I received this nice letter of someone who visited The Bronte Parsonage Museum.

I love your blog on the Brontes and wanted to write to let you know how much pleasure it has given me to browse through the immense amount of material you have collected.

I visited the Parsonage at Haworth for the first time last month and their story has haunted me ever since. My girlfriend  and I arrived there just after lunch on a typically overcast, dull and windy Yorkshire day. The house was just being 'invaded' by a large party of American and Japanese tourists but we were able to slip quietly in before them as they stood waiting for their guide outside. The house completely entranced me. To stand in the room where the sisters used to walk around the table and see the sofa where poor Emily breathed her last breath made me feel slightly giddy. 

We were particularly fascinated by Charlotte's tiny dresses, stockings and shoes and by the tiny handwriting. To learn that Branwell, Emily and Anne all died within such a very short space of time was a real shock to us. 

One can only imagine how their poor father, often unjustly labelled an uncaring tyrant, must have grieved for them all and how empty that big house must have felt with just himself and Charlotte living there for a while. 

Afterwards, we walked into the town for coffee and then, with the light beginning to fade, drove along the road and followed the signs to Top Withens. Unfortunately, with the weather closing in and the need to get back home to Buxton in Derbyshire, we had to cut our walk short. 

We could see the tree and the ruined cottage around half a mile distant. Frustrating! But we will be back. It was certainly lonely up there on the moors. Just ourselves, a blustery, dark and cloudy day and the huge expanse of the moors around us.

Picture Top Withens: pilgrimchris

Andrew Heaton, a descendant of the Heatons of Haworth

The Yorkshire Post tells the story of Andrew Heaton, a descendant of the Heatons of Haworth who has written a book, Never had a better, tracing his origins:

“My father was a well-respected sheepdog trial enthusiast and was also the first sheepdog trial winner of the new millennium when on January 1, 2000, high on the moors above Brontë country at Moor Lodge Farm, Oakworth he won the New Year’s Day trial with his dog Ben. Ironically I was to return to Brontë country many times in this past year as I uncovered stories that linked my family with both Emily and Patrick Brontë.” (...)
While Andrew has been able to find actual references and dates for over 500 years worth of Heaton family history, none is likely to capture the imagination more than a romantic entwinement with Robert Heaton of Ponden Hall and Emily Brontë. And there is enough conjecture for Andrew to mount an extremely plausible storyline.
The Heatons are inextricably linked with Haworth via the inscription on the bottom of the stained glass window in the Brontë chapel of Haworth Parish Church of St Michael and All Angels. It reads: “In memory of the Heatons of Ponden – Trustees of Haworth.”
While that proves very little, Andrew ventures further that the link between Ponden Hall, three miles west of Haworth, and Thrushcross Grange of Emily’s Wuthering Heights is feasible.
“In the 19th century, not many houses on the desolate moors surrounding Haworth could compare with Ponden. Like Thrushcross, the hall was attractive and well furnished and was inhabited by gentlemen of good standing, the educated Heaton brothers.”
When Emily was writing her book she often visited Ponden and he believes there is plenty of evidence to suggest that she and Robert were more than just friends.
“The plot of her novel concerns an inheritance and from what is known of the Heatons at the time, inheritance was what their 
life revolved around.
“The character of Heathcliff is based around a strange and sinister figure. At the time there was a man called Henry Casson who married into the Heaton family and tried to acquire her wealth.”
Copies of Andrew’s Never Had a Better can be obtained through visiting www.annbowes.co.uk

Old Age and the End of the World

Mrs. Tabitha Ratcliffe

This beautiful picture of Mrs. Tabitha Ratcliffe

I found on  facebook/Bronte-Parsonage-Museum

 

Mrs. Ratcliffe was the sister of the Brontës' servant, Martha Brown. In the Brontës' time, she 'used often to spend the evening with her sister at the Parsonage . . . as well as in the Sunday school, where she was taught by both Charlotte and Anne Brontë'. In the early 1900s, she was interviewed by one C. Holmes Cautley who wished her to recall all she could of the Brontë family. In the interview, she told Cautley 'I used to think Miss Anne looked the nicest and most serious like'. mick-armitage

Maney Publishing.

The Leeds-based firm is behind academic journals which aim to provide answers to life, the universe and almost everything.

From humble beginnings in 1998, the firm has grown to become one of the world’s most influential academic publishers. It has a truly global reach; for example, its publication – The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine – is based in the US hospital where the actor Christopher Reeve was treated after he was paralysed in a fall.

By the end of 2013, Maney will have published its 150th journal, and chief executive Michael Gallico has his sights set on further expansion into Australia and China.

By the end of 2013, Maney will have published its 150th journal, and chief executive Michael Gallico has his sights set on further expansion into Australia and China.

“The journals maintain academic dialogues between subject specialists on an international basis,” he said. “We’re the largest publisher of archaeology journals worldwide. Viking archaeology in North America has parallels with work being done in Scandinavia.”

All this helps to add to the sum total of human knowledge. There’s also a place for more offbeat lines of research.

The journal Textile History carried an article with the arresting headline – Did Sergeant Pepper really just want to give peace a chance? – which attempted to analyse why so many rock and pop bands chose to wear military uniform in the 1960s. Another article – What do you want to be when you grow up, Mr Doctor? – described how people’s names can influence their career choice. This article appeared in the aptly titled Names: A Journal of Onomastics.

The company was founded in the heart of Leeds in 1900 by Walter Maney, as a specialist typesetter and printer.

It was bought by the Huddersfield-based Charlesworth family in 1995, who hired Mr Gallico as CEO in 1997. It entered the world of academic publishing the following year, with Bronte Studies, which is dedicated to the lives and works of the Bronte sisters of Haworth, West Yorkshire.

“It’s a very successful journal,” said Mr Gallico. “The Brontes are a perennial subject of interest.”

yorkshirepost

maneypublishing

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë

from the bronteblog:

Freda Warrington chooses for The Huffington Post her favourite Gothic romance novels, among which is

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë
What is there left to say about "Wuthering Heights"? We studied this in school and I loved it, despite the convoluted structure: Instead of a straight narrative, we have a visitor being told the story by a housekeeper. (Does anyone else feel like screaming at Victorian novels, “Oh, please get on with it?”) But what a story – the wonder of "Wuthering Heights" is that the characters are so scandalously horrible, selfish, even violent. Cathy and Heathcliff demonstrate their love by being as vile as possible to each other. Jane Austen this isn’t. And we love them for it.

The Peninsula Pulse also selects the novel as one of 'Three Fantastic Fall Reads'.

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
This book has captivated me since it was assigned in a sophomore English class. Heathcliff! "What a hottie?" I thought, "I hope someday somebody loves me like that." I've since changed my mind…he's a bit too clingy and goes a bit crazy, like digging-up-dead-bodies crazy.
The famous novel is set in 1801, in the barren, stormy landscape of the Yorkshire Moors. Young Heathcliff, an orphan boy, and Catherine, the daughter of the wealthy Mr. Earnshaw, are inseparable, in love.
But class, jealousy, and selfishness keep them apart and what ensues is a dark, sinister and tragic drama that has nearly every character experiencing despair at the hand of Catherine and Heathcliff's passion for one another – that continues beyond the grave. (Sally Slattery)

And it also makes it into The Roanoke Times' The Back Cover. It is a book 'to curl up by the fire with'.

“Wuthering Heights,” by Emily Brontë
No one does bleak like a Brontë sister, especially Emily. “Wuthering Heights” is not so much a love story as a passionate one. This book has a great atmosphere to read about, yet not inhabit — wild and fraught and crazed. It’s full of characters you don’t want to meet, moors you don’t want to roam and houses you don’t want to enter. “Wuthering Heights” is great to curl up with not just because of its intense characters, but the intense emotions it spurs in readers. Most people love or hate this book, and it’s easy to see why: Heathcliff, Cathy and the rest of the Earnshaws and Lintons themselves stagger along the thin line between love and hate, taking readers along for the ride. Like the wind that rattles the treetops and the whirling snow, Heathcliff is himself a chaotic force and nature — fun to watch, not to experience. (Suzanne Wardle)

Charlotte Bronte and Thackeray

This is what introduced William Makepeace Thackeray to Charlotte Brontë aka Currer Bell: 

 "There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital - a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of 'Vanity Fair' admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst who he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time - they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead. Read more on:

booktryst/when-bronte-met-thackeray

Blue plaque installed at railway station to celebrate Brontë links

The Friends of Sowerby Bridge Railway Station commissioned the plaque as part of a wider project by the group to promote the Brontë link and the work was supported with a Calderdale Council grant.

The original railway station was around 500 yards away from the existing one and Brontë was employed there as assistant clerk in charge, after his attempt to join the Royal Academy of Art had failed in 1836.

The appointment was confirmed in board papers of 1840 and after a spell there he was promoted and moved to Luddenden Foot by the Manchester and Leeds Railway. His connection with the railway ended when he was sacked
in 1842 over a financial discrepancy.

The plaque has been installed on the exterior wall of the Jubilee Refreshment Rooms, which are part of the original present railway station and close to the newly created Brontë garden, another 
initiative from the “friends” group, which will be planted with 
species which featured in Brontë novels.

The group was formed in 2010 with the intention of improving the station and the 50 volunt-
eers currently involved work in close partnership with Northern Rail.

They hold regular meetings, with regular Saturday morning work sessions where volunteers tidy up the station and maintain its planted flower tubs. yorkshirepost

Trail Guide, a new initiative from English Heritage, the Brontë Society and Bradford Council:

Yorkshire Post presents the Haworth Village of the Brontës’ Trail Guide, a new initiative from English Heritage, the Brontë Society and Bradford Council:

“The idea of the trail was that it would highlight areas of the town that people don’t know so well,” says Deborah Wall of English Heritage. “And we wanted to give people a sense of what it would have been like when the Brontës were here.” Featuring 27 places of interest, it’s designed to take visitors a little off the beaten track and prove that there is more to the place than just Jane Eyre.“The Brontës are just a part of Haworth,” says Christine Went, heritage and conservation officer with the Brontë Society. “And they saw their own history as much bigger than that. Haworth was an important part of the textile industry in the 19th century but when Elizabeth Gaskell wrote Charlotte Brontë’s biography she portrayed the sisters as living in an isolated place. Charlotte, for her own reasons, perpetuated that idea – I think she was trying to make excuses for the writing of the novels which had been poorly received by some.” (...)
The new trail and and booklet are part of a wider project to preserve and enhance Haworth for future generations. The conservation project has involved replacing frontages of shops and businesses in the village in keeping with the 19th-century heritage of the village, maintaining the cobbles, or setts, on the Main Street and installing new windows into the old Schoolhouse, which played such an important part in the Brontë siblings’ lives. It was built in 1832 as a Sunday school with funds from the National Society and from public subscriptions generated through the efforts of Patrick Brontë.
“Charlotte, Anne and Branwell would all have taught at the Sunday school – there is some doubt about whether Emily did because she had strong views of her own on religion,” says Christine.
“Every year the Brontës would hold a tea party for the Sunday school teachers at the Parsonage – most of the other teachers were mill girls.”
Another point of interest on the trail is the home of carpenter William Wood who made much of the furniture still in the Brontë Parsonage and was employed by Patrick to do odd jobs including painting and decorating. “He also made all the Brontës’ coffins,” says Christine. “And he made cases for Barraclough clocks – the Barraclough family lived in Haworth. There is a Barraclough clock in the Parsonage and Ellen Nussey, Charlotte’s great friend, wrote how, after the death of her siblings, Charlotte would sit alone in the parlour with just the sound of the clock ticking.”
Christine and Deborah both acknowledge that the legacy of the Brontës is one of the main attractions for visitors to Haworth but they hope the trail and booklet bring out other aspects. “Really we want to broaden people’s understanding of its history,” says Deborah. “Down to a certain point on Main Street not much has changed really – Charlotte could walk up the hill today and still recognise it.”Haworth Village of the Brontës’ Trail Guide is free and available from Brontë Parsonage Museum, the Tourist Information Office and other shops in the village. bronteblog

The Masonic Lodge at Haworth, known as the Three Graces, underwent something of a revival in the 1830s. Kenneth Emsley wrote (BST, v. 20, pt 5, 1992) that the lodge contained “a wide cross-section of members from the local community,” especially skilled artisans. Branwell was initiated, probably through the instigation of John Brown, while still under age, in February 1836. The society no doubt ministered to the love of secret organizations which is seen in the juvenilia and is part of the underbelly of Romanticism. Branwell was a regular attendant in 1836–7, thereafter an occasional one – one of many examples in his life of an early enthusiasm which exhausted itself. The fact that Branwell was willing to act for a time as secretary (probably one of few in Haworth capable of doing so) and that Patrick was willing to preach a special sermon for them, illustrates the loss of that revolutionary impulse in the movement that had attracted men such as Mozart. The Lodge met first in the Black Bull, then in the King’s Arms, and later had a permanent home in what is now Lodge Street, then known as Newell Hill. This tiny cul-de-sac was also home to the Haworth Mechanics’ Institute, and to William Wood, the Parsonage’s carpenter and cabinet-maker. blackwellreference
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William Wood, village carpenter and nephew of Tabby. carpenter+William+Wood+of+haworth

Bronte Birthplace

Short movie of the Bronte Birthplace

facebook/ bronte birthplace

Dr Robert Barnard, a former chairman of the Bronte Society, author and compiler of the Bronte Encyclopaedia, has died.

The Telegraph and Argus has published an obituary of Robert Barnard:

A former chairman of the Bronte Society, author and compiler of the Bronte Encyclopaedia, has died.
Dr Robert Barnard was also a prolific crime writer as well as being a “mine of information” on Haworth’s most famous residents.
He died on Friday at Grove Court Nursing Home in Leeds, at 76.
Along with his wife Louise, he compiled The Bronte Encyclopaedia in 2007, referred to by the society as “a cornerstone for modern Bronte scholarship.”
He was chair of the society twice and also wrote a book on Emily Bronte’s life.
Essex born and Leeds based, Mr Barnard spent lots of time at the Bronte Parsonage and around Haworth.
He started writing crime novels in the 1970s, writing over 40 books and short stories and receiving the Cartier Diamond Dagger award in 2003 for services to crime fiction.
Marcel Berlins, critic at The Times, called Mr Barnard: “One of our most original and versatile bloodspillers.”
The Bronte Society’s Richard Wilcocks said: “Well known in the Bronte Society, he was a professor, a scholar and an award-winning crime writer.” bronteblog

From the Treasure Trove: warming pan.

Bronte Parsonage Museum

From the Treasure Trove: warming pan.

We recently received this warming pan on a loan.

On cold nights, the Brontes would have filled it with coal to keep their beds warm.

facebook/Bronte-Parsonage-Museum

Bronte Society e-newsletter 30.9.13

Another item on loan to us is the Brontës’ brass warming pan, which was sold at the 1861 sale of the Brontës' posessions after Patrick Brontë's death. The Brontës would have used it to warm their sheets before getting into bed and we're delighted to have an object that would have brought the Brontës so much comfort in cold times! It is in need of conservation work so won't be going on display right away. We will keep you updated on its progress. 

"After a struggle of twenty minutes... Branwell started convulsively, almost to his feet, and fell back dead into his father's arms..."

From the Treasure Trove: Branwell's funeral card.

"After a struggle of twenty minutes... Branwell started convulsively, almost to his feet, and fell back dead into his father's arms..."

(p.670, The Brontes, Juliet Barker) facebook/Bronte-Parsonage-Museum
---------------------------
The cause of Branwell's death was stated in his death certificate as chronic bronchitis and marasmus (wasting of the body). Charlotte said of her brother "I seemed to receive an oppressive revelation of the feebleness of humanity; of the inadequacy of even genius to lead to true greatness if unaided by religion and principle. When the struggle was over.....all his errors, all his vices, seemed nothing to me in that moment....he is at rest, and that comforts us all. Long before he quitted this world, life had no happiness for him." bronte

Emily’s paint box, Patrick’s glasses, the Exhibition Room In the 1970s

From the Treasure Trove: Emily’s paint box
 

From the Treasure Trove: Patrick’s glasses. 

In her book about The Brontes, Juliet Barker writes: 

“Charlotte was shocked on her return to Haworth at the beginning of 1844 to discover that, despite his activity, her father’s health had deteriorated rapidly in her absence. He was now sixty-six years of age: his eyesight was failing rapidly and he had to face the prospect that he might soon go blind”.

 In the 1970s the Exhibition Room looked like THIS:

From: facebook/Bronte-Parsonage-Museum

But I am very very sorry that my inadvertent blunder should have made his name and affairs a subject for common gossip......

The dedication here referred to is that to Thackeray.  People had been already suggesting that Jane Eyre might have been written by Thackeray under a pseudonym; others had implied, knowing that there was ‘something about a woman’ in Thackeray’s life, that it was written by a mistress of the great novelist.  Indeed, the Quarterly had half hinted as much.  Currer Bell, knowing nothing of the gossip of London, had dedicated her book in single-minded enthusiasm.  Her distress was keen when it was revealed to her that the wife of Mr. Thackeray, like the wife of Rochester in Jane Eyre, was of unsound mind.  However, a correspondence with him would seem to have ended amicably enough. [408]

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘Haworth, January 28th, 1848.

‘Dear Sir,—I need not tell you that when I saw Mr. Thackeray’s letter inclosed under your cover, the sight made me very happy.  It was some time before I dared open it, lest my pleasure in receiving it should be mixed with pain on learning its contents—lest, in short, the dedication should have been, in some way, unacceptable to him.

‘And, to tell you the truth, I fear this must have been the case; he does not say so, his letter is most friendly in its noble simplicity, but he apprises me, at the commencement, of a circumstance which both surprised and dismayed me.

‘I suppose it is no indiscretion to tell you this circumstance, p. 409for you doubtless know it already.  It appears that his private position is in some points similar to that I have ascribed to Mr. Rochester; that thence arose a report that Jane Eyre had been written by a governess in his family, and that the dedication coming now has confirmed everybody in the surmise.

‘Well may it be said that fact is often stranger than fiction!  The coincidence struck me as equally unfortunate and extraordinary.  Of course I knew nothing whatever of Mr. Thackeray’s domestic concerns, he existed for me only as an author.  Of all regarding his personality, station, connections, private history, I was, and am still in a great measure, totally in the dark; but I am very very sorry that my inadvertent blunder should have made his name and affairs a subject for common gossip.

‘The very fact of his not complaining at all and addressing me with such kindness, notwithstanding the pain and annoyance I must have caused him, increases my chagrin.  I could not half express my regret to him in my answer, for I was restrained by the consciousness that that regret was just worth nothing at all—quite valueless for healing the mischief I had done.

‘Can you tell me anything more on this subject? or can you guess in what degree the unlucky coincidence would affect him—whether it would pain him much and deeply; for he says so little himself on the topic, I am at a loss to divine the exact truth—but I fear.

‘Do not think, my dear sir, from my silence respecting the advice you have, at different times, given me for my future literary guidance, that I am heedless of, or indifferent to, your kindness.  I keep your letters and not unfrequently refer to them.  Circumstances may render it impracticable for me to act up to the letter of what you counsel, but I think I comprehend the spirit of your precepts, and trust I shall be able to profit thereby.  Details, situations which I do not understand and cannot personally inspect, I would not for the world meddle with, lest I should make even a more ridiculous mess of the matter than Mrs. Trollope did in her Factory Boy.  Besides, not one feeling on any subject, public or private, will I ever p. 410affect that I do not really experience.  Yet though I must limit my sympathies; though my observation cannot penetrate where the very deepest political and social truths are to be learnt; though many doors of knowledge which are open for you are for ever shut for me; though I must guess and calculate and grope my way in the dark, and come to uncertain conclusions unaided and alone where such writers as Dickens and Thackeray, having access to the shrine and image of Truth, have only to go into the temple, lift the veil a moment, and come out and say what they have seen—yet with every disadvantage, I mean still, in my own contracted way, to do my best.  Imperfect my best will be, and poor, and compared with the works of the true masters—of that greatest modern master Thackeray in especial (for it is him I at heart reverence with all my strength)—it will be trifling, but I trust not affected or counterfeit.—Believe me, my dear sir, yours with regard and respect,

Currer Bell.’

Gutenberg
Rosenbach/I-didnt-realize-he-had-insane-wife

Charlotte & Arthur’s marriage settlement.

Bronte Parsonage Museum

From the Treasure Trove: Charlotte & Arthur’s marriage settlement. Shortly before her marriage, Charlotte had a marriage settlement drawn up so that if she were to die before her husband, her money would pass to her father. The terms of the settlement were overturned when she wrote her will.