Branwell Brontë's Bicentenary Celebrations.

Branwell Bronte

This year, 200th anniversary of his birth

We remember him as the failure of the family. Despite being a passionate poet, writer and artist, he failed to hold down conventional jobs, and repeatedly succumbed to vice. Finally, his world fell apart after the end of an affair with a married woman, Lydia Gisborne, which accelerated his dependence on opiates and alcohol. He died at the young age of 31 from the long-term effects of substance abuse.

The poet Simon Armitage is the museum’s creative partner for this bicentenary, curating an exhibition that pairs his own poetry with objects owned by Branwell; inviting us to reflect on the workings of his mind and our relationship with this problematic fellow. At the heart of the exhibition is a letter to the Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Branwell, then a earnest 19-year-old, encloses one of his own poems, and expresses his hopes and dreams of building “mansions in the sky”.

Wordsworth never replied.

Life threw repeated punches at Branwell, but within this series of unfortunate events there was happiness and worth. We must not forget that the Brontë brother grew up in the same literature-charged environment as his three siblings. For much of their young lives, they collaborated on fantasy sagas as complex as our modern-day Game of Thrones. Set in the worlds of Glass Town and Angria, the siblings wrote the tales in tiny books and acted them out together. But Branwell was at the centre of this universe, often dictating the events of the saga or writing long parliamentary speeches and war epics. As Armitage says: “He was driving the whole show. He had this flurried imagination and they seemed to be wildly encouraging of each other.” Read more: theguardian

Branwell was a talented artist

Verdopolis

This sketch of Verdopolis, an imaginary Angrian town, was the inspiration for Simon Armitage's exhibition Mansions in the Sky

Brontë Parsonage‏Branwell was a talented artist & while he never quite made it as a portrait painter, we think his "Gos-Hawk" is pretty special

Branwell Brontë was born 200 years ago

He was the first Brontë to publish his work, often as 'Northangerland', his literary alter ego

This wallet is one of the few personal possessions we have of Branwell Bronte

 Branwell was a Freemason

This apron was decorated by him for the Three Graces Lodge, in Haworth, in the 1830s

Monthly Intelligencer newspaper

As a child, Branwell created the imaginary world of Angria with Charlotte - this is his Monthly Intelligencer newspaper

Here's his Little Henry play set