Knitting with the Brontes

In this month’s ‘Yarnwise’, I took a look at the knitting sticks in the collection of the Bronte Parsonage Museum, here in Yorkshire. And came to some interesting conclusions about the knitting sticks, and the Brontes’ experience of knitting. One conclusion I came to was that at least half of the sticks originated with Maria or Elizabeth Branwell (the sisters’ mother and aunt) in Cornwall.
The Museum were kind enough to give us permission to reproduce some absolutely iconic images, of the young Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell, as well as great images of the knitting sticks themselves. Enjoy!

Coming up next month, a fascinating look into the knitters and hand-spinners from the 1790s-1830s in York’s “The Retreat for Persons Afflicted with Disorders of the Mind”, a trailblazing Quaker asylum. Patients indulged in some yarn therapy (as well as, in some cases, spectacular retail therapy). I went in search of their story, and tried to figure out just what on earth people were knitting around 1800!

It’s been a frantic month, locking down the text for ‘River Ganseys’ and completing the charts for the book as well as test knitting Dales gloves for a forthcoming Cooperative Press venture – so do look out for them, over the winter! The good news is, our wonderful test and sample knitters have reached the finishing line, with the ganseys for the book. I’m now busy knitting “something Victorian” for an article and pattern due out in the Spring. I realised the other day, apart from a hat for myself for this winter, and a couple of pairs of fingerless mitts for my teenagers, all my knitting for months on end has been 19thC reverse engineering! Blimey.

Photo by Belinda May, Dales Countryside Museum

Two of the sticks in the Bronte Parsonage’s collection, are similar to this one from the Dales Countryside Museum, in Hawes.
For more information about the Brontes and the Bronte Parsonage Museum, visit:
http://www.bronte.info/
theknittinggenie

The newly-restored Bronte Parsonage Museum, which re-opens today.

 

Some of the highlights of the new look museum include six personal letters written by Charlotte Bronte, bought by the society for £246,000 last year, displayed for the first time. thetelegraphandargus

Rebecca Fraser and Jane Sellars

(l-r) Bronte scholar Rebecca Fraser, with Chairman of the Trustees of the Bronte Society Sally MacDonald and Professor Ann Sumner.

 

 'The Art of the Brontes' author Jane Sellars. facebook 

New website

Most exciting news of the year as far as I'm concerned: our all-singing, all-dancing, beautiful new website goes live tomorrow on www.bronte.org.uk! From tomorrow you will be able to renew or take our membership, buy events tickets, purchase any one of hundreds of products in the shop, apply to research in the library, book for a group or educational visit - and keep fully up-to-date with all Museum events and news - all online. I'll be highlighting the best bits from the new site in the weeks to come. Look out for them. facebook./Bronte-Parsonage-Museum

Quite a lot of colour

"It's closer than it's ever looked to how it would have done in the Bronte period," said Bronte Parsonage Museum collections manager Ann Dinsdale.

"Charlotte put her stamp on the house, and there's quite a lot of colour."
Researchers from the University of Lincoln examined sections of the walls, and in some places found 18 layers of paint and wallpaper dating back to the sisters' habitation in the mid-19th Century.
"They came up with the strata, all the layers of paints that had been used over the years in the parsonage and they were able to work out which was the Bronte period," Mrs Dinsdale said.
"All the historic rooms, which are part of the original parsonage, have been completely redecorated." [...]
"I think people are possibly going to be quite surprised when they visit the parsonage," Mrs Dinsdale added.
"People have this image of [it] being quite austere with white and grey walls. Actually, it's very clear that they did experiment with colour."

Oh, we are so looking forward to seeing it! If you're in the area remember that the Museum opens tomorrow, February 9. From the Bronte blog

On this day in 1857

The manuscript of the "Life of Charlotte Bronte" by Elizabeth Gaskell was completed.

Catalogue of the Museum of Brontë Relics

Full text of "Catalogue of the Museum of Brontë Relics, the property of Mr. Robinson Brown late of Haworth, which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge at their House .
archive.org

Amos Ingham, Charlotte Brontë’s doctor

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   Charlotte Brontë’s doctor, Amos Ingham, lived and worked in Ashmount Country House (01535 645 726,ashmounthaworth.co.uk), on Mytholmes Lane, a five-minute walk from the Parsonage. A Victorian villa with original stained-glass windows, commanding valley views. Bronte blog

Dr Ingham, built Ashmount House in 1870. He tended to Charlotte Brontë when she died in 1855 and her father, Patrick Brontë, six years later.



Dr Ingham was the Haworth surgeon from 1852, and the source of a story that Branwell accidentally set his bed alight after a drunken episode, resulting in him having to share his bed from then on with his father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë. Dr Ingham was in attendance at Charlotte's deathbed in 1855.

On the death of Patrick Brontë in 1861, the Brontë household was broken up, and Martha went with Arthur Bell Nicholls (Charlotte's widower) back to Northern Ireland. Whether this was just to help Mr. Nicholls settle in to his new home, or whether it was intended that she settle there as his housekeeper, we do not know, but by Christmas 1862, Martha was back in Haworth, living with her widowed mother at Sexton's house (John Brown had died of 'dust on his lungs' in 1855). Martha took domestic work in the village, including a stint with Dr. Amos Ingham (lately the Brontë family physician) at the Manor House in Cookgate. bronte.org.uk
kleurrijkbrontesisterson-this-day-in-1880-martha-brown.html

Most of the furniture is antique and much of the original interior of the house is still intact including our beautiful stained glass windows. haworth-village/accommodation

Can't wait to show you!

We're on a countdown till Saturday February 9 now, and our grand reopening with the exciting historically accurate refurbishment, and a few surprises in store! If you think you know the Museum you'll be astonished and delighted. Can't wait to show you! facebook/Bronte-Parsonage-Museum

Pictures of the Parsonage

 

See more on: Bronte+Museum+Former+Home+Famed+Bronte+Sisters

 

 

 

So the highly successful 'Revisioning the Brontes' conference has now come to an end, and our soon-to-be new Director, Professor Ann Sumner, delivered the closing address.

This is what she said:

'We have had a fascinating cross-disciplin...ary conference today, reminding ourselves of the wide-ranging innovative artistic responses and interpretations of the Brontes' work and their enduring legacy within contemporary cultural society worldwide. We have been concentrating on revisioning, in other words refreshing and re-engaging with all aspects of the Brontes' lives, works, art and legacy.

Only yesterday we saw the media coverage surrounding the bicentenary of the publication of Jane Austen’s 'Pride and Prejudice', and as we move towards the bicentenary celebrations of Charlotte Bronte’s birth in 2016, a conference such as this inspires enthusiasts, fascinates scholars and academics and engages new and wide audiences breaking down fact from fiction.

Nick and Liz, the joint conference organisers must be praised for bringing together such a diverse and expert number of speakers today and for engaging with Leeds University students who have practically supported the conference. Partnership with the University of Leeds across disciplines and particularly with the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage is vital for us at the Bronte Society as we support and encourage the revisioning process.

Our day began with the atmospheric original music inspired by the lives and works of the Brontes and the landscape surrounding Haworth with David Wilson and the ‘Air on Bronte Moor’ which set the scene for a rich and fulfilling day ahead. Situated here in the impressive Brotherton Library, we have been surrounded all day by relevant archive material, and Sarah Prescott highlighted for us key manuscripts on show as well as outlining the history of the Bronte archive at the University, and how it was acquired by Brotherton and then the University.

Jane Sellars’ opening remarks considered the progress of Bronte studies in the widest sense over the past 20 years, reflecting on her own period as Director of the Parsonage Museum in the 1990s and her enthusiasm to engage a non-specialist audience as well as her own study of the art of the Brontes. She described the Museum when she arrived as a shrine, and its gradual transformation into a place of genuine inspiration for all creative subjects while still remaining a place of pilgrimage today for visitors from all over the world. There followed a number of fascinating papers.

Carl Plasa decided to revise his own paper and retitle it before he had even started (!) and concentrated initially on the role of Bertha Mason in 'Jane Eyre', followed by an interesting discussion of Kate Chopin’s 'At Fault'. Amber Poulliot then considered in depth the inter-war fictional biographies which applied psychoanalysis to literary criticism to explain how such sisters could write such novels. Alslim Hunter gave a thought-provoking explanation of how our brains respond to a resonant experience, the power of the authentic object and the role of familiarity in informing our response to a genuine artefact (specifically she mentioned various locks from famous heads of hair!, as well as the secondary resonance of contemporary artists' interventions such as Cornelia Parker’s photograph of Anne Bronte’s handkerchief.

Sarah Wootton gave an excellent assessment of Paula Rego’s lithographs responding to 'Jane Eyre' while not ever glamorising the heroine, her discussion included an interesting assessment of ‘Loving Bewick’, and she emphasised the fact that there is no one image of Jane or no fixed viewpoint in the series. The contemporary artist Lisa Sheppy gave an account of what had inspired her piece 'Charlotte’s Dress', currently on display in the 'Wilderness Between the Lines' exhibition at the Leeds College of Art. It was an early childhood visit to the Parsonage and memories of her mother’s professional dressmaking days that had given her the initial idea for the piece. To hear directly from an artist about her creative process was inspiring, and seeing her sketches from her study visit to Haworth and learn about the makers who had added to that vision and enabled her to produce this striking work was illuminating, but also caused one to reflect on the strong influence of her mother on the piece, while Charlotte Bronte had lost her own mother young.

Then there was Jenny Bavidge’s excellent paper on the grandiose and epic musical film tracks from various productions of 'Wuthering Heights' films over the years: a novel, she pointed out to us, which actually contained little musical reference. This was followed by a paper which covered the history of the reception of 'Wuthering Heights' in Japan, where it was first translated in the late 1890s but which only became popular in the 1940s after the Hollywood film; and there was a contextualisation of the 1988 Arashi ga Oka film which was nominated for a Palm d’Or that year. One of the highlights of the day was Richard Brown’s sensitive and witty interviewing of Blake Morrison, where we sorted out fact from fiction in the play 'We are Three Sisters', and heard about the research and writing of the play.

A lively round-table debate focused on the timeless quality of the landscape around Haworth while acknowledging the many calls upon the landscape today, why Emily Bronte wrote 'Wuthering Heights' and how a new generation now came to the novel through Bella and Edward’s admiration for it in the 'Twilight' series.

This conference comes at a crucial moment with two key exhibitions mounted here in Leeds at the very same time that the Bronte Society is undertaking a refurbishment of the Parsonage Museum - the first in 25 years - based on scientific and historical analysis carried out by the University of Lincoln, and advised by historical interior designer Allyson McDermott, so that the interiors will be transformed and areas will reflect the ‘facelift’ Charlotte gave the home in the 1850s when she spent some of her income from the publication of her novels.

The redecoration scheme has inspired our exhibition this year and is at the heart of our Contemporary Arts Programme. We hope the ‘new look’ Parsonage will inspire not only more visitors but the continued interest of writers, musicians , artists and creative thinkers who will respond anew to the Bronte legacy.

I take up my new post officially at the end of next week and will begin working with the team on the bicentenary programme for 2016. I have myself been fascinated by the many paintings which have adorned the covers of paperback editions of the Bronte novels, and am showing you this famous image of the Augustus Egg painting 'Travelling Companions' at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, which I used to walk past each day. This is the cover illustration of the Everyman edition of 'Jane Eyre', and seems to me a rather odd choice, painted some 15 years after the novel was published. To me it will always be Francis Grant’s more restrained 'Portrait of Mary Isabella Grant' of c 1850 in Leicester which epitomises the heroine, because it was on my 1975 paperback as a girl studying for O-levels. I feel a paper coming on... And as Nick said earlier, this could well have been a two-day conference.

I do so hope that the Bronte Society will work again with the University of Leeds and that Nick will ask us back. We would like to follow this up with study days and a major conference in 2016. The Bronte Society is committed to this process, and if you are not already a member or your membership has lapsed, do please pick up a form to renew as you leave! Or sign up for our enewsletter and please follow us on Facebook! facebook/Bronte-Parsonage-Museum

On this day in 1953

Patrick Bronte wrote a reference on behalf of A.B. Nicholls to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. He said that Nichols had been his curate for seven years and had ‘behaved himself wisely, soberly and piously.’
Nicholls had applied to the SPG for a missionary post in Australia after Charlotte turned down his proposal of marriage.

Wedding bonnet and veil

Credit: Charlotte Bronte's wedding bonnet and veil (textile and lace) / © Bronte Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Yorkshire, U.K. / The Bridgeman Art Library

BPM 156671 Image number:

Charlotte Bronte's wedding bonnet and veil (textile and lace) Title:

© Bronte Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Yorkshire, U.K. Location:

textile and lace Medium:

Charlotte Bronte (1816-55); Description:

19th (C19th) Charlotte-Bronte's-wedding-bonnet-and-veil-textil She looked 'like a snow-drop,' as they say. Her dress was white embroidered muslin, with a lace mantle, and white bonnet trimmed with green leaves.   bonnet theredshoescharlotte-brontes-wedding-bonnet-a-replica-of   When Charlotte was married on 29 June 1854 to Arthur Bell Nicholls, she wore a very simple, delicate white muslin gown and a green silk and lace bonnet. The bonnet has survived, but the gown was destroyed at the request of Nichols after his death in 1906 (Charlotte, of course, had died in 1855, only 9 months after their marriage). A replica was made reportedly by memory (by whose hands and from whose memory I have not been able to discover), however, and it is currently in the collection of the BPM, as is the wedding bonnet. fashioning-charlotte-bronte     bronte.adlibsoft my conscience is satisfied - a/sort of fawn-coloured silk Description   penultimate page of an autograph signed letter by Charlotte Bronte to an unknown correspondent giving details of the purchase of her wedding dress   Replica of Charlotte Bronte's wedding dress Description replica made from memory of Charlotte Bronte's wedding dress

Visions of Angria

Rarely seen original manuscripts by the black sheep of the Brontë family, held in Leeds University’s Brotherton Library special collections, can be seen 
in an exhibition called 
Visions of Angria: The Creativity of the Brontës, 
this month.

As a project for his students, Nick Cass, a lecturer in museum studies at Leeds University who also teaches visual communication at Leeds College of Art, asked them to consider these Brontë manuscripts and create a response using any illustrative medium.

“The exhibition is a complementary show to Wildness Between Lines, currently running at LCA, which features practising contemporary artists’ interpretations of the Brontës,” says Cass. “With the eight students, I found that a few had read the Brontës’ work and knew something about Branwell, and the others had no idea about how big the Brontës were, but the project opened up a new area to them. “I was completely thrilled by the work the students came up with, and the way they have articulated the rationale behind their work.” yorkshirepost/students-illustrate-youthful-imagination-of-the-brontes

the Black Bull

 

This beautiful picture I fount it on de facebook page of

John Sargent