Patrick Bronte and Wethersfield, Hartshead and Woodhouse Grove School,

 

St Mary's, Wethersfield

 

Patrick Bronte served his first curacy in Wethersfield from 1806 to 1808. He lived in St George’s House, which still stands opposite the Church. He moved to Yorkshire where Branwell, Emily Aime and Charlotte were born.  stepneyrobarts/wethersfield-essex

The register of the parish church of St Mary Magdelene records his stay.  history detail 

Reverend Patrick Bronte (1777-1861)  was appointed curate at Wethersfield, Essex, where he was ordained a deacon of the Church of England, and ordained into the priesthood in 1807. In 1809 he became assistant curate at Wellington in Shropshire and in 1810 he published his first poem Winter Evening Thoughts in a local newspaper, followed in 1811 by a collection of moral verse, Cottage Poems. 

Woodhouse Grove School

The following year (1812) he was appointed a school examiner at a Wesleyan academy, Woodhouse Grove School, near Guiseley. At Guisely Brontë met Maria Branwell (1783–1821), whom he married on 29 December 1812. wiki/John_Wesley

The first inspector at the Woodhouse Grove School was the Rev. Patrick Bronte, who examined the pupils at the end of the summer term. It is probable that the Rev. William Morgan knew that Patrick Bronte had been a successful teacher in County Down. His report on the school has never been quoted and research has failed to find it.  The Woodhouse Grove Academy, or school as it is now called, is on the north bank of the Aire, just below the bridge ; it is delightfully situated in its own grounds, and the governor's house adjoins the school. Whether Patrick Bronte had been to Woodhouse Grove Academy before he went as an examiner we are not told, but before August, 1812, was out, he was sending love letters to the Headmaster's niece, Maria Branwell daughter of Mr. Fennell's wife's brother. Evidently Mr. Bronte's warm-hearted Irish temperament would not allow him to remain a woman-hater for long. The engagement appears to have taken place in July, and the nine letters which have been published point to times of happiness and pleasure, referring to country walks to the historic spots around Apperley, to Calverley and to Kirkstall Abbey; the latter place inspired Patrick Bronte to write a poem on the old abbey. editor/target=post;post

Patrick Brontë and Mary Burder

St George's House, where Patrick Brontë met Mary Burder in 1807 A CHANCE encounter in a Wethersfield kitchen in 1807 almost changed the face of English literature. When Patrick Brontë, the poorly paid and poorly respected curate of St Mary Magdalene walked into the room in St George’s House where his landlady’s eligible young niece Mary Burder was preparing dinner he was instantly smitten. Had the course of true love run smooth perhaps the world would never have had “Jane Eyre”, “Wuthering Heights” or “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” for Patrick might never have become the father of novelists Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. As it was, the romance between the impecunious red-haired Irishman, already aged 30, who had gained his BA at St. John’s College Cambridge through hard graft and the help of some well-placed friends and the 18-year-old daughter of a prosperous local farming family, never ended in marriage. No-one is quite sure why. Not even perhaps the enamoured couple themselves.  The Congregational Chapel where Mary Burder worshipped   The Congregational Chapel on the other side of Wethersfield village green to the church could have had a lot to do with it. Mary Burder’s father had died just before Patrick’s arrival in Wethersfield and the responsibility for her widowed mother and the four children in the family had been taken by her uncle who lived not some miles away in Great Yeldham. Mary’s father had been a churchman, though he shelled out a hundred pounds to help the case of the Congregational minister when he was arraigned, wrongly it transpired, for unmentionable crimes. Her uncle’s family were, however, non-conformists and didn’t look kindly on a match with an Anglican curate. That he was an Irishman didn’t help either. Mary, was whisked off to Great Yeldham.

St Mary's, Wethersfield where Patrick was curate

In fact a marriage to Mary Burder wouldn’t have been too great for Patrick Brontë either. Preferment in the Church of England for a man with a wife who did not share his beliefs would have been difficult to obtain. At any rate Patrick decided that nursing a broken heart in Wethersfield was less attractive than a busy life at a new church in Wellington in Shropshire. He continued to write to Mary for a couple of years but by the time she was 21 and therefore free to wed without her family’s permission, Mary became embittered as the prospect of marriage faded. Somehow Patrick’s letters, and his failure to return to Wethersfield to claim her hand, had turned her love to hatred and she saw herself as a jilted woman. Patrick for his part was coping with a far greater workload than ever the tiny parish of Wethersfield had imposed upon him, and, furthermore, no letters were forthcoming from Mary or her family. He began expressing his admiration of those ministers who could serve God without the distraction of unrequited earthly love. He admitted it was not easy for him but he doesn’t seem to have realised that Mary, too, might have found it hard to understand the situation. Eventually the matter was resolved by Patrick’s meeting, in his new Yorkshire parish of Hartshead, 29-year-old Maria Branwell the petite, though not particularly pretty, daughter of a prosperous Penzance grocer who had gone north to help in her aunt and uncle’s boarding school. Patrick and Maria were married in 1812 and over the next few years five girls and one boy were born to the couple. It was not to be a long marriage. Less than 10 years after the wedding Maria was found to have cancer; her death at 38 after a few months illness left Patrick with six small children aged between two and seven. 

He was in a sad predicament. Although he was now in a permanent benefice at Haworth on the Yorkshire moors he was not well off and no catch for a genteel woman of that period. He proposed to the godmother of some of his children but was brusquely turned down. His wife’s sister had been a tower of strength during his wife’s illness but there was no hope there – in those days marriage to the sister of a deceased wife was not permitted. A further proposal to a

friend’s sister was also rejected.

In desperation Patrick remembered Mary Burder. Was she married? Was there hope of a reconciliation? He wrote to Mary’s mother and received a reply from Mary herself. Yes, she was still single but she wanted nothing to do with a 47-year-old with a family of six to look after. She declined his suggestion of a meeting in Wethersfield.
Patrick, still hopeful, wrote again but there was no reply.

The Manse at Wethersfield where Mary went to live.
 

And Mary? A year or two later she married the minister at Wethersfield Congregational Church, Rev Peter Sibree who declared that in marrying her “he had found that blessing of which I can never sufficiently appreciate the importance – a prudent wife, which is from the Lord.”  They lived in the Manse by the chapel. Wethersfield/lovepages

On this day in 1850 Charlotte Bronte met the Duke of Wellington at the Chapel Royal London.

 

 Image: Daguerreotype of the Duke of Wellington in 1844 the quack doctor

Charlotte had a big admiration of Wellington. Her fictional characters Charles and Arthur Wellesley feature prominently in her early Angrian writings. In Brussels she wrote an essay on ‘The Death of Napoleon’, in which she praises Wellington, making his genius superior to Napoleon’s. Throughout her life she would follow her hero's progress, finally seeing him in the flesh when she visited London in 1850. 

Kleurrijk Bronte Sisters

Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington

Exciting times for the Old School Room

Finally, good news for the Old School Room in Haworth. English Heritage has given a £15,000 grant for restoration purposes. In Keighley News:

                                      brontespirit

The money is being provided for the grade II-listed Old School Room and will fund the replacement of windows as a first step towards repairing the rest of the property. (...)

Charity group Brontë Spirit has been campaigning to have the property restored. Currently, it is only partly used as the roof is in poor condition.
Responding to the English Heritage grant, Brontë Spirit chairman Averil Kenyon said: “We’ve progressed from a position where Haworth Parish Church had to consider selling the building as a possible building development site to one of seeing the restoration project become a reality.
“Now we’re a registered charity, have a 25-year lease on the building and have been engaged in meaningful discussions with English Heritage not only about its restoration but about creating a sustainable future for it.
“We have plans to open the building to the public from mid-July until the end of August. These are exciting times for Brontë Spirit and the Old School Room and we’re now extremely hopeful that not only will we be able to restore this wonderful building to its former glory but also to find a use that will sustain it over many years to come. (...)
An English Heritage spokesman said: “The building’s rundown appearance harms the village and the impression left on its many visitors. The grant will go towards new windows for the building’s main elevation to replace those that have been ravaged by years of harsh Pennine winter weather.
“Talks have been taking place between us and Brontë Spirit about the complete restoration and future of the building, and a development grant is being considered so a wider repair project can be moved forward.” (Miran Rahman) Bronte blog

Beautiful pictures on: the old schoolroom Haworth 

Haworth all set for full Bronte

 

Look for more beautiful pictures on these websites

 

photos of churches

Yorkshire/haworth/HaworthChurch

Soeurs Bronte

 

Charles Dickens will join the Brontes next week as the subject of Haworth’s annual weekend devoted to the famous sisters.

The Bronte Society weekend will open next Friday, June 8, with the afternoon talk, Charles Dickens and the Brontes, by Michael Slater. Mr Slater, who published an acclaimed Dickens biography in 2009, will look at the incredible impact that all the writers had on national culture.

The weekend will see writers, academics and Bronte Society members visit Haworth from all over the world.

There will be a service of remembrance at the Parish Church of St Michael and All Angels on June 9 at 11.15am, open to all. The address will be given by Haworth rector the Rev Peter Mayo-Smith, and will celebrate the bicentenary of Patrick and Maria Bronte’s wedding.

The same day at 8pm an event will explore themes of race and slavery in Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights.

The casting of a mixed-race Heathcliff in Andrea Arnold’s 2011 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights put issues of race into the spotlight.

The documentary A Regular Black: The Hidden Wuthering Heights examines themes of slavery and race in the book, and uncovers parallels between the fictional Earnshaws and the slave-owning families of Yorkshire. Keighley News

Following a screening of the documentary, panellists Terry Eagleton, Bonnie Greer and Caryl Phillips will talk about some of the themes.

The evening aims to present a different reading of Wuthering Heights, and the audience will be invited to join in the debate. Tickets cost £12.

All events except for the church service will take place at the West Lane Baptist Centre in Haworth. Details and booking from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.

A First American edition of Wuthering Heights under the hammer

Sale No 1431 - Fine Books, Maps & Manuscripts
May 31 2012 10:00 - Main Floor Gallery

Lot 334
1 vol.
(Brontë, Anne.) Bell, Acton.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1848.
1st American ed. 12mo, orig. dark brown cloth, spine gilt; head of spine just starting to chip, other light edge wear, 1 small blister to front joint. Scattered light foxing, faint dampstain to upper gutters of last 3rd of vol. 2pp adverts at back. Sound copy.

Estimate $500-800 Bronte blog

Haworth to Heptonstall and Hebden bridge

Interesting website:

valendale.myby/roads

Haworth to Heptonstall and Hebden bridge. This would have been a well traveled route,  Heptonstall had a Piece Hall  long before Halifax. A cloth hall was built at Heptonstall in 1545-1548 by the Waterhouse family of Shibden Hall and called Blackwell Hall after the London market of that name.  bbc.co.uk  calderdale.gov.uk  
At Marsh, Oxenhope, along Lee Lane, Bodkin Lane, Thurrish Lane, turn right onto Waste Lane, Dick Dean Lane, Baby House Hill Lane, at the staggered crossed roads where there are signs of past life, the ruin on the right looks like it was once a fine building, an 1894 map tells us it was called Nook and also known as Higher Sunny Bank, In 1853 John Greenwood (b. 1790ish Wadsworth) tenant of Savile Estate in 1853 lived here with his family. To the right we have Coppy Lane which will take you to Walshaw, or the track to the left Sunny Bank Road, taking you to Old Lane, again looking at the map we see some buildings marked called Sunny Bank, these were on the right going down Sunny Bank Road, there is a photo of what remains of Sunny Bank on Flicker, or continue straight on and drop down to Hardcastle Crags, and then on to Hebden Bridge. 

History of Cowling Hill Farm

Local legend has it that The Weavers Cottages at Cowling Hill Farm were once won in a game of cards by Patrick Branwell Bronte. It is thought that around the  time  Patrick Branwell Bronte returned from the Robinson family, won the Weavers Cottages in a game of cards.
Bancrofts from Yorkshire/hand-loom-weaving-in-yorkshire


 

Emily Brontë had a more terrific creative power than any woman we know of in literature. She was a poet, and even greater than a poet if that be possible; she was a seer of the most tremendous insight, and it was the very light of her spirit that it should be kept secret, that there could not be that free and easy relation to life which we lesser people enjoy... Rev. F. A. Bullock.

After a long struggle, justice had been done

One of the most famous incidents during Patrick's curacy at Dewsbury concerned a young man called
William Nowell of Dawgreen, Dewsbury; who had been arrested and wrongly imprisoned as a deserter of the army. Britain was at the time in the middle of the Napoleonic wars and in order to maintain a supply of soldiers, recruiting officers were sent to local fairs to offer a 'recruiting shilling' to any likely candidates.  In September 1810, a soldier named James Thackray, stated that Nowell had accepted the King's Shilling at the horse fair held at  Lee Fair, near Wakefield and had therefore been formally enlisted to the 30th Regiment.
On 25 September 1810, soldiers appeared at William Nowell's home to arrest him for failing to report at the Regimental headquarters.  Nowell pleaded that he had not attended Lee Fair and had several witnesses who could testify that he had been in Dewsbury that day.  The magistrate refused to accept the testimonies of these witnesses and committed Nowell to Wakefield Prison. The case caused an immediate outcry in Dewsbury and Patrick was one of four men who went to meet with the magistrate in Wakefield to plead for the case to be re-heard.  They were accompanied by two new witnesses who swore that they had been with the soldier James Thackray at the Lee Fair, and he had not enlisted any new recruits that day. The magistrate refused to examine the new witnesses and William Nowell remained in prison. Determined not to be beaten and to see justice being done, Patrick, together with the churchwardens and principal inhabitants of Dewsbury, wrote to the Leeds Mercury and the War Office to demand a retrial. Eventually, a hearing was arranged for 2 November 1810.  Patrick  and eminent Dewsbury men attended the hearing along with fifteen witnesses who could testify that Nowell had not been at Lee Fair on the day in question.  Following the hearing, the evidence was sent to London and five days later William Nowell was released from prison after spending ten weeks in custody. After the hearing, Patrick Brontë received the following letter from the Secretary of War,

Lord Palmerston:
WAR Office, 5th December, 1810.
Sir,
Referring to the correspondence relative to William Nowell, I am to aquaint you that I feel so strongly the injury that is likely to arise to the Service from an unfair mode of recruiting, that if by the indictment that the lad's friends are about to prefer against James Thackray they shall establish the fact of his having been guilty of perjury, I shall be ready to indemnify them for the reasonable and proper expenses which they shall bear on the occasion.                           
I am, sir, Yours, & C.,
PALMERSTON
To the Rev. P. Brontë, Dewsbury, near Leeds.

On 7 December 1811, the soldier James Thackray was found guilty of perjury at York Assizes and
sentenced to seven years transportation.  After a long struggle, justice had been done

Read on: kirklees.gov.uk/visitors/documents/patrickbronte A lot of information and pictures. 

Pining for the west

On this day in 1849

Anne Bronte died at 2 o'clock in the afternoon aged 29 at Scarborough.

 

 

A NEW plaque has been installed at Anne Bronte’s grave in Scarborough to ensure that visitors will be able to read the inscription for years to come.

Read on: scarborough evening news

Weblogs and Jane Eyre

Threads of Red

(Fritz Eichenberg, ‘A long grace was said an a hymn sung’, illustration for 1943 Random House edition, filched from Jane Eyre Illustrated which is a fascinating site)

a galli maufry

Jane Eyre and the fairy folk - "Mademoiselle is a fairy," he said, whispering mysteriously

Wuthering Expectations

Victorian Gothic

From the Royal Archives: Queen Victoria

A message from HM Queen Elizabeth II

 

In this the year of my Diamond Jubilee, I am delighted to be able to present, for the first time, the complete on-line collection of Queen Victoria's journals from the Royal Archives.

These diaries cover the period from Queen Victoria's childhood days to her Accession to the Throne, marriage to Prince Albert, and later, her Golden and Diamond Jubilees.

Thirteen volumes in Victoria's own hand survive, and the majority of the remaining volumes were transcribed after Queen Victoria's death by her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, on her mother's instructions.

It seems fitting that the subject of the first major public release of material from the Royal Archives is Queen Victoria, who was the first Monarch to celebrate a Diamond Jubilee.

It is hoped that this historic collection will make a valuable addition to the unique material already held by the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford University, and will be used to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the past.

Queen Victorias journals

Magic sisters realise Chelsea Flower Show golden dream

They tried ever so hard once, and got silver. Then they tried ever so hard again, and got silver again. But this year the Yorkshire garden at Chelsea has finally achieved its ambition, and been awarded a Royal Horticultural Society gold medal.

That's what the biggest and brashest of England's counties naturally expects; (actually – interesting fact - historic Yorkshire also contains England's second-biggest county: the West Riding on its own beats Devon, Lincolnshire and other such rivals). But the organisers made the mistake of not enlisting the magical powers of the Mighty Sisters until now.

In 2010, the garden was themed on rhubarb and custard, picking up the lore and legend of the 'rhubarb-growing triangle' between Wakefield, Pontefract and Leeds. Last year, a rather architectural construction of drystone walls and the like drew on Yorkshire Artists, with references toDavid Hockney, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.

Not to be outdone. Charlotte Bronte. Photograph: Hulton Getty

But at last, this year, Charlotte, Emily and Bronte appeared in a dream to Gary Verity, the chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire which organises the garden, and said: "Daft ha'porth. It's us you need."

So it has proved. The massive metropolitan cliché mill grinds out unswerving descriptions of the sisters and their moors as wuthering and howling, but we who live here know better. Charlotte herself wrote of Emily after her death and how:

There is not a knoll of heather, not a branch of fern, not a young bilberry leaf, not a fluttering lark or linnet, but reminds me of her

And Emily carolled in one of her perhaps less original poems:

May flowers are opening
And leaves unfolding free
There are bees in every blossom
And birds in every tree.

Anyway, Verity arose and his staff carried out the ghostly instructions, recreating the 'Bronte bridge' which crosses the Bronte beck by the Bronte waterfalls on the way to Top Withens (aka Wuthering Heights) above the sisters' home village of Haworth. They also crammed in a goodly stock of plants, making the composition more garden than artificial construction. Although the Brontes were not actually very good gardeners themselves, as the Guardian Northerner recently described, they would surely have approved.

Verity says:

The garden has had a non-stop stream of admirers since The Chelsea Flower Show opened but this was the ultimate goal, taking gold back to Yorkshire. This is the third time we've entered and we're delighted to be going home with a gold medal for the first time. We hope to convert thousands of well-wishers into tourists over the course of the week. 

Tracy Foster, the garden's designer from Leeds, worked closely with theBrontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth throughout the project, describes how the garden tried to source materials from nearby, including boulders from Dove Stones moor:

The stone is beautiful. We have deliberately not cleaned it so it has aged naturally and it is of the period when the girls would have been walking around the Yorkshire Moors and writing their novels. The stone still has its original lichens and mosses attached which look just perfect in the garden and really give a sense of the beauty and bleakness that epitomise the wonderful moorland landscape.

She is properly over the moon, deservedly:

My first Chelsea and I get gold, it doesn't get much better than this! I'm so proud of what we have achieved. I hope the high profile medal inspires more people to come to Yorkshire to see for themselves the landscape that brought gold to the garden.

Yorkshire garden wins Chelsea gold. Gary Verity and Tracy Foster get their gold from Nicky Chapman. Photograph: Welcome to Yorkshire

Always good at linking things, Welcome to Yorkshire has just unveiled a gardens campaign which highlights some of the best gardens to visit in Yorkshire. You can also seethree films here which the Guardian Northernerteam made last year of the progress of the Art of Yorkshire entry.

guardian/welcome-to-yorkshire-garden-chelsea-flower-show-charlotte-emily-anne-bronte-haworth

Yorkshire garden wins Chelsea gold. Gary Verity and Tracy Foster get