From Thornton to Haworth by Google Earth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carts laden with the minister's furniture moving to Haworth

Charlotte Bronte was a  girl of six years of age when her father exchanged Thornton for Haworth. We have no glimpse of her at Thornton; we have little enough glimpse of the child and her brother and sisters in the first years at Haworth. When Mrs. Gaskell wrote, there were people who well remembered the departure of Mr. Bronte and his family — die carts laden with the minister's furniture, the delicate mother and her six little children, the eldest, Maria, only seven years of age. The change, if change were helpful, was all to that mother's advantage. The house was much better situated, at a healthier altitude, and pleasantly jutting on the glorious moors. Given genuine health, Mrs. Bronte could have been happy enough at Haworth — hapiner than at Thornton. Bat physical health she had not. She and her family arrived at the vicarage somewhere in April 1820. charlottebronte

Interesting, read: bradford.gov.uk-HaworthRevised

 History: What could the Brontes had seen when they arrived?

 

hawortholdhall

 

It is interesting to note that the four earliest domestic buildings to survive in Haworth conservation area - the only ones clearly pre-dating the 18th century - are located at these 'greens'. At Hall Green there is The Old Hall itself, said to stand on earlier foundations, which is probably of late 16th-century date, as well as No.8 Fern Street, a 17th century farmhouse. At Town End there is No.26 North Street, which can be dated to the late 16th century on architectural grounds, along with Cook Gate farmhouse which formerly had recessed chamfered mullioned windows similar to those in the Fern Street building.

geograph.org.uk

 

Bridgehouse, where the original crossing of the beck was perhaps a ford. The routeway from this

crossing to Hall Green, and thence to Town End, articulated the plan of the industrial village that developed during the late 18th and 19th centuries between these earlier foci.

hallgreenchapel

Haworth was already developing as a centre for the textile industry during the late 17th and 18th centuries, when probate inventories record five pairs of looms and six pairs of combs there, but it reached its most productive period in the mid-19th century. The rise of textile crafts brought a massive increase in the density of housing between the earlier settlement foci, especially along the lane between Hall Green and Town End that became Main Street. In 1851,

 

 

Main Street was recorded as the home of over 130 people involved in woolcombing, weaving and spinning. Additional industrial housing developed in association with the opening of the first water-powered textile mill: the cotton-spinning mill at Bridgehouse, built about 1790. Further textile mills erected along Bridgehouse Beck and the river Worth, including the architecturally important Ivy Bank Mill, together with their associated housing, are outside the conservation area.

 

flickr/ ivy bank mill

 

The nonconformist denominations attracted members of the most prominent families in Haworth. Among these were the Greenwoods, owners of Bridgehouse Mill. They occupied Bridge House, a late 18th-century house next to the mill, until the 1840s when they moved out to Woodlands, a larger

house at the southern end of the conservation area; they were Baptists, and gave financial support to the movement along with the Midgleys, lords of the manor. The Greenwoods' successors at Bridgehouse Mill, R.S. Butterfield and J.R. Redman, were Methodists. archaeology/ConsHaw

britishlistedbuildings/england/bradford/haworth

 

 

And then they reached the Parsonage

 

 

Something About Arthur

 

Few of Emily and Anne’s Gondal-related texts survive. Charlotte and Branwell’s Angria works have fared better. Charlotte’s Something About Arthur is one of these miniature volumes, and is held by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
The pages of Something About Arthur, which Charlotte wrote in 1833 at age 17, measure 2.25 by 3.6 inches. The book is 25 pages in length, and some of that scant real estate is claimed by a 42-line poem. In a foreshadowing of the Brontë sisters’ later interest in love and the class system, its plot follows two aristocratic brothers, one of whom narrates the story of the other’s romantic encounter with a poor, but worthy, peasant girl.
 (Rebecca Onion)  bronteblog/something-about-brontes

Heaven is a Home

 

The new exhibition of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Heaven is a Home will open next March 22:
A new collection of photographs and artefacts reveals the secret life of Parsonage through the stories of all those who lived there.
‘Heaven is a Home’ tells the story of all those who lived at the Parsonage both before and after the Brontës, as well as giving fascinating domestic details of the Brontës’ own time at the house.
Built in 1778, the Parsonage was home to clergymen and their families both before and after the Reverend Patrick Brontë’s incumbency. From the Brontës’ time living in the house we have fascinating evidence in the form of letters, sketches and documents, detailing how the house was organised and decorated, what kind of lighting and heating they used and what housework they did.
Read more: heaven-is-home

Diary of Elisabeth Firth

One Miss Elizabeth Firth, who was in 1824 to become the wife of the Rev. James Franks^ Vicar of Huddersfield, was eighteen years of age when, in 18 15, the Rev. Patrick Bronte removed from Hartshead to Thomton. She was living with her father at Kipping House, Thornton. She had been, by the way, a pupil of Miss Richmal Mangnall, the author of the once famous Mangnall' s Questions. That lady was for many years a schoolmistress in the neighbourhood of Wakefield. Miss Firth made speedy acquaintance with Mrs. Bronte, and, as we have seen, became one of the child Elizabeth's godmothers. Miss Firth kept a diary, a diary all too scanty.

It oonsisted the merest notes in a pocket-bode. "We drank tea at Mr. Bronte's, ' is one day*s item, and "" Mr. Bronte and Mrs. Morgan drank test bene,"" is another; and so on through the five years. Mr. Bronte is seen as a most sociable in- dividual, and constant records of tea-drinking are noted. On July 26, 18 16, we learn that "Miss Branwell returned to Penzance," so that we know from this and from no other source that she was in attendance on the young mother when Charlotte was bom. From one entry we learn that Miss Firth had a mind of her own in literature. " Read Old Mortality. Didn't like it," she says in her diary. But she is kinder to some of Sir Walter Scott's later books.

It is to Miss Firth alone that we are indebted for the actual dates of birth of all the Bronte children. On January 17,1820, we find the announcement of another accession to the Bronte family. This was the day that Anne was bom. In that month also the record, '' Gave at Anne's christening, one pound." Altogether, one sighs over the fact that Mistress Elizabeth Firth was not a more voluble person. One real glimpse of Mrs. Bronte as she impressed a sister woman, one vivid picture of these years relative to the birth of Charlotte or Emily, one saying of the poor mother pitilessly hurrying to her doom, would have been pathetically interesting. Two months after Anne's birth we find the entry, " Mr. and Mrs. Bronte came to dinner," and so it seems that both husband and wife had their share of social life in those days, to say nothing of the companionship of the sister from Penzance.
　

Mr. Bronte, it is true, took the Haworth services from February, but it is clear that he left his family behind him then as the guests of the Firths, at Kipping House. As a stalwart walker, the journey to and fro could never have troubled him. His visits to Thornton continue to be recorded in Miss Firth's diary many times during this year 1820. charlottebronte

Elizabeth Firth

Elizabeth Firth, born in 1797, welcomed the Brontës to Thornton when they arrived in 1815: the Firths subsequently formed a close friendship with Patrick and Maria. Elizabeth became one of the two godmothers of Anne (the other was Elizabeth's friend, Fanny Outhwaite). After Maria's death, Patrick made a proposal of marriage to Elizabeth: she declined, but the family friendship remained intact, and she continued to take an active interest in the Brontë children's welfare. In September 1825 she married the Reverend James Franks, vicar of St. Paul's church in Huddersfield. This was only about five miles away from Roe Head School, and on 17 June 1836, at the commencement of the girls' summer holidays, Charlotte and Anne went to stay, for a week, with the Franks at the Huddersfield vicarage. The girls were not totally enthusiastic about the visit as, naturally, they were anxious to return home to Haworth. Patrick pressured them a little to accept the Franks' invitation: he had earlier written to the Franks over his daughters' visit: 'I esteem it a high privilege that they should be under your roof, for a time - where, I am sure, they will see, and hear nothing, but what, under Providence, must necessarily tend, to their best interest, in both the worlds . . .'. Juliet Barker reports: 'The eldest child, John Firth Franks, recollected that Charlotte never spoke to him during the whole time she was there though Anne brought toys to him in the nursery.' ⁵⁵ⁿ Elizabeth Franks died in September 1837 at the age of 40. mick-armitage

Elizabeth Firth Manuscripts
The diaries which form the bulk of the collection are of the simplest kind: brief day-to-day records of social and church occasions in the life of a young girl in the Yorkshire village of Thornton in the 1810s and 1820s. Their principal interest lies in the references to members of the Brontë family with whom Elizabeth was acquainted, and the collection includes a letter from Charlotte Brontë to Elizabeth Firth.

Miss Elizabeth Firth lived at Kipping House at Thornton, near Bradford, to which village the Brontë Family moved in 1815 when Patrick Brontë became curate there. Elizabeth was then 18 years old; her father, John Scholefield Firth, was a doctor; her mother had died in an accident the previous year. A friendship rapidly developed between Elizabeth and Maria Brontë, and both father and daughter were asked to become godparents to the Brontës daughter Elizabeth. In 1820 the Brontës moved to Haworth, and the following year Maria died. In December 1821 Patrick Brontë proposed marriage to Elzabeth Firth, a proposal which is thought to have led to a rupture in her relations with the Brontë family of almost two years before the relationship was resumed. Elizabeth married the Rev. James Clarke Franks in September 1824.

The collection also includes a pedigree of descendants of Elizabeth Firth (Mrs. James Clarke Franks), the Moore Smith and Franks families, compiled by George Charles Moore Smith, her grandson, who became Professor of English Language and Literature from 1896 to 1924, successively at Firth College, University College, and the University of Sheffield as the institution progressed to full university status in 1905. library/special/efirth

On this website you can  see pictures of the house inside. roperties//kipping-house

 

Crofton Hall at Wakefield

  

The Wakefield Express informs of the unveiling of a new blue plaque by the Wakefield Civic Society with Brontë connections:

Brontë fans could soon be making a detour from Haworth to visit Crofton after a blue plaque was unveiled this week in honour of a lady who links the village to the famous family.
The plaque was unveiled at the Young People’s Centre on High Street, which sits on the site where part of Crofton Hall School once stood – the school where Elizabeth and Maria Brontë were once pupils.

Richmal Mangnall was the school’s headteacher in 1802, and author of one of the country’s best-selling books of the time, called Historical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People. Charlotte Brontë’s copy is on display at the Brontë parsonage in Haworth.

Bonnell43
Title	HISTORICAL/ AND/ MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS, / FOR THE USE OF YOUNG PEOPLE
Description	hardback; brown leather covers and spine; gilt tooling to spine; 442 pages; incomplete; fair; 180mm l x 105mm w x 32mm d
Production place	London
Production dating	1813 - 1813
Material	leather, paper, gilt
Dimensions	whole 180 mm whole 105 mm whole 32 mm bronte.adlibsoft.

 Miss Mangnall was born in Manchester in 1769, but came to Crofton in 1780 to attend Crofton Hall School for young ladies. She stayed on as a teacher when she finished her education, before becoming its owner and headteacher.

Her book was used by teachers, tutors, governesses and parents to educate and inspire children.

Maria and Elizabeth attended the school in 1823.  bronteblog

In summer 1824, Patrick sent Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily to Crofton Hall in Crofton, West Yorkshire  wiki/Anne_Bronte

In 1823 Elizabeth and her older sister Maria were sent to the fashionable girls' boarding school Elizabeth Firth had attended, Crofton Hall at Wakefield. Fees were high, and it is believed Elizabeth Firth may have helped pay them. Mr Brontë had three other daughters, though, and could not afford to educate them all at Crofton Hall on his small stipend. bronte.org.uk

Richmal Mangnall (1769–1820) was an English schoolmistress and writer of a famous schoolbook.

Richmal Mangnall by John Downman watercolour, 1814 collections//Richmal-Mangnall

Richmal was born on 7 March 1769, probably in London. She was one of seven children of James Mangnall of Hollinhurst, Lancashire, and London, and Richmal, daughter of John Kay of Manchester to survive infancy. One brother, James, became a London solicitor, another, Kay, died in the East Indies in 1801. Her parents died about 1781, when she was adopted by an uncle, also John Kay, a Manchester solicitor.^[1] 

Richmal Mangnall began to attend a successful school of about 70 pupils, at Crofton Hall, a Georgian mansion near Wakefield, Yorkshire, built in about 1750.^[2] There it was found possible for a teacher or senior pupil to teach big classes using a system of question and answer. She herself graduated from being a pupil to being a teacher there. The first edition of her Historical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People (1798) was printed privately and anonymously for use in the school. It was then taken up by the London publishing firm Longman, whose still anonymous 1800 edition was dedicated to John Kay.^[3]
The book became generally known as Mangnall's Questions and was "the stand-by of generations of governesses and other teachers." It had appeared in 84 editions by 1857. Its "level, plain, humane" judgements have been associated with the Age of Enlightenment, and became more open to criticism in the Victorian age, although the catechism type of textbook remained dominant. The British Constitution met with her approval, as did her country's abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, but Wellington was rebuked for vanity and egotism, and Rabelais for lacking "that delicacy without which genius may sparkle for a moment, but can never shine with pure, undiminished lustre."^[4]
Miss Mangnall took over at Crofton about 1808 and supported two unmarried sisters from her highly successful school and publishing earnings. She continued to head it until her death there on 1 May 1820 "after a severe illness, which was borne with the utmost Christian resignation."^[5] She was buried in Crofton churchyard.^[6]
Details of life at Crofton House school appear in an unpublished childhood diary of Elizabeth Firth (born 1797 at Thornton, near Bradford). It was her recommendation that persuaded Patrick Brontë to send his daughters Elizabeth, Mary, Charlotte, and Anne there for a short while in 1823.^[7] A later account of English social history recalls it as "one of the best known girls' schools" and states, "Here the girls learnt some literature, which consisted of Scott's longer poems and The Vicar of Wakefield, read aloud by Miss Mangnall herself, geography, spelling, the catechism, and a little pencil drawing. For bad spelling the young ladies were invariably sent to bed."^[8]