http://www.shout.net/~dsears/

Red House still looks very much as it would have in Charlotte's day. Each of the rooms brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its Yorkshire range, jelly moulds and colourful crockery.

Bronteblog/red-house-combining-bronte-history

The Red House story is beginning to reach local papers. The Spenborough Guardian reports many locals are against the closure:

Red House – ‘a cultural and educational gem’ – could be lost forever under council plans to sell it off.

Kirklees says closing the award-winning Gomersal museum and moving its exhibits to other museums would save £116,000 over two years.

However the plans have caused anger with critics saying it is yet another example of north Kirklees making the biggest sacrifices.

MP Mike Wood said: “We knew Kirklees was considering reducing the opening hours, and that was bad enough, but to hear they want to close it altogether was a bombshell.

“Red House is a credit to our area, and we cannot sacrifice it in a forlorn attempt to save money at all costs. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. [...]”

Gomersal councillor Lisa Holmes, said she and her Tory ward colleagues would do their utmost to fight the plans.

“It’s an absolute shame,” she said. “I have spoken to the staff who are devastated, not just for their jobs but because they know the vital service it provides. We realise we have massive savings to make, but we will do whatever we can to find an alternative to closure. There is a big challenge ahead of us but we must protect our heritage.”

Vice-chairman of Spen Valley Civic Society Gordon North said: “People cherish Red House and I am sure they will be as disgusted as we are that the one museum in the Spen Valley could go.

“It attracts local, national and international visitors, and it’s not just because of its Brontë links. The Taylor family was incredibly important in the story of the Spen Valley – Mr Taylor was one of the first woollen manufacturers and opened the Bank of Gomersal, while his daughter Mary Taylor was at the forefront of the feminist and equality movements – and you might think that a Labour council might recognise that.”

Red House was bought by the old Spenborough Council in 1969 to be opened as a museum telling the story of the Spen Valley.

Former Spenborough councillor Michael McGowan, who went on to become an MEP, said only last year he had taken a group of visitors from New Zealand to Red House, because of Mary Taylor’s links with their country.

“It’s a fantastic resource, a cultural and educational gem, and we mustn’t lose it,” he said.

The move has also been condemned by Carol Brontë, who first visited Red House as curator of the Brontë Museum in Northern Ireland. Her husband, James Wallace Brontë, is the great-great-grandson of the Rev Patrick Brontë’s youngest brother.

“I’m absolutely devastated,” she said. “Why close this famous tourist destination? It’s a very special place and I would urge Kirklees to think again.”

Brontë Society trustee Stephen Whitehead said: “The Taylor family was so important to Charlotte that she featured them as the Yorkes in Shirley and Briarmains is an exact description of Red House. It is an irreplaceable asset and this is not the way to manage your heritage.”

President of Cleckheaton Rotary Club Bill Stevenson said they had great concerns about the length of time for objections – February 7 – and urged the public to attend Tuesday’s Spen Valley area committee meeting to air their views.

The meeting is at 7pm at the town hall, Cleckheaton.

A spokeswoman for Kirklees said difficult decisions had to be made.

“The proposal to close Red House Museum is one of a large number of measures up for consideration which have been proposed to fill a very big gap in the council’s budget and reduce expenditure,” she said.

No decision has been made yet and people are invited to make their views know by contactingcommunication@kirklees.gov.uk or Communities and Leisure, Museums and Galleries, The Stables, Ravensknowle Park, Wakefield Road, Dalton, Huddersfield, HD5 8DJ. (Margaret Heward)

The Telegraph and Argus looks at it from a Brontë point of view:

The director of the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth has condemned proposals to close a popular museum with strong connections to the famous literary family.
The future of Red House Museum, Gomersal, will be discussed at Kirklees Council’s Cabinet meeting on February 7 as part of budget talks.
But parsonage director Andrew McCarthy said: “We appreciate the challenges faced by local authorities in terms of balancing the budgets at the moment but it does seem a pretty drastic step that can be made in haste and repented at leisure.” [...]
It is said ‘Briarmains’ – the house Charlotte wrote about in her second novel, Shirley – was based on Red House and some of the characters were thought to have been inspired by the Taylor family.
Mr McCarthy said: “The Taylor family as merchants, bankers and mill-owners did a huge amount to shape that part of the West Riding and they are a great part of the heritage of the area and there is this very strong link with the Brontës, particularly Charlotte.
“She stayed there on many occasions in the 1830s as a guest of her close friends Mary and Martha Taylor.
“There are very few buildings which combine Brontë history and Brontë fiction in the way Red House does. It would be a huge loss.” (Sally Clifford)

Please keep letters/email coming to local authorities (see list in this post) and if you haven't yet, do sign this online petition. And spread the word too! 

Patrick Bronte baptised.....

My Great-Grandfather, Matthew Nicholson and his wife Alice

Standing behind is my Grandmother, Emma, who was to marry Spencer Butterfield

Matthew was baptised by Patrick Bronte, father of the Bronte sisters, in 1827 at Haworth

From: Family_Album

Save Red House

Save Red House

More information about the Red House.

Red House Museum

In addition to the recently publicised reduction in the opening times of Museums and Galleries across Kirklees, the proposals now include the complete closure of Red House Museum in Gomersal.

If these proposals are passed, Red House would be closed in September and the buildings sold - not necessarily as a museum.

Red House was built in 1660 and was the home of the Taylor Family until 1920.  It has important Brontë connections and is now furnished as a home in the 1830s when Charlotte Brontë was a frequent visitor.  Red House, the Taylor family and the Spen Valley area were all featured in Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley.  

Also on site are the recreated 1830s gardens, the restored Barn which illustrates the numerous Brontë connections in the area and the renovated Cartsheds which houses the 'Spen Valley Stories' gallery.

Last year the site received almost 30,000 visitors and was recently awarded its second Sandford Award for the quality of its heritage educational services for schools.  Read more on: Bronte Parsonage

What did the Bronte Sisters look like?

I receided this reaction:

Hi Kluerrijk- There is confusion about Charlotte's appearance. Presently, the only dependable 'bench-mark' is Branwell's 'Pillar' portrait, and to qualified extent Richmond's drawing- compromised by Charlotte's 'discomfort' in his company (no Landseer he)and his sternly bi-tonal choice of media- this 'puritan' indulgance often interpreted as suggesting Charlotte had 'hazel' eyes. Mrs Gaskill's description is sometimes believed to suggest Charlotte had 'brown' eyes, but in fact confirms she had eyes 'the same colour' as Mrs Gaskill's- blue. All other contemporary descriptions corroborate blue/grey eyes. Charlotte's off-set 'crooked mouth' is unanimously recognised, cleverly avoided by Branwell who turned her 'off-set' aspect towards the viewer. In the 'fresh' group portrait Landseer achieved the same 'illusion' by tilting her head. Rotating her image upright reveals the famed 'crooked mouth'. Two of the bona fide 'Charlotte' images above are mis-catalogued. The photo, a robust, healthy woman of several years beyond Charlotte's 39, suggests she completely recovered from the gaunt, anorexic grief described by Richmond in 1850, yet within a few months this chubby 'old' lady married, got pregnant and died of malnutrition. Not chronologically plausable, besides, it's Ellen Nussey. The 'Bonnet' pastel can't be consolidated with any known image of Charlotte- it's Mrs Elizabeth Gaskill- a formulaic 'outdoor' sketch, possibly by a London street artist- this mis-attribution now admitted by the Bronte Museum, since the pastel has been withdrawn from display- and mention. The 'fresh' group portrait magically embodies all the distinctive individual features of the 3 subjects according to the most authentic descriptions, and subtly records the 'pretty, dove-coloured tint' of bare walls (q. Ellen Nussey), the extravagant beaded curves and 'whorled' carving of the surviving William 4th sofa, and exacting renditions of rare items and unique, hand-made accessories (eg; Anne's 'herringbone' plaited hair & amythist bracelet) which remain at the parsonage Museum. Another recovered Emily is going under the hammer next month at Humberts- unreserved. BM refute the lovely thing by suggesting 'no one would want to paint her' (although probably painted by family friend J H Thompson, Emily had lot's of fellow-artist friends) she is bone and breath the same girl Branwell painted (and the same hot-seated fidgit Landseer captured in 1838). I'm sure she will be recognised by the buyer.

 

I have some questions by this reaction:

• Why do you think this is a portrait of Ellen Nussey?  I cannot find any article to give this conclusion. ( I, myself, saw this portrait for the first time linked to this website: charlottecory.com/bronte/afriendofcharlotte). 

• Why do you think Emily had  lot's of fellow-artist friends?

• About the colours of the eyes:  Mrs. Gaskell  to Catherine Winkworth: "" soft brown hair, not very dark; eyes (very good and expressive, looking straight and open at you) of the same colour as her hair. classiclit/egaskell/bl-egaskell-cbronte
• Mrs. Gaskell  to Catherine Winkworth : soft brown hair not so dark as mine,  eyes (very good and expressive, looking straight and open at you) of the same colour/  Juliet Barker's The Brontes
• You write "All other contemporary descriptions corroborate blue/grey eyes".
• Can you give me some off these other contemperary descriptions? 

More of this subject you can read on 

 bronteblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-bronte-portrait.html 

Failures: Spinsters & Old Maids in Victorian England

The proper purpose of a Victorian woman’s life, of whatever class, was to marry suitably. It was not essential for the marriage to be happy, but marriage in itself was, “the crown and joy of a woman’s life – what we were born for.” A woman who did not marry became a spinster, old maid or maiden aunt, a figure of fun, pity and derision. The Victorians became particularly exercised about redundant women after the 1851 Census showed that there were nearly 1.5 million spinsters, aged between about 20 and 40, and 350,000 old maids over 40. In the 1851 Census, there were 104 women for every 100 men in England and Wales. Victorian England was also about the British Empire. Although, as now, more men wore born than women, boys were more likely to die than girls in childhood, and men more likely than woman to die young. Men emigrated, to the old and new commonwealth, America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India and other places in the British Empire. For every woman who emigrated, three men did so. Men also served time abroad either as colonial administrators or as soldiers. There was an increasing tendency for middle and upper class men to marry later. Between about 1840 and 1870, the average age at marriage for middle and upper class men was 30. At the age of 30, however, a spinster was definitely past her sell-by date.

Life for the Victorian Spinster
About the only respectable forms of employment that any middle or upper class Victorian spinster could undertake were as a teacher, a governess, or a companion. Many couples with large families liked to keep an unmarried daughter at home to tend to their every whim and care for them in their old age. Although often obliged to do so, the unmarried stay at home daughter was nevertheless incomplete. She’d failed to undertake her primary duty, to be a wife and mother. Many women who didn’t marry in Victorian England lived first in their parents’ house, and when their parents died, in the house of a brother or nephew. Although such women tended to work extremely hard, provided a useful second mother and unpaid housekeeper, they were undervalued. Although until the Married Woman’s Property Act in 1868 a wife had no separate legal existence from her husband, and did not own property unless he chose to allow her to do so, nevertheless a married woman had a social status and respect that her single sister would always struggle to achieve. An individual spinster or old maid could be pitied and patronised. As a group, spinsters were damaging to society, and redundant. Although it was rarely mentioned specifically, there was a general view that celibacy in women was unnatural. Of course, an old maid or a spinster was according to social norms considered to be a virgin. That was unnatural, and a waste. Edward Gibbon talked about single English women as, “growing thin, pale, listless and cross”. Thackeray described Charlotte Brontë as, “a noble heart longing to mate itself and destined to wither away into old maidenhood”. John Stewart Mill argued against the spinster stereotype and said that the problem was that women were badly educated. Many, such as WR Gregg, urged that single women be almost obliged to emigrate. WR Gregg went on to discuss the semi forced emigration of women that he proposed. England must restore by an emigration women that natural proportion between the sexes in the old country and in the new one, which was disturbed by an emigration of men, and the disturbance of which has wrought so much mischief in both lands.

The literary Brontë sisters often wrote about women who did not marry in their books. None of them married, and they were themselves brought up by a spinster aunt, after the early death of their mother. Charlotte Brontë turned down four separate marriage proposals as she was determined not to live with a man she did not think her intellectual moral equal. The difficulties that respectable but impoverished women faced in Victorian England is clear from Charlotte Brontë’s second book, Shirley. Being a spinster did not only involve economic insecurity and precarious dependence on male relatives. But a woman was unable to bring about marriage on her own behalf. An old maid’s life must doubtless be void and vapid, her heart strained and empty; had I been an old maid I should have spent existence in efforts to fill the void and ease the aching I should have probably failed, and died weary and disappointed, despised and of no account, like other single women.
webhistoryofengland

Dresses like the Brontes could have worn

 

abigailsateliers

soeursbronte