The Nussey Family

Ellen Nussey was a friend of Charlotte Bronte. She was born in 1817. She was the daughter of John Nussey and Ellen Wade. Ellen Nussey attended Roe Head School where Margaret Wooler was headmistress, and where she met Charlotte Bronte. Ellen Nussey died in 1897.

Nussey was the twelfth child of John Nussey, a cloth merchant of Birstall Smithies, near Gomersal in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and his wife Ellen, née Wade. Nussey first attended a small local school before progressing to the Gomersal Moravian Ladies Academy. Nussey and Brontë first met in January 1831, when they were both pupils at Roe Head School, near Dewsbury in Yorkshire. They corresponded with each other regularly over the next 24 years, each writing hundreds of letters to the other.

Richard Nussey was born in 1803. He was the son of John Nussey and Ellen Wade. Richard Nussey married Elizabeth Charnock. Richard Nussey Inherited uncle Richard Nussey's interest in the family's mills at Birstall: also leased New Mill, Holbeck. Later inherited father-in-law's two mills at Meadows lane, Leeds. He was; said to have built Brookroyd House.¹ He died in 1872.

Joshua Nussey was born circa 1799. He was the son of John Nussey and Ellen Wade. Joshua Nussey died in 1871.

Sarah Walker Nussey was born in 1809. She was the daughter of John Nussey and Ellen Wade. Sarah Walker Nussey died in 1843.

George Nussey was born in 1814. He was the son of John Nussey and Ellen Wade. George Nussey died in 1885. vivientomlinson

Children of John Nussey and Ellen Wade

• John Nussey b. 26 Dec 1793, d. 14 Apr 1862
• Ann Nussey b. 10 Sep 1795, d. 1878
• Joseph Nussey b. 7 Jun 1797, d. 1846
• Joshua Nussey b. c 1799, d. 1871
• Mercy Mary Nussey b. 14 Apr 1801, d. 1886
• Richard Nussey b. 1803, d. 1872
• William Nussey b. 1807, d. 1838
• Sarah Walker Nussey b. 1809, d. 1843
• Henry Nussey b. c 1812
• George Nussey b. 1814, d. 1885
• Ellen Nussey b. 1817, d. 1897 vivientomlinson

The Rydings (Birstall)  
Ellen Nussey`s first home

Ann Nussey  Later Clapham (1795–1878), eldest sister of Ellen Nussey; a capable housekeeper for Revd Henry Nussey, and later for the family at Brookroyd. Charlotte Brontë appreciated her sympathy at times of ... oxfordreference/Nussey

When Ellen Nussey died (26 Nov 1897 aged 80) it is said that people were surprised at how liitle she had to leave. William Carr had invested her (and her sisters) money (left to them by her brother Richard) in Pennsylvanian Railway Bonds - these were left to her nephew John Thomas Hartley Nussey in Australia.
It shows Ellen Nussey (1817-1897) and two of her brothers (John 1794-1862) and William (1807-1862) who were both apothecaries archiver.rootsweb.ancestry

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Nussey, John (1793–1862):
Eldest brother of Ellen, and London general practitioner and apothecary. He was early successful under the aegis of his cousin (and eventual father-in-law) Richard Walker, and he was apothecary to George IV and his two successors, being in attendance (in the next room) during some of Queen Victoria’s numerous confinements. Ellen made two long visits to him in 1834 and 1837, probably to help with the family rather than to sample the pleasures of London. The picture that emerges of him through Charlotte’s letters (and we must remember that we have no documents in which the lesser Nusseys speak for themselves) is of a selfish, grasping man who fails to honor his family obligations and is especially neglectful of his mother and sisters. She sees him as of "the world" and "cold-blooded" (to EN, 10 and 17 Sep 1851), and she included his wife Mary in this judgment: "Madame herself thought fitting to call, very stately in her carriage" she wrote to Ellen (28 Jan 1853) during her last visit to London, indicating confidence in a shared opinion. There is much comment on John in letters of mid-1849 when he proposed a financial arrangement whereby his sisters would will their property to him or his heirs and in return he would cancel debts they owed him ("offers to relinquish a present claim in your sisters’ favour" is the phrase of Charlotte’s that suggests this arrangement, rather than a compensating

Nussey, Mary (Mercy) (1801–86):
Sister of Ellen. She was for a time a member of the Moravian Single Sisters’ House at Fairfield, where she was given the name Mercy. See Margaret Connor, "Clerical Connections" (BS, v. 28, p. 1, March 2003) for the Moravian sisterhood. Charlotte’s early references to her are more affectionate than most of her references to the Nusseys, and at one point she seems to have aroused Ellen’s jealousy by trying to start an independent correspondence with her. Later, however, the mentions of her conform to the norm by being tinged with exasperation: she distrusts her judgment, regrets that she rather than Ellen has most to do with George in his time of mental breakdown, and concludes that the trouble she causes others springs from "the wilfulness of a weak person" (to EN, 11 May 1850). This irritation leads her to her most extreme judgment: "I suppose that is her use – to test and try others like a fiery furnace" (to EN, 10 May 1851). She was the family fowl-keeper, taught in a small school, and was frequently ill. Juliet Barker presents as fact that the "forty-one years old" Mercy (she was actually 48) was "so jealous of her elder sister’s good fortune that she threatened the happiness of the whole household" (Barker, 1994, p. 602). This is unfair, resting only on a conjecture of Charlotte that she had "some little sense of bitterness" that Ann rather than she was to be married

Nussey, Richard (1803–72):
Brother of Ellen, he helped to run the family firm, moving to Leeds when he married Elizabeth Charnock (1846) to live in her family home in Woodhouse Lane. Charlotte, who had met him on the Bolton Abbey excursion of 1833, describes him and his wife as " very vulgar in their mode of shewing their feelings" (to EN, 20 Sep 1851?). He inherited his father-in-law’s mills in Leeds and, since the marriage was childless and his wife predeceased him, his sisters Ann, Mercy and Ellen benefited from his death

Nussey, Joseph (1797–1846):
Second-eldest brother of Ellen, who for a time was engaged in the woolen industry. By the mid-1840s he was described by Charlotte (to EN, 31 July 1845) as a "burthen" on his mother – one that his brothers, particularly John, should have her relieved of. By the time of his death she talks openly of his sufferings being "taken as sufficient expiation for his errors" (to EN, soon after 3 June 1846). The deduction that he was dissolute seems correct, but whether this consisted simply of alcoholism or included other sins is unknown. Clearly Joseph was the Nusseys’ Branwell – one more bond between Ellen and Charlotte

Nussey, George (1814–85):
Brother of Ellen. He seems to have been the dearest to her of all her brothers – partly from closeness in age, partly perhaps from his willingness to engage in her interests and her friendships. He is mentioned often in Charlotte’s letters from Roe Head, and he was one of the Nussey party who explored Bolton Abbey and its environs with the Brontës. The onset of his mental illness in the early 1840s was particularly distressing to Ellen, and the fact that he had at this time a fiancée, Amelia Ringrose, cemented a friendship between these two. One element that added to the traumatic nature of this crisis was that George, in his delusions, turned against his family (as his aged mother was later to do when she was ill). This fact was often commented upon by Charlotte: "[h]is delusion is of the most painful kind for his relations – how strange that in his eye affection should be transformed into hatred – it is as if the mental vision were inverted" (to EN, 17 Nov 1846). He never regained his sanity, the engagement was abandoned, and he had to be cared for by outsiders for the rest of his life

Nussey, Joshua (1798–1871):
Third-eldest of the Nussey sons, who went into the Church and married in 1832 Anne Alexander, 10 years his senior. Though Ellen stayed with them several times, and took refuge at their Oundle vicarage after leaving the Upjohns, with whom she had contemplated going to live as a companion, she seems to have disliked both of them, and her best friends Mary Taylor and Charlotte joined her in disparaging them. "Is she a frog or a fish –?" asked Charlotte (to EN, 19 Jan 1847?), "She is certainly a specimen of some kind of cold-blooded animal." She returns to her (and Ellen’s) distaste for the pair a week later, for it seems to be them she is talking about when she describes "the coldness, dreariness, and barrenness of these respected individuals’ minds and hearts" (to EN, 28 Jan 1847?). Joshua’s attainments and judgment were similarly disparaged by Mary Taylor
 

Brookroyd (Birstall)  

After the death of Ellen`s father, the family had to give up The Rydings. They relocated to Brookroyd.