Message on Twitter: Bracelet of Anne's hair

Bronte Parsonage‏@BronteParsonage16 november

 

Still preparing for next year's exhibition - this is a bracelet of Anne's hair, given by Charlotte to Ellen Nussey:

 

Click on  http://ow.ly/i/18pbs   and you can see the picture.

twitter.com/BronteParsonage

 

 

Paintings in the Bronte Parsonage Museum

Winifred Gerin

Date painted: c.1960–1981

Oil on board, 44.5 x 34.5 cm (estimated)

Collection: Brontë Parsonage Museum               

 

Winifred Gerin (1901–1981) was the Hamburg-born biographer of the Brontë sisters, most famous for her 1967 work, 'Charlotte Brontë: The Evolution of Genius'. The portrait, by Winifred Gerin's sister, is in a 20th-century realistic style.
 

Read more

The First Meeting of Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester

 

Where to see these and more paintings?

Brontë Parsonage Museum

Church Street Haworth, Keighley, West Yorkshire, England, BD22 8DR

bbc/paintings/located_at/bronte-parsonage-museum

 

Scarf, which belonged to... Patrick Bronte!

 

Fascinating day so far, choosing items for next year's exhibition, measuring them so that the special cases can be made, and writing the labels. Here's Sarah in the Bonnell Store, unrolling a flowered silk scarf. It belonged to a Bronte, but you'll never guess which...

 

 

Here's a close-up of the scarf, which belonged to... Patrick Bronte! - reputedly a dry old stick. But his wife referred to him as 'dear, saucy Pat', and he wore this, so he must have had a hidden frivolous side...
 

 

More preparations for the exhibition for next year: this is the knife-and-fork set Charlotte had to take to school with her at Roehead..facebook/Bronte-Parsonage-Museum

History bronte Society

newspapers

A whole day of Bronte Events for all ages at West Lane Baptist Church Sat Dec 8th from 1.30 to 10 pm

Hathaways of Haworth have a whole program of Bronte events is now planned for West Lane Baptist Church.There will be something for all age. (There is likely to be more events included over the next few days but at present these are those definitly a part of the program.)

From 1.30 onwards there will be a chance to see displays on Haworth and the Brontes handle replica Bronte diary papers and mini books, see Hathaways research and work on rarely seen Bronte artifacts and meet and take your own photos with costumed re enactors children’s activities during the afternoon will include.

A chance to see some of Hathaways costumes on display and try dressing up in Victorian hats and bonnets. Make your own Victorian hats. Make your own Bronte mini book or diary paper.
Colouring sheets for the very young and worksheets on the Victorians for kids. Admission is free for any child with an accompanying adult, adult admission is £2. and a free tea, coffee or cold drink is included in the cost.

Further displays of replica Bronte artifacts and victorian clothing which can both looked at and handled, Hathaways costumes ''A look at Haworth in the Brontes day and” imagine a world without any Brontes a look at how Haworth might be today had the Brontes never published. There will be a chance to talk to Reneactors dressed as the sisters and their brother. Branwell, Charlotte and Emily will be mingling with the guests and have been briefed to “act in character” so you can see the Brontes in a social situation. There will be a chance to speak to our speakers about their work and research.

Hathaways of Haworths owner Lynn Cunliffe who will be talking about he Bronte work and research, including what Bronte clothing can tell us about the lives of the Brontes and how it can help in identifying or discounting new Bronte portraits or photos such as those sold recently.The main element of the program will be “undressing the Brontes ” a look at what they wore by undressing two mannequins Charlotte and Emily and showing how each sisters clothing and attitudes to clothing can shed new light on “Bronte Myths”. hathawaysofhaworth

Bronte Society expresses disappointment at Ovenden Moor windfarm decision

The Brontë Society wishes to express its disappointment with the decision by Calderdale Council to grant planning permission to Yorkshire Wind Power for the repowering of the windfarm at Ovenden Moor.

We feel that this decision demonstrates a lack of consideration for a unique heritage landscape which has internationally renowned cultural associations. It shows, also, an insensitive disregard for the negative impact upon the environment and upon the local economy of Haworth and the area known as Brontë Country.

The Society has received a huge level of interest and support from all over the world. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude and to give an assurance of our continued commitment to Haworth’s cultural and historical significance.

13 November 2012

For further information please contact the Bronte Parsonage Museum on 01535 642323 / bronte@bronte.org.uk

The Brontes in Brussels

 

A new book about the Brontës in Brussels has just been published. The author is Helen MacEwan, member of the Brussels Brontë Group:

Originally published on the Brussels Brontë Blog:

Down the Belliard Steps: Discovering the Brontës in Brussels
Helen MacEwan
ISBN No 978-0-9573772-0-2
Publisher: Brussels Brontë Editions
Paperback
146 pp

Charlotte and Emily Brontë’s stay in Brussels in 1842-43 to improve their French was to prove a momentous one for Charlotte in particular. She fell in love with her French teacher, Constantin Heger, and her experiences in the Belgian capital inspired two of her four novels, Villette and The Professor. Yet the Brontës’ Brussels episode remains the least-known of their lives.

When Helen MacEwan moved to Brussels in 2004 she discovered that not many people there seemed to know much about the Brontës’ time in the city. She herself had a lot to find out about their life in the Pensionnat Heger at the bottom of the Belliard steps. In the process of doing so she met other people who were similarly fascinated by the story, and with them formed the Brussels branch of the Brontë Society.

For all these people, following in Charlotte and Emily's tracks in modern-day Brussels, and setting up a literary group, was a voyage of discovery. In the course of telling their story, Helen finds some odd parallels between the Brussels of their day and ours, and reflects on why the Brontës' time there is so fascinating.

You can buy it in the English bookstores Waterstones and Sterling Books in Brussels, or from the Brontë Parsonage Museum shop.

We Wove A Web In Childhood

 

I received an email about a new e-book about the Brontes.
You can read all about it on:  bronte-fiction

We Wove A Web In Childhood is a fictional work concerning the Bronte family. Much of the existing literature tends to focus exclusively on the sisters, but in undertaking a dramatic reconstruction of their lives Ruth Thomas has succeeded in bringing each family member to life, including their brilliant and volatile brother Branwell, and their scholarly and compassionate father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte. The individual lives of the Brontes are as full of interest and drama as any of the novels they produced, and the family continues to exert a fascination right across the spectrum from dedicated Bronte fans to more casual readers. The novel has been written with an attention to detail and historical veracity, and should appeal to anyone with a love of literature and an interest in the peculiar and tortuous mental processes by which it is shaped.

The opening chapters are set in the period 1828 – 1836 when the children are growing up, and trace their formative years - their precocious interest in politics and literature, and absorption in the vivid inner world they have created - whilst their father Patrick campaigns tirelessly to improve living standards for his parishioners. Superficial life at Haworth parsonage - with its routine of instruction, mundane household chores, and sedate vicarage tea-parties - is brought into sharp collision with the wider world outside. Actual events are frequently mirrored in the “infernal” world of Angria - as the boisterous childhood games in which they enact imaginary battle scenes are set against a backdrop of agitation for political and social reform, of violent electioneering and local riots.

The George Hotel. Coaches for Scarborough left from here, and this would be a familiar location to Anne from her Scarborough visits with the Robinsons. It was probably the place she and Emily stayed on their two day visit in 1845, and was certainly where she stayed with Charlotte and Ellen en-route to Scarborough on that fateful, final journey.

 

The picture shows, situated on Coney Street (once known as 'Whip-ma-Whop-ma-Gate) in York wiki/Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate: just right of picture-centre is the main entrance. The photograph under shows the same location ina much modern time. Only the first floor bay-window, and the pillar located centrally beneath it (to the right-of-centre in the old picture - central in the new) remain.  

 

 mick-armitage  open plaques

The George Inn was situated at 19 Coney Street. This pub has now been demolished and replaced by a Next store.

According to a plaque on the wall: 'In Elizabethan times, Ralph Rokeby Esq (d.1575) Secretary of the Council of the North lived in a house on this site. Subsequently for about two and a half centuries there existed here a Hostelry known since 1614 as the George Inn, from which horsedrawn coaches departed to Hull, Manchester and Newcastle. The sisters Charlotte and Anne Bronte stayed here in 1849. Leak & Thorp moved to this site in 1869. 'closedpubs

 

yorkscenes

yorkdailypicture/10/whip-ma-whop-ma-gate

Whip-ma-Whop-ma-Gate

 

In February, Anne seemed somewhat better. In March, Ellen Nussey invited her to Brookroyd, to be nursed by Ellen and her sisters. Anne made a counter-proposal. Through Charlotte, she asked if Ellen would accompany her to Scarborough. Anne had always loved the sea there, and there was some slight hope that the climate might be beneficial. Charlotte chose to ignore Anne's own wishes, and argue against the plan, suggesting that it would be better to wait. Anne feared that she had little time to waste, and wrote to Ellen herself, asking her help and painstakingly refuting counter-arguments. She speaks clearly and calmly of her illness and of death.

"I have a more serious reason than this for my impatience of delay: the doctors say that change of air or removal to a better climate would hardly ever fail of success in consumptive cases if taken in time, but the reason why there are so many disappointments is, that it is generally deferred till it is too late. Now I would not commit this error; and to say the truth, thouhg I suffer much less from pain and fever than I did when you were with us, I am decidedly weaker and very much thinner my cough still troubles me a good deal, especially in the night, and, what seems worse than all, I am subject to great shortness of breath on going up stairs or any slight exertion. Under these circumstances I think there is no time to be lost... I have no horror of death: if I thought it inevitable I think I could quietly resign myself to the prospect... But I wish it would please God to spare me not only for Papa's and Charlotte's sakes, but because I long to do some good in the world before I leave it. I have many schemes in my head for future practise–humble and limited indeed–but still I should not like them all to come to nothing, and myself to have lived to so little purpose. But God's will be done. " (Barker, p 589)

Though ill, Anne's strength of will was the equal of Charlotte's. In the end Patrick intervened, removing Charlotte's last defense against the plan by stating his willingness to be left with the servants in Haworth, and requesting that Charlotte accompany Anne. On May 24, 1849, Anne said her good-byes to her father and the servants at Haworth, and set off for Scarborough with Charlotte and Ellen. They stayed overnight in York, gratifying Anne's desire to see her beloved York Minster. Anne found great joy in returning to York and Scarborough, and showing well-loved places to Charlotte and Ellen. However, it was clear that Anne had little strength left. edu/women/bronte/bronte-anne

 

cathedral-fire-at-york
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