His mother was listed as ‘spinster’ by the hand of Rev'd Patrick Bronte

 This rather grainy picture is of a William Bancroft [1821-1914], a well known resident of the village of Oxenhope near Keighley,showing him in old age.He was born on the 12^th December 1821, the illegitimate son of Mary Bancroft.

The Haworth parish records confirm William’s status as illegitimate, because at his baptism at Haworth Parish Church on 19^th February 1822, his mother was listed as ‘spinster’ by the hand of Rev'd Patrick Bronte.

Read more on: bancrofts from yorkshire

 William's Baptism Record from Haworth

George Renaux

I am very sad to hear that Georges Renaux passed away

George was one of the great Bronte lovers of our time

I knew him because he was sending me

 sweet messages about the Brontes, about Emily

through this weblog and Facebook

 

As a friend of him is writing on his Facebook page:

 

Dear Georges, you will remain alive forever in our thoughts and hearts.

Rest in peace dear friend

 

facebook/georges.renaux

This picture is taken by George when he was visiting the Parsonage in 1971

 

Anne Bronte died on this day in 1849

Bronte Parsonage Museum

This image shows the pebbles Anne Brontë collected on the beach during her final days in Scarborough, a place she loved. Anne died on this day in 1849, and was buried in St Mary's churchyard.

 

 

 the-george-hotel

anne-bronte-and-scarborough

taken-from-main-balcony-of-grand-hotel

 

 

 

Number 93 where Elizabeth Gaskell was born

Moving on down from Crosby Hall is number 93 where Elizabeth Gaskell was born on the 29^th September 1810. She wrote Cranford and North and South and was famous for her biography of  Charlotte Bronte. general-southerner

 

Charlotte produced this pencil drawing, known as the 'Revenante Castle'

Bronte Parsonage Museum

On this day in 1829, Charlotte produced this pencil drawing, known as the 'Revenante Castle'. The actual sketch is only 54mm by 93mm.

 

 

The most haunting characters in literature revealed

Top ten most haunting female characters from dramatised literature	Top ten most haunting male characters from dramatised literature
Miss Havisham – Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (21%)	Heathcliff – Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (21%)
2. The ghost – Woman in Black, Susan Hill (14%)	2. Count Dracula – Dracula, Bram Stoker (18%)
3. Lady Macbeth – Macbeth, William Shakespeare (13%)	3. Jack Torrance – The Shining, Stephen King (13%)
4. White Witch – Chronicles of Narnia, C S Lewis (11%)	4. Mr Rochester – Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (12%)
5. Annie Wilkes – Misery, Stephen King (10%)	5. Alex – A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (10.2%)
6. Mrs De Winter – Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier (9%)	6. Frankenstein’s Monster – Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (10.15%)
7. Nurse Ratched – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey (8%)	7. Pennywise the clown – It, Stephen King (9%)
8. Mrs Coulter – Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman (6%)	8. President Coriolanus Snow – The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (7%)
9. Miss Trunchball – Matilda, Roald Dahl (6%)	9. Caliban – The Tempest, William Shakespeare (6%)
10. Miss Hardbroom – The Worst Witch, Jill Murphy (1%)	10. Kevin - We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver (5%)

 

Read more: bronteblog

Record of Charlotte Brontë’s Scottish jaunt in the visitors’ book at Abbotsford, Walter Scott’s home

Helen MacEwan writes:

On a trip to Edinburgh on 10-11 May I met up with Kathleen Shortt, the Brontë Society’s representative for Scotland. We went south to the border country for a tour of Sir Walter Scott’s house, Abbotsford, by Malcolm Morrison, a BS member who lives in Melrose and works at the house as a volunteer guide. Scott’s literary creations were of course hugely influential on the Brontës, as on so many other writers of the period; in 1834, advising her friend Ellen Nussey on which novels to read, Charlotte Brontë had written: ‘For fiction read Scott alone – all novels after him are worthless’.  Abbotsford, his amazing and highly personal creation in stone, was to ruin him financially, though he eventually managed to write his way out of debt. We were privileged to have not only a private tour of the house with Malcolm but also a private viewing of the visitors’ book that covers 1850. The book, whose binding is in too fragile a condition to allow it to be permanently displayed, was brought out for us by Sandra Mackenzie, the Heritage and Learning Officer, and opened at the page where Charlotte Brontë and George Smith signed it during their visit to Abbotsford on 5 July of that year along with 17 other visitors. Charlotte had joined her publisher for a couple of days’ sight-seeing in Scotland when he and his sister went to fetch their younger brother home from his school in Edinburgh for the summer vacation. She was originally to have joined the Smiths for a longer tour of Scotland but her time with them was curtailed, probably because of the disapproval of Ellen and others of her jaunts with the unmarried Smith. Despite the brevity of her Scottish trip Charlotte waxed lyrical in letters about her glimpse of Edinburgh, Abbotsford and Melrose, telling her friend Laetitia Wheelwright that ‘Edinburgh compared to London is like a vivid page of history compared to a huge dull treatise on Political Economy – and as to Melrose and Abbotsford the very names possess music and magic.’

bronteparsonage

 

Photo: Helen MacEwan, Malcolm Morrison (Abbotsford guide), Kathleen Shortt

 

 

Pencil sketch of a ring ouzel

On this day in 1829, Emily made this pencil sketch of a ring ouzel. Native to upland parts of northern England and Scotland, Emily had likely encountered ring ouzels on the moors near her home.

Bronte Parsonage Museum

 

 

Discovering Literature

This is a list of the more than sixty Brontë-related entries to be found there (including Emily Brontë's diary, 1837, for instance):

bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians

Discovering Literature

 

Eric Mitchell at the Parsonage

Look who came to visit on 1940s weekend! We were thrilled to see Eric Mitchell at the Parsonage yesterday - Eric's father, Harold Mitchell, was custodian here during the Second World War, and Eric was the last baby to be born at the Parsonage! Bronte Parsonage Museum

Great pictures of a candlelit Parsonage

A candlelit tour of the Parsonage, and the chance to see items from the collection up close with Collections Manager, Ann Dinsdale
Bronte Parsonage Museum

 

 

Hilary Philips visiting the Parsonage

We were very pleased to have Sir James Roberts' great grand daughter, Hilary Philips visiting the Parsonage today all the way from Canada!

Bronte Parsonage Museum

 

The British Library has put 1,200 of its "greatest literary treasures" online

From the earliest known writing of Charlotte Brontë, a charmingly illustrated short story the Villette author penned for her little sister Anne, to Jane Austen's wry recording of an acquaintance's dismissal of Pride and Prejudice as "downright nonsense", the British Library has put 1,200 of its "greatest literary treasures" online in what is expected to become the biggest digital English literature resource

.Highlighting a survey of more than 500 English teachers, which found that 82% believe secondary school students "find it hard to identify" with classic authors, the British Library launched the Victorian and Romantic section of its new Discovering Literature website on Thursday. With material from organisations such as the Brontë Parsonage Museum and Keats House, the site features manuscripts from authors including Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Austen, Dickens and Wilde, as well as diaries, letters, newspaper clippings from the time and photographs, in an attempt to bring the period to life. Read more on: theguardian and theguardian/my-hero-lucasta-miller-emily-bronte

Photo: Digital treasure trove … Earliest known writings of Charlotte Brontë. Photograph: Brontë Parsonage Museum

Brontë Relics in NYC

Portable desk boxes, samplers, albums of pressed ferns, printed books with diaries written on their flyleaves, mended stockings and locks of hair that belonged to the Brontës carry traces of their lives: nicked with incident, smoothed by handling, frayed with wearing. These things bring to life the daily, domestic round of the Brontë sisters. The Brontës themselves believed in the ability of material objects to be charged with an almost-enchanted meaning, to be imbued by their possessors.
Read more: Brontë Relics in NYC

'Portrait of a French Brunette'

Bronte Parsonage Museum

 

On this day in 1833, Charlotte completed this watercolour 'Portrait of a French Brunette'. This image was sold by Arthur Bell Nicholls' second wife in 1907, and acquired by the great collector of Bronteana, Henry Houston Bonnell, who later bequeathed it to the Brontë Society.

 

 

The parlour.

dailymail

 

 Once it looked like this

Not in the time of the Brontes

But in the time of the Museum

 

 

Haworth 1940s weekend and the Parsonage

The Telegraph & Argus announces of the events that will take place next weekend (Haworth 1940s weekend) at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:Treasures by candlelight are on offer to Bronte fans during an after-hours museum visit. The Brontë Parsonage Museum is taking part in the national Museums At Night event on Friday. Education officer Sue Newby will give people a guided tour of the parsonage’s rooms by candlelight, before collections manager Ann Dinsdale lets visitors have a rare close-up view of valuable Brontë items in the library – including manuscripts, pictures, and objects owned by the family during the 19th century. Sue said: “It’s the Haworth 1940s weekend so we will be speaking about things that happened during that time of the parsonage. “We know a lot about the Mitchells who were living here during the 1940s.”

Beautifull photo of the 1940s weekend on: paul joseph photography

More about the Michells: at-home-with-brontes-from-ann-dinsdale

Photo: Harold Mitchell

On this day in 1830, Branwell completed this watercolour

On this day in 1830, Branwell completed this watercolour, which he entitled 'Terror'. Many of his drawings from this period have a similarly martial theme.  Bronte Parsonage Museum

 

The new landlady of the Black Bull

The new landlady of the Black Bull pub in Haworth has promised to “bring the smile back” to the pub. Pub troubleshooter Leanne Forbes aims to revive the Main Street hostelry which was once the haunt of Branwell Bronte. She was chosen by owners Enterprise Inns to run the Black Bull with her partner of 17 years, Michael Dewsnap. Haworth residents and politicians had feared for the pub’s future if nobody could be found to take it on. Leanne said she and Michael were looking forward to the challenge of restoring the Black Bull’s fortunes. She said: “I tend to take pubs and the brink of nothing and bring them back. We looked at the Black Bull and it looked so sad. It’s lovely where it is at the top of Main Street, it’s like a place in a fairytale.”

CHEERS: Leanne Forbes and her partner Michael Dewsnap outside the Black Bull pub in Haworth
thetelegraphandargus

A complete set of first edition novels by the three Brontë Sisters are due to go under the hammer for the first time this month and estimated to sell for around £80,000

 

Top Books sale. First edition set of the novels by the three Brontë Sisters

 

At the sale of Important Books and Manuscripts held by Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions, books will become available on Monday 19th May at their saleroom in London. The books were published under the sisters’ pseudonyms and include one on the most famous novels in the English language, Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë. The other works comprise Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, 1847; Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë, 1847; The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë, 1848; Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë, 1849; Villette by Charlotte Brontë, 1853; The Professor, by Charlotte Brontë, 1857; and the Brontë Family with special reference to Patrick Branwell Brontë, 1886.

The set was collected by American lawyer Thomas Lincoln Chadbourne (1871-1938), founder of Chadbourne & Parke, it was passed to his daughter Marjorie Chandbourne, and then by descent in the family. Bronte-sisters-first-editions

wiki/Chadbourne_Parke

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Haworth Station

Mick Walpole

 

Conservation work in the library

Bronte Parsonage Museum

We are carrying out conservation work in the library today! A brass warming pan which previously belonged to the Brontës has recently been loaned to the Parsonage, and we are conserving it ready for display for next month.

 

 

Maria Bronte's Sampler

Bronte Parsonage Museum

On this day in 1825, Maria, the eldest Brontë sister, died of consumption at the age of eleven. It has been suggested that she served as a model for the character of Helen Burns in "Jane Eyre". This sampler was completed by Maria in 1822, just three short years before her death.

 

 

Paul Jones‎I love Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage

 

 

 

Artists, Faith, Methodism and the Brontës

A new art exhibition opens at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The exhibition explores the connections between the Brontës and Methodism. Reverend Patrick Brontë's career was nurtured by John Wesley's friend Thomas Tighe and his wife Maria Branwell's family were devout Methodists from Penzance in Cornwall. Perhaps the most significant connection is that Patrick met his future wife because he was invited to be the examiner for the Wesleyan Methodist Boarding School. Aunt Branwell was a strict Methodist and was a powerful influence in the family's lives. Charlotte Brontë describes the Methodist Magazine as 'mad... full of miracles and apparitions, of preternatural warnings, ominous dreams and frenzied fanaticism' and it is this sense of the supernatural that influenced the Brontës' early writing. Ghosts, apparitions, and supernatural communication are features of both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The exhibition has been curated by Nick Cass, a Research Associate in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds who is currently undertaking a research-based PhD on contemporary artistic responses to the Brontës' literary heritage. His selection for Artists of Faith makes thoughtful juxtapositions and reflections on the works. For example, Patrick Heron's Crucifix and Candles, highlights Patrick Brontë's fear of fire and concern for the safety of his family while Graham Sutherland's mediation on sacrifice, Deposition, highlights issues around mortality and loss. Professor Ann Sumner, Executive Director of The Brontë Society comments: "This exhibition coincides with new research on the Wesleyan Methodist Branwell and Carne families in Cornwall by Melissa Hardie-Budden. This summer our visitors will have the opportunity to view these outstanding paintings by major Modern British artists from this little known collection, within the unique setting of the Parsonage. We are delighted to be working with the Methodist Church in partnership for this exhibition as well as the University of Leeds'.Artists, Faith, Methodism and the Brontës

genealogy/Branwell

wiki/Woodhouse_Grove_School

Haworth museum asks: Do you have a Bronte artefact?

People are being urged to rummage through their attics for lost Bronte treasures. Curators at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth believe pieces of manuscripts, letters and belongings might be hidden in residents’ houses. They want people to search their homes as a way of celebrating Charlotte Bronte’s 198th birthday. Ann Dinsdale, the museum’s collections manager, said there were many letters and manuscripts waiting to be discovered. She said that although there were unlikely to be any undiscovered novels, there could still be unknown books written by the Bronte siblings as children. Anyone with items should contact the museum by calling (01535) 642323 or e-mailing ann.dinsdale@bronte.org.uk.
hetelegraphandargus

Drawing of Broughton Church

Bronte Parsonage Museum

On this day in 1840, Branwell visited Hartley Coleridge, son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, at his home near Rydal Water. This drawing of Broughton Church was sketched from life a couple of months earlier, during Branwell's time as a tutor in Broughton-in-Furness.

 

 

The Red House

Red House Museum
 

 

The house of Mary and Martha Taylor, friends of Charlotte Bronte

 

Red House Dining Room with the stained glass windows described by Charlotte Bronte in her novel Shirley.
 

 

Red House 1830s Kitchen - that's a sugar loaf on the table!