George Whitehead's Journal

I read this on: nillyhall/love-and-more-in-mist:

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I'd spent the morning looking through an old book, picked up recently in the local Oxfam shop;

"Victorian Ouseburn - George Whitehead's Journal"

George must have been a plain-speaking chap - intent on recording facts as he found them, with little emotion or detail, he notes;

 

 

"Robinsons set off for Scarboro' Friday July 4th 1845."

"Robinsons came back from Scarboro' Friday Aug 8th 1845,"

"Miss Lydia Robinson made her exit with Henry Roxby (a play actor) Monday morning, Oct 20th. They went to Gretna Green and got married that night. She was a fortnight turned 20 years that day. A bad job 1845."

("Finished shearing beans and peas, Oct 20th 1845.")

Then the penny dropped and I remembered who the Robinsons were!

A clergyman's family living at Thorpe Green House, near Little Ouseburn, the Robinsons had employed Anne Bronte as a governess between 1840 and 1845, and also Branwell Bronte, as a tutor to their son, from 1843. George Whitehead's diary does not mention Anne the governess, nor her brother Branwell, though he records Robinson family trips to Scarborough which it is known that Anne enjoyed.

"Rev. E Robinson was interred, June 5th. There was about 60 Odd Fellows followed him. His Mrs and Misses Elizabeth and Mary and the young master followed him to the church 1846."

Rumour has it that Branwell hoped that the newly widowed Mrs Robinson would marry him, but this was not to be...

 

 

"Mrs Robinsons labouring men, 4 in number, namely John Abbey, Thos. Brigg, Richard Bowser Jr. and Geo. Kaye paid off Aug 1st.""Mrs Robinson's land let about July 25th 1846."
"Mrs Robinson's sale at Thorpe Green. Farming stock and implements. Feb 12th 1847"
"Mrs Robinson had a sale of oak wood at the Black Swan York March 2nd 1847"
"All Robinsons left Thorpe Green March 3rd. Mrs went among her relations that day and the young master and the young ladies were at Lodgings at York until March 10th and they went southward to their Mamma. It will be a bad job for many people them leaving Thorpe Green 1847."

 

George Whitehead's Journal

mick-armitage

 George was born in 1824 and lived in the village of Little Ouseburn in North Yorkshire.  He was a joiner, wheelwright and farmer.  He wrote up an account of his observations, both personal and also from newpapers as a series of journals from around 1840 to 1909.  His writings provide a fascinating insight into the day to day  life of the 19th century, including accounts of the movements and activities of people in his community.

 

George's Journals are available thanks to Helier Hibbs, who discovered the journals, edited them and then published the Jounals as a book in 1990.

georgewhiteheadsjournal

Elizabeth Gaskell and Lydia Robinson.

The year 1857, which should have been triumphant for Elizabeth Gaskell with her biography of Charlotte Bronte written and in the publishers' hands, was in now well-scripted parlance an "annus horribilis".

On May 7th., 1857, Elizabeth stated simply to Laetitia Wheelwright, in a formal note: "I have today finished my Life of Miss Bronte; and next week we set out for Rome". On June 16th., she wrote to Ellen Nussey: "I am in the Hornet's nest with a vengeance". Lady Scott, formerly Mrs. Lydia Robinson, was depicted in "The Life" as the cause of Branwell Bronte's dismissal and disgrace - he was besotted with her and on her mocking dismissal of his marriage proposal he turned again to much drink and many drugs and an early grave. Mrs. Robinson buried her husband Edmund on May 26th., 1846 and by 1848 she had set her sights on Sir Edward Dolman Scott who had a terminally ill wife. Before the year was out, she had led him to the altar; he was seventy-five - she a grasping forty-eight.

Elizabeth Gaskell had been straightforward with George Smith the publisher writing that "I have three people I want to libel - Lady Scott (that bad woman who corrupted Branwell Bronte), Mr. Newby, & Lady Eastlake". A compromise was negotiated on Newby and Lady Eastlake, but to her cost not Lydia Scott.

The first edition of "The Life" was published on March 25th., 1857, and well received; Lady Scott sued for libel and the matter seemed to have been settled in Elizabeth's absence. A second edition, a straightforward reprint, was announced on May 9th. Then, unexpected, came a letter from Lady Scott's solicitors announcing that legal action would follow unless all passages about her were withdrawn and a public apology made. All unsold copies were called in and on May 26th., two days before Elizabeth returned, William Shaen, one of the Gaskells' solicitors sent a formal letter of retraction which was placed in "The Times" and the "Athenaeum".

The revisions took all summer and so depressed Elizabeth that at the end of June she wrote to George Smith asking him if he could find someone else as editor. He astutely did not reply, and Elizabeth resigned herself to "my weary and oppressive task". When it was finally finished in November, the third edition was longer than the first.
http://www.maggs.com/title/MO36832.asp

Father of Lydia Robinson.

Thomas Gisborne, father of Lydia Robinson

The Reverend Thomas Gisborne was known as a divine and a poet. He was a lifelong friend of the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce having studied together at St. John's College, Cambridge along with Thomas Babington whose family seat was Rothley Temple in Leicestershire.

Gisborne married Thomas Babington's sister Mary in 1784, a year after he was ordained as a priest. They settled down at Yoxall Lodge which he had inherited from his father a few years earlier along with a considerable amount of money.

The Rev Thomas and Mary Gisborne led a content and happy life at Yoxall Lodge producing eight children but their youngest daughter Lydia was to scandalise society by conducting an affair with Branwell Brontë, brother of the Brontë sisters.

William Wilberforce became a regular visitor to Yoxall Lodge from about 1794 making it his summer residence and convalescing there after bouts of ill health.

The large and comfortable house gave Wilberforce and Thomas Babington the perfect retreat from which to work on the abolition of the slave trade.

Unfortunately, the old house was pulled down in 1928 after falling into a state of disrepair.

birmingham post
Lodge-hiding-a-history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gisborne

On this day in 1846 Mrs Robinson's husband died.

Lydia Robinson, née Gisborne, was the youngest daughter of the Reverend Thomas Gisborne (1758-1846), a well-known Anglican priest and writer who lived at Yoxall Lodge in Staffordshire.

Thomas Gisborne and his wife

The Gisbournes had eight children, of whom the youngest was Lydia.

By the time Lydia met Branwell Brontë, she was in her thirties and had been the wife of the Rev. Edmund Robinson, a curate from Derby, for at least fifteen years.

In 1840, the 20-year-old Anne Brontë (the youngest of the Brontë girls) had started working for the Rev. and Mrs. Robinson as a governess to their four children. Anne had moved in with the Robinsons, living in their family home at Thorp Green Hall, a wealthy country house near York.

Thorp Green

In 1843, Anne also secured a position there for her unsettled brother Branwell, then aged 26. While Anne continued to tutor the three Robinson girls, Branwell was to take over from her as tutor to the Robinsons’ only son, Edmund (junior), who was now growing too old to be under Anne’s care.
Branwell did not live in the Hall itself with the Robinson family as Anne did, but in a smaller building nearby on the same grounds, known as The Monk’s Lodge.

During this time he corresponded with a number of old friends about his increasing infatuation with Robinson's wife Lydia, who was the daughter of Rev. Thomas Gisborne. He was dismissed on unspecified charges in 1845. It is thought, according to his account to his own family, the Robinson family's silence on the reason for his dismissal, and subsequent gifts of money from Mrs. Robinson through her servants, that he had an affair with Mrs. Robinson and that the affair had been discovered by her husband.

When his mistress' husband died in May 1846, Branwell was convinced he would now marry Mrs. Robinson, though she had no intention of marrying a penniless man seventeen years her junior. She kept Branwell away by telling him that Mr. Robinson's will required her to stay away from him, never mind marrying him.

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Patrick Branwell Brontë (1817 - 1848)

Branwell was Anne's only brother. Ironically, despite the abundance of artistic talent that existed between the Brontë siblings, there are no 'high quality' portraits of him known to exist. Only this 'life size' medallion portrait (extreme left), created in 1845 by the Halifax sculptor and Branwell's friend, J. B. Leyland, remains to give us an accurate impression of his appearance. Leyland's brother stated that 'the likeness was perfect'. The original is on display in the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The smaller picture shows Branwell's self-portrait of around 1840.

Branwell was born on 26 June 1817, a little over a year after Charlotte. He grew into a very talented young man, sharing his sisters' literary prowess, and had artistic talents that even surpassed theirs; but he was of a very emotional and erratic nature, and had a 'moral weakness' - to use Juliet Barker's words46 - which made him prone to dissolute ways. He could not settle to focus his skills in any one area. Almost every venture he attempted finished in disaster, as did his affair with his employer's wife, Lydia Robinson, at Thorp Green in 1845; and this last encounter proved to be the final nail in the coffin lid. He immediately sank into a deep state of depression, turned heavily to drink and became increasingly dependant on opium. In the last few years of his life, Emily regarded him as 'a hopeless being'.47n His health gradually deteriorated, though his death, which occurred on the morning of Sunday 24 September 1848, still came as a shock to the family.48 He was aged just 31. The cause of his death was recorded as 'Chronic bronchitis - Marasmus'; though, through his recorded symptoms, it is now believed that he also had consumption.