Mechanics institut at Keighley

The movement to found mechanics’ institutes was an early nineteenth-century phenomenon that quite soon became predominantly middle-class. Keighley’s was founded in 1825, and Patrick joined in 1833. The library was strong on theology and science, but the young Brontës could also find there history, biography, and poetry, which would be more to their taste, as well as fiction, including the novels of Walter Scott and the eighteenth-century novelists for whom Charlotte conceived such an aversion. Lectures were also part of the education program of the institutes: an early speaker at Keighley was Edward Baines Jr, whose 1830 lecture on “The Moral Effects of Unrestricted Commerce” was listened to by 700 people “with almost breathless silence” ( Leeds Intelligencer , 4 Mar 1830). Later lectures included William Weightman defending the study of the classics and Patrick Brontë on “The Influence of Circumstances,” which must have given him plenty of scope.
Keighley/mechanics