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.
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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!

 

Drawing from Branwell

Bronte Parsonage Museum

On this day in 1830, the twelve-year-old Branwell completed the 'Hermit'. Despite his pencilled claim that the image is "Original", it is believed to be at least a partial copy from a print.

 

 

the Haworth 1940s Weekend

Via  Haworth 1940s Weekend 

Some inspiration for you ready for the Haworth 1940s Weekend ladies...

 

Conservation on copies of Blackwoods magazine

Via the  Bronte Parsonage Museum

We have the lovely Oonagh with us today, helping with our ongoing conservation on our copies of Blackwoods magazine, which was a great favourite of all of the Brontë family.

21 Reasons Why Jane Eyre Is The Most Revolutionary Literary Heroine Of All Time

  

Read here:

reasons-why-jane-eyre-is-the-most-revolutionary-literary

 

 

 

 

Sir James Roberts Bart: the Haworth weaver's lad who bought the Parsonage (and Saltaire)

 As part of our programme to celebrate our 120th year, join Brontë expert Stephen Whitehead as he discusses local man Sir James Roberts. The mill owner and philanthropist who bought the Haworth Parsonage for The Brontë Society which ensured it was saved for the nation.

Tickets £5.

To book tickets contact louisa.briggs@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188, book online at  http://www.bronte.org.uk/whats-on or tickets will be available on the door. 

Sir James Roberts (1848-1935), was a legend in my family. In quest of him I, two years short of seventy, went to Saltaire. Then pieced together his story from what documents I have, my parents' dual autobiography, Professor Anthony Cross's inaugural lecture as professor of the Roberts Chair of Russian at Leeds University, correspondence in The Times Literary Supplement, and Charles Lemon's accounts of the purchase by Sir James Roberts of the Brontë's Haworth Parsonage to bequeath to the nation, as well as information from the exhibition in Salts Mills and books published about Sir Titus Salt whom he succeeded as owner of Saltaire.

My great-grandfather came from a large and poor farming family near Haworth and went to work at Saltaire, built by Titus Salt in 1850 as a model mill town, at twelve years of age, then the legal minimum age for such employment, walking barefoot across the Moors to do so. We recall Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem 'The Cry of the Children' which influenced legislation in the House of Lords and was translated into Russian by Dostoeivsky's brother, Mikhail. James Roberts met Charlotte Brontë in Haworth but did not attend her father's church as his family were Dissenters. I like to think that Charlotte Brontë's Shirley (1848) reflects her knowledge of such innovative Yorkshire millowners as Titus Salt.

At eighteen James Roberts was made manager of Saltaire. Lacking formal schooling he had taught himself fluent Russian, journeying each year to trade cloth for angora wool, Saltaire using both angora and alpaca wool in its fine cloth. I like to think that Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol's The Overcoat (1842), with its St Petersburg setting, owes something to this Yorkshire wool and cloth trade. James Roberts also travelled to Australia and to South America to buy wool, to Russia and North America to sell cloth. From: Sir James Roberts

 

 

    

This month in the Garden

April is proving to be a lovely month in the Parsonage garden: the grass grows green and fair, the spring bulbs are at the height of their season, snowdrops have been overtaken by daffodils, tulips are just starting to open ‒ so many plants, too numerous to mention, are flowering or just popping up from the ground to remind us that they too will soon be adding their own contribution to the garden. 

There is always lots of work to do.  Right now, spring cleaning the beds, removing dead growth from last year and seeing off the weeds ‒not least the celandines which are very pretty but far too invasive to ignore.  Alchemilla Mollis is another one to watch; give it an inch and it takes a mile.  Geoff takes great pride in the lawns and it has to be said that they are very much improved under his expert care.  For myself, I have never had a passion for grass ‒ nice to look at but hey!  I like to think that, like Jack Sprat and his wife, Geoff and I complement one another in the garden; his strengths are my weaknesses and team work is what it’s all about. 

The new bed at the back of the heather garden is coming along nicely, but again there is a constant battle with herb Robert and the dreaded Alchemilla Mollis. Bluebells are waiting in the wings and will be gracing us with their beautiful fragrance next month, but before that I must not forget to thank the primroses and cowslips which have seeded and are doing really well, so perfect in this garden. 

I must say thank you to Chris Taylor for taking these lovely pictures for us, and I hope that you have enjoyed April in the Parsonage garden.  

From: Bronte Parsonage April eNewslette​r