Happy birthday Maria Bronte

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Maria Branwell, mother to the six Bronte children. We're sure she would have been very proud of this quilt sewn by Charlotte, Emily and Anne. It's too fragile to be displayed but staff have been fortunate enough to have a rare glimpse of it in the Library this morning. facebook./photos Facebook page of the parsonage.

 

Maria Branwell (15 April 1783 – 15 September 1821) was the mother of British writers Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë and Charlotte Brontë, and of their brother, Branwell Brontë, who was a poet and painter.^[1]

 

Maria was the eighth of eleven children of Thomas Branwell and Anne Carne of Penzance, Cornwall, born April 15, 1783. Her father was a prosperous merchant with extensive property holdings in the town, and the family was involved in local politics as well as trade, Maria's brother Benjamin serving as the town's Mayor in 1809. The Branwells and Carnes were leading members of the Wesleyan Methodist community in Penzance cornwall-calling/methodism, and the Branwells were instrumental in building the town's first purpose-built Wesleyan chapel in 1814...

 

Maria was petite, plain, pious, intelligent and well-read with a ready wit. She made friends easily, and the friends she had made from Thornton remained life-long friends to Patrick and his children. Her only extant written work, apart from letters, is the unpublished tract The Advantages of Poverty In Religious Concerns. bronte.//family-and-friends/mrs-bronte

 

cornwalls/Penzance/chapel_street

 

 

Maria, let us walk, and breathe, the morning air,

And hear the cuckoo sing,-

And every tuneful bird, that woos the gentle spring.

Troughout the budding grove,

Softly coos the turtle-dove,

The primrose pale,

perfumes the gale

The modest daisy, and the violet blue,

Inviting, spread their charms for you.

15 april 1813

 Patrick Bronte for Maria Branwell