told Mrs Gaskell, it was not every day she could write. Sometimes weeks of even months elapsed before she had anything to add to that portion of her story which was allready written. Than, some morning, she wake up, and the progress of her story lay clear and bright before her, in distinct vision.

From the book: Charlotte Bronte a writer's life from Rebecca Fraser.

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

Any one 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.

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.
The-Life-of-Charlotte-Bronte-Volume-2-At1
Jane Eyre

" Girls, do you know Charlotte has written a book, and it is much better than likely."

THE law of anonymity the sisters had laid down for themselves was scrupulously observed by Currer Bell, who was thus debarred from all outward and visible signs of her great success.

She told her father, from whom she had but few secrets, that she had not only written a book any Bronte could do that but printed one, which had attained the honour of a flattering review. So saying, she gave Mr. Bronte a copy of " Jane Eyre " and left him alone to his reading and reflections.

At tea time he observed, " Girls, do you know Charlotte has written a book, and it is much better than likely." But outside the family nobody was let into the secret. This policy, adopted in pursuance of mutual promises given by the sisters one to the other, was probably not a wise one. Charlotte Bronte, though a shy woman, was not by any means a shy author. Her courage was dauntless, and she had none of that diseased vanity which causes some writers to abstain from reading hostile criticisms and to live wrapped up in their own conceit of themselves, a garment objectionable indeed, but not on the score of scantiness.
www.archive.org

"I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself."

first edition of Jane EyreSmith, Elder & Co.

' Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you ? Do you think I am an automaton ? a machine without feelings ? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup ? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless ? You think wrong ! I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart ! And if God had gifted me with some beauty, and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you / now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, or even of mortal flesh : it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal, as we are ! '

In 1846 Charlotte Bronte began her most famous novel, Jane Eyre, in a terraced house in Hulme, south Manchester miles away from the Yorkshire moorland that we associate with her family. Charlotte's father the Reverend Patrick Bronte was undergoing cutting-edge eye surgery to rid him of cataracts that left him almost blind. Charlotte used this time well to start writing her book.

 
On the 24th of August she wrote to Messrs. Smith and Elder as follows: "I now send you per rail a MS. entitled, 'Jane Eyre,' a novel in three volumes, by Currer Bell. I find I cannot prepay the carriage of the parcel, as money for that purpose is not received at the small stationhouse where it is left. If, when you acknowledge the receipt of the MS., you would have the goodness to mention the amount charged on delivery, I will immediately transmit it in postage stamps. It is better in future to address, * Mr. Currer Bell, under cover to Miss Bronte, Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire,' as there is a risk of letters otherwise directed not reaching me at present. To save trouble, I enclose an envelope."

On October 16, 1847, "Jane Eyre" was published in three volumes. An early copy was sent to Thackeray,
who at once read it, and heartily acknowledged its extraordinary merit.

She afterwards told Mrs. Gaskell that it was not every day she could write, and that sometimes months elapsed before she felt she had anything to add to that portion of her story which was already written.

'I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield : I love it because I have lived in it a full and delightful life, momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence\ with what I delight in, with an original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.'
www.archive.org

study guide/Jane-Eyre-Character-List

St James's Thornton benefits from grant.

Churches in the Bradford district have been saved from disrepair and eventual ruin – thanks to a total of £746,000 in Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grants.

St James’s Church, Thornton, will receive £166,000. The building features an early William Morris stained glass window and the Bronte sisters were christened in its font. The bulk of the money will be spent on replacing the roof.

 

Read more: the telegraph and argus

 

Note: The original ancient church of St James in Thornton (which was known locally as the "Bell Chapel") was built between the years 1587 and 1612, but underwent many alterations in the years leading up to the appointment of Patrick Bronte as parson in March 1815. On building of the new church in 1872, the old Bell Chapel fell into immediate disuse. Not much of the original building remains, but the cupola and one wall is still intact in the graveyard opposite the new church. bronte-country

Four of Patrick’s famous children, Charlotte, Emily, Branwell and Ann were all baptised in the Old Bell Chapel during the period he was there, and the original font from the old chapel, used to baptize his children, is now on display in St James’s across the road.


From:   more pictures on Bancrofts from Yorkshire old-bell-chapel-thornton

Haworth Gas Company

16-06-1858: "A deputation from the Haworth Gas Company waited upon the Board, to obtain leave from that body, to open up the roads and streets the necessary trenches in order to lay down the iron mains, cross pipes or service pipes and other apparatus for their gas works. Agreed unanimously that the privilege now asked for be granted on these conditions, viz. That no trench on the highways or in streets be allowed to remain open an unreasonable time, that the road metal, setts, flags or whatever else is removed, shall be replaced in a proper manner, and everything restored to its former state, to the entire satisfaction of the local Board or their surveyor."


Extract from Haworth Local Board of Health Minute Book
 
Lighting in Victorian England

Haworth video channel

I found this interesting site

Haworth video channel

The funeral of Patrick Bronte.

On 12 june1861, the day of the funeral, all the shops in Haworth voluntarily closed, the unaccustomed silence and solemnity that reigned around  proving the deep estimation in which the venerable incumbent was held.
In the church every pew and available space was taken and several hundred people were forced to remain
outside in the churchyard. In accordance with Patrick's wishes, Arthur had arranged everything with simplicity. Yhere was no passing bell and no psalms were singing. The coffin was carried from the parsonage  to the church  and then tot the family vault by six of Patrick's closest friends

Joseph Grant from Oxenhope

J.H.Mitchell from Cullingworth

H. Taylor from Newsholme

William Fawcett from Morton

John Smith from Oakworth

John Mayne from Keighley

Arthur followed the coffin,

 accompanied 

 by Martha and Eliza Brown,

 their mother and Nancy Garrs.

From: Juliet Barker, the Brontes.

12-06- 1861 Patrick Bronte was buried in the family vault at Haworth Church.

Arthur Bell Nicholls then went on to take care of his aged father-in-law until Patrick Brontë’s death six years later. A very close friendship sprang up between these formerly bitter rivals for Charlotte’s affection, and when Patrick Brontë died, his son-in-law was so devastated by the loss that he could barely manage to walk in the funeral procession, physically supported by a friend.

On 30 October 1859 Patrick Bronte preached his last sermon from the pulpit of Haworth Church. On the 7th June 1861 he died aged 84. On the 12th June he was laid to rest in the family vault at Haworth church. He had lived and preached in the parish of Haworth for 41 years, outliving all his children.

Haworth church.co.uk/the-brontes

Haworth

Made of the local sandstone,

called millstone grit,

this would have been

 a Haworth weaver's

 or a wool comber's

modest home in the 1800s