Brontë Studies. Volume 39. Issue 4

The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 39, Issue 4, November 2014) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:

Brontë Studies. Volume 39. Issue 4

All booka about the Brontes

Bront+Charlotte/Search

Mick Midgley‎I love Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage
What a beautiful photo' s.
 

 

Our Arts Officer, Jenna Holmes, was on the Richard Stead show on BBC Radio Leeds this morning. Scroll to 26.42 minutes to hear what she had to say: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02bnglt

www.bbc.co.uk

 

Newspaper Obituary for Branwell Bronte – ‘The Leeds Times’, Saturday 30 September 1848

Explore over 200 years of history

Millions of stories: from your street to the world

Saturday 30 September 1848 Leeds Times

 

Posted on September 24th, 2012 by The British Newspaper Archive

It’s amazing the stories that can be found in the Archive. We could easily spend all day there, reading stories about historical events, famous people and our own family ancestors!
As Branwell Bronte died on 24 September 1848, we thought we’d do quick search to see if we could find any newspaper reports of his death.
We found this fascinating obituary in ‘The Leeds Times’ of Saturday 30 September 1848.
The complimentary nature of this obituary certainly acts as a contrast to the stories about Branwell that were published between 1850 and 1899.
The Archive contains numerous stories about the Bronte family. To find these stories, just do a search for Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Anne Bronte or Patrick Bronte, and then use the date filtering option to navigate to the period that you wish to read about. British Newspaper Archive

What happened in the times of the Brontes?

1800, the Combination Laws banned trade unionism, thus unions forced to operate in secret or under the guise of "non-political" Friendly Societies which were recognised as legal in 1793.

1802, children banned from working more than 12hrs a day

1800-15 - see under Europe for the conflicts with Napoleon;

1810-12 & 1816-17, Luddite protesters against introduction of new equipment in textile industry smash factory machinery

1819, children aged < 9yrs banned from working in cotton mills

1824, laws against trade unionism repealed but their legal status was precarious until the 1860s

1830, King George IV dies & is succeeded by Queen Victoria (r. 1837-1901) an 18yr old princess who would become England's longest-reigning monarch with 9 off-spring & their spouses being in most of the royal houses of Europe making her popularly known as the "grandmother of Europe"

1830's government funding for elementary schools leads to rise in state education which became free for anyone by 1870

1830's & 40's, cholera epidemics lead to public health measures.

1832, Reform Act leads to the Whigs & the Conservative Party to organise themselves as national parties

1834, the New Poor Law, workhouse conditions must be inferior to lowest paid labourer outside to discourage laziness & vagrancy

1835-7, 1st railway boom in England, creating many, disconnected lines owned by new railway companies. Railway investments commonly returned 10% on their capital.

1841, Robert Peel becomes 1st PM of a Conservative (as opposed to a purely Tory) Party after defeating former PM Lord Melbourne's Whig Party.

1844, limits on woman's working hours; 2nd railway boom, almost exhausting the available capital of the investing public;

1845, establishment of free public libraries

1847, Emily Bronte "Wuthering Heights"; 

1850-3, Anglo-Kaffir war;

1851, Prince Albert establishes the Great Exhibition to promote industry & peace;

1855, Viscount Palmerston becomes PM & clashed often with Victoria

1857, Irish Republican Brotherhood (Fenians) founded;

1860's, despite ferocious penalties for even petty crime, 100,000 lived in London by thieving or swindling & another 80,000 were prostitutes. This was the city of Sweeney Todd the Barber & Jack the Ripper.

1861, Prince Albert dies causing Victoria to retreat from social life & lose popularity; Charles Dickens "Great Expectations";

1864, 1st International Workingmen's Assoc. founded by Karl Marx;

1865, William Booth, concerned for the adverse effects of urbanism, founds the Salvation Army to help provide social & spiritual welfare of the destitute; Many land owners earned £100,000/yr & paid tax of only 2d in the pound, the average labourer's income was £70

1869, Liberal Party PM Gladstone (r. 68-74; 80-85; 86; 92-94) disestablishes the Irish Church; 

• John Stuart Mill pushes for women's rights:
  • fighting against loveless marriages as marriages were primarily a property exchange with husband taking all of his wife's property as well as being able to cane her and lock her up if refusing sex without her ever being able to free herself of her tormentor.
  • fighting for equal pay for women and woman's right to vote.

1870, secondary education made universal; 

1871, Lewis Carroll "Through the looking glass"; Charles Darwin "The descent of man"; Jehovah's Witnesses founded; F.A. cup;

1872, the great railway companies founded from the amalgamation of many smaller ones. Introduction of cheap 3rd class train travel at a penny a mile;

1876, Conservative Party PM Disraeli makes Victoria Empress of India; Gilbert and Sullivan "HMS Pinafore"; 

1880, education for children < 10 yrs made compulsory which finally cleared the streets of ragged children living on their wits. Dining cars on trains;

1883, the Cheap Trains Act made provision for discounted workmen's tickets which then allowed the better paid factory workers to live further out in the suburbs away from the slums around the factories.

1884, the agricultural labourer is enfranchised

1885, 1 in 4 Londoners still lived in abject poverty

1885, Lord Salisbury, a Tory becomes PM (r. 85-6; 86-92, 95-02) an implacable foe of Irish Home Rule, made the Conservative Party the most powerful one

1886-7, Karl Marx "Das Kapital" published in English; violent riots by the unemployed vented distress that accompanied the music halls, gin palaces & imperial pomp of Victorian London.

1887, Doyle's 1st Sherlock Holmes story;

1889, London dock strike;

1897, Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee

1890, corridor trains, & then lavatory-equipped ones, made long non-stop train trips possible.

1891, minimum age for children to work raised to 11yrs; Thomas Hardy "Tess of the     D'Urbervilles";

1895, H.G.Wells "The Time Machine"; Rutherford comes to England from NZ;

1898, H.G.Wells "The War of the Worlds";

1899, Oscar Wilde "The importance of being earnest"; Elgar "Enigma Variations"; 

Read about: History

• the rise of the British Empire and the fall of the domestic tradesman
• the rise of abusive child labour
• European nationalism & liberalism:
• Britain's monarchy moves out of the political arena to become a neutral guardian of national stability & is ruled by Queen Victoria with the concurrent revival of Puritanism;
• American civil war & the abolishing of slavery.
• the age of the telegraph
• the age of the passenger steamship (1839 - 1960s)
• the age of the railways (1840-1880
• the age of the city slums & the eventual rise of public health & philanthropy
• London after 1860 - the war against dirt
• Science & technology
• Art & music

Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire

I am proud to pronounce to you a quest blogger Annie Lloyd

Anne lives in the United States. I met her through this blog.

She knows a lot about the Bronte Sisters and is currently writing a book about them

In October she visited Haworth.  Later she will sent me information about this trip.

But first she wanted to tell us about her visit tot the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York  

Currently on exhibit from the at the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York is a show of thirty ensembles meant to declare the wearer is in mourning. The clothes are organized chronologically  covering the years from 1815 to 1915. The practice, reached its height in the later Victorian era. It came to an end during WW 1 as there were so many suffering bereavement it was thought unwise to have it continue. So grief became a private matter and we haven't looked back

Today we wear black because we like it. In other times there were strict rules over the matter and it was a sign of social status.

Being a Bronte fan, my greatest interest lay in a group of three from the 1840's. 

The two women here seem to be conversing. Of course I love those bonnets, but the beauty of the silk is breath taking. It's marvelous such a complete outfits were persevered. 

There is also a simpler dress from 1848. It shows its owner was coming out of her deepest grief by the thin buff lines in the material.

However here is a marvelous slide show of the whole exhibit. It also has jewelry and prints on display.

http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2014/death-becomes-her/gallery-views

By the 1840's a number tailors were devoted solely to the trade of mourning clothes and I believe some were rented out like tuxes are rented today. The custom seemed linked to the rise of industry and the middle class. It  was a matter of status if one could afford a mourning ensemble as well as one's every day clothes. Many had their best dress dyed black to acquire the look.

However those wearing the dresses found at the Met did not have to worry about expense, a good number of the ensembles were made for royalty. Not only is the custom of wearing black because of  grief mostly unknown to us, the beauty of these clothes seem surreal as well. It's a pleasure to see such clothes as these. As a friend once said, " It's not that everything was better long ago, but that only the best survives to our day" 

Much like wedding dresses, these ensembles were worn for a single purpose. When that purpose was done, the outfits were put away. This helped to save the material from wear. If a person was lucky, by the time the clothes were needed again, the attire was out of fashion and that saved it even more as new clothes would have to be bought. This is a boon to us because it promotes the survival of such clothing so we may see them today.

In the 1840's morning clothes were worn for brothers and sisters for  six to eight months. Later in the century rules became stricter and more exacting, particularly after Prince Albert's death in 1861 when Queen Victoria  plunged into 40 years of mourning. It seemed an  Olympic sport in later Victorian times.

Sadly for Charlotte, her sibling's deaths came so swiftly and close together, much of her mourning was concurrent. When Charlotte  finally came out of mourning in 1850,  Anne Thackeray Richie  tells us she wore a green dress.

The exhibition runs through February 1, 2015.

Old photo's Haworth

Mick Walpole‎I love Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage

 

Haworth Steampunk Festival

 

Yorkshire-village-retro-futuristic-steampunk-festival

pool/interesting

flickr.com/groups

Sue Ryder Manorlands Hospice

It's not just the weekend, it's the Haworth Steampunk Weekend!!

A fantastic event and something once seen never forgotten! We'd love you to all make a visit to Haworth for what will be a fantastic few days not to be missed, all raising vit...al funds for the hospice.

Our Worth Valley Support Group will also be collecting donations on Main Street and serving refreshments throughout the weekend at Haworth Community Centre, so please do support their efforts to fundraise for us if you're in the area.