The Brontë Birthplace

Emily's by De Luca Boutique - The Brontë Birthplace

 

Unitarian theology of the 19th century

North and South is a novel defined by the resolution of binary conflicts: heroine Margaret Hale is presented with a number of divisions of sympathy, between industrialists and the working class, between conflicting views of Mr. Thornton, and even between her conflicting views of her own intelligence.

Mr. Hale’s decision to leave the church due to “painful, miserable doubts” A key insight into Mr. Hale’s reasoning is found during his discussion with Margaret and Higgins, when he states that “your Union in itself would be beautiful, glorious, —it would be Christianity in itself—if it were but for an end which affected the good of all, instead of that of merely one class as opposed to another”. This statement directly mirrors the sentiment of Unitarian theology of the 19^th century as primarily defined by 18^th century scientist and philosopher Joseph Priestley, who famously described the Trinity as foremost of the corruptions of Christianity.

Elizabeth Gaskell, whose husband and father were Unitarian Ministers, would no doubt have been familiar with Priestley’s writing and was known to hold strong Unitarian opinions,  so the statement of the protagonist’s father in this key scene of the novel holds special weight.

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Emily's by De Luca Boutique - The Brontë Birthplace (BBC Look North 12.0...

Branwell, was born in the early hours of the morning on this day in 1817.

Bronte Parsonage Museum

Patrick Branwell Brontë, more commonly known as Branwell, was born in the early hours of the morning on this day in 1817.

On 26 June, 1817, the fourth child of Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell Bronte was born during the early hours of the morning in Thornton. This newborn boy was given the honour of two names because for Patrick and Maria having a son was a particularly welcome moment. He was named Patrick, after his father, and Branwell, after his mother’s maiden name. Though, there always seemed to be some confusion over which name came first. The day after his birth, his three sisters: Maria, Elizabeth and Charlotte, were invited down to Penzance to the Kipping House so they could join a large party of ladies who fussed over the little girls. In no time the parents sorted out the confusion over their son’s name and on 23 July,1817, at a ceremony at the Old Bell Chapel Patrick Branwell Bronte was baptized. His godparents were Elizabeth Firth’s father and stepmother, close friends of The Bronte’s. 

He was small for his age but good looking, with his father’s nose and a high forehead. He had poor eyesight, he wore glasses and he wore his hair, the reddest in the family, long in an artistic fashion.

Read more about Branwell: kimberlyevemusings

Keeper

Haworth’s stationer, John Greenwood, recorded in his diary a violently protective scene in which Emily broke up Keeper’s encounter with another dog:

She never spoke a word, nor appeared the least at a loss what to do, but rushed at once into the kitchen, took the pepper box, and away into the lane where she found the two savage brutes each holding the other by the throat. In deadly grip, while several other animals, who thought themselves men, were standing looking on like cowards as they were, afraid to touch them—there they stood gaping, watching this fragile creature spring upon the beasts—seizing Keeper ’round the neck with one arm, while with the other hand she dredges their noses with pepper, and separating them by force of her great will, driving Keeper, that great powerful dog, before her into the house, never once noticing the men, so called, standing there thunderstruck at the deed. From: the-animalistic-emily-/

Charlotte completed this pencil drawing, entitled "The Cross of Rivaulx"

Bronte Parsonage Museum

Charlotte completed this pencil drawing, entitled "The Cross of Rivaulx", on this day in 1836. It is a copy of an illustration of the grounds of Rievaulx Abbey, by John Gilpin.