In Search of Anne Brontë

by Nick Holland

  Anne must have been impressed at first sight by Blake Hall itself. The fine and stately buildings she had known, such as Ponden Hall and Roe Head, paled in comparison. It was a three-storey building with a porticoed entrance and above it two sets of five windows. The hall was as deep as it was long, so that it held a cube-like appearance, although the eastern side had a grand bow window at its centre; it was surrounded by beautifully manicured grounds, where the Inghams would entertain their many visitors from all across Yorkshire.

  The Ingham family had made their money in coal mines and wool factories, but they had held these concerns so long that by the 1830s they were well-established members of society, holding a loftier position than those who had more recently found riches. Mary also came from a well-established and respected family, and her father, Ellis Cunliffe Lister, was then Member of Parliament for Bradford representing the Whig Party.

  The Inghams had five children at this point. Cunliffe was a boy of 6, and he had four younger sisters: Mary, 5; Martha, 3; Emily, 2; and an infant baby called Harriet. Charlotte was later to succinctly sum them up in a letter as ‘desperate little dunces’.7 She also reported back to Ellen after she had received a letter from Anne following her first week spent at Blake Hall. As would often be found with Charlotte, she seemed incredulous at her little sister’s ability to do anything, so convinced was she by the reserved front that Anne often wore:

  She expresses herself very well satisfied, and says that Mrs Ingham is extremely kind … I hope she’ll do, you would be astonished to see what a sensible, clever letter she writes; it is only the talking part that I fear – but I do seriously apprehend that Mrs Ingham will ‘sometimes’ conclude that she has a natural impediment in her speech.8

  That Anne was ‘very well satisfied’ was far from the truth. She was determined to succeed at any cost in this, her first venture into the adult world, and she knew that any hint of disquiet or unhappiness would have caused misery and worry for her father. For this reason, Anne reverted to her default position of pretending that nothing was wrong; in fact, things were very wrong.

  She had dreamed of finding children much like the ones she had known: Charlotte, Emily, Branwell, Maria and Elizabeth. All of them were bright and intelligent, and eager to learn; they were a little lively at times but at heart always well behaved. The Ingham children did not fit this image, and her dreams of domestic bliss and how delightful it would be to teach children were soon shattered.

  The first problem that Anne encountered is that the elder children were very poorly educated, if at all. Charlotte revealed to Ellen how Anne found that neither Cunliffe nor Mary could read, and that they had little understanding of the alphabet. Whilst growing up with all the material advantages they could wish for, the children had been indulged to the point where it was almost impossible to get them to do anything they did not want, and they certainly did not want to learn.

  Joshua and Mary Ingham were confident, successful people, used to giving orders and having them followed. The children, even at such a tender age, were already the same. They had no respect for the young timid governess who was supposedly in charge of them, and they resolved in their childish way to make things as difficult for her as possible.

  We can see what problems Anne encountered through her portrayal of the Inghams as the Bloomfield family in Agnes Grey. The children within this book are a year older than the ones she taught at Blake Hall, but this was not only so that Anne could avoid any threat of legal action from the Inghams but also because she felt people would not believe how savage children of that age could be.

  Thus we read how the children would refuse to repeat the word she was teaching them, and how she would have to trick them into saying it. Cunliffe would strike out at Anne, and while she held his hands by his side he would encourage his sisters to take her bag and spit in it. At other times, Mary would fall to the floor and refuse to move all day long. They would scream high-pitched shrieks continually that would leave Anne having to cover her ears.

  Cunliffe is represented in the book by the monstrous Tom, whose only pleasure in life is torturing birds and animals that he has caught in his traps. At one point, his uncaring uncle hands him a nest full of birds, which Tom announces he will torture by pulling off their wings and beaks. Agnes takes the nest from him, and to spare them their torment, crushes them instantly under a heavy stone.

  If this, like much of the book, is taken from real life then we can imagine the pain that this must have caused the nature and animal-loving Anne:

  I got a large flat stone, that had been reared up for a mouse-trap by the gardener, then, having once more vainly endeavoured to persuade the little tyrant to let the birds be carried back, I asked what he intended to do with them. With fiendish glee he commenced a list of torments; and while he was busied in the relation, I dropped the stone upon his intended victims and crushed them flat beneath it.9

  The Ingham girls, if anything, were even worse. Unwilling to learn, and impossible to rule, Anne found it a struggle even to clothe them and brush their hair in the morning. When in the classroom they would make a concerted effort to create as much chaos and noise as possible, but when Mr or Mrs Ingham came to see what the noise was for, it was Anne who received the blame. They had a wholly untrue picture of the goodness of their children, and they refused to let Anne take any action against the children in the form of punishment.

  I had no rewards to offer; and as for punishments, I was given to understand, the parents reserved that privilege to themselves; and yet they expected me to keep my pupils in order … A good birch rod might have been serviceable; but as my powers were so limited, I must make the best use of what I had.10

  The truth of the words that Anne puts into the mouth of Agnes are confirmed by Charlotte’s letter to Ellen: ‘The worst of it is that the little monkies [the Ingham children] are excessively indulged, and she is not empowered to inflict any punishment.’11

  The troubles that Anne had to go to in her, often failed, attempts to keep some sort of order are not only related in Agnes Grey, they are also verified by a descendant of the family itself who later remembered, ‘One day grandmother, Mary Ingham, went into the school room and found two of the children tied to opposite table legs whilst Anne wrote.’12

  In the face of all this, and more, it is easy to ask why Anne stayed in the position rather than returning to the home comforts of Haworth? Agnes Grey gives us the answer:

  Small as the salary was, I still was earning something, and with strict economy I could easily manage to have something to spare for them [her family], if they would favour me by taking it. Then it was by my own will that I had got the place: I had brought all this tribulation on myself, and I was determined to bear it; nay, more than that, I did not even regret the step I had taken. I longed to show my friends that, even now, I was competent to undertake the charge, and able to acquit myself honourably to the end.13

  Anne, as always, was putting duty before everything else. In the face of evidence to the contrary, she refused to admit she was beaten. Charlotte and Emily may struggle to keep a job in the world outside of Haworth, she seemed to be saying, but I, little Anne, who people think incapable of even the simplest things, will succeed. There were three staunch friends that she turned to in her battle against the tyranny of the children: ‘Patience, Firmness, and Perseverance, were my only weapons; and these I resolved to use to the utmost.’14

  It is telling that Anne places patience at the head of the list, as it would be the first thing she would turn to throughout all her struggles. When she was in a job that she hated, when she could tell nobody that she was in love, when people misunderstood her writing, when she was ill, when she was dying, she would be patient, Anne would endure.

  Come what may, Anne had resolved to remain at Blake Hall for as long as possible and to do all that she could to give a rudimentary education to the children and instil in them some sense of right and wrong. Before long, however, matters were taken ou
t of her hands.

  Notes

  1. Green, Dudley, Patrick Brontë Father of Genius, p.142

  2. Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, Volume 38, July–December 1848, pp.193–5

  3. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 1, p.174

  4. Ibid.

  5. Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey, pp.7–8

  6. Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey, p.12

  7. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 1, p.189

  8. Ibid.

  9. Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey, p.37

  10. Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey, p.22

  11. Smith, Margaret (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Volume 1, p.189

  12. From the diary of Gertrude Elizabeth Brooke, Mirfield Parish News

  13. Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey, p.27

  14. Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey, p.22

  8

  EXILED AND HARASSED

  How brightly glistening in the sun

  The woodland ivy plays!

  While yonder beeches from their barks

  Reflect his silver rays.

  The sun surveys a lovely scene

  From softly smiling skies;

  And wildly through unnumbered trees

  The wind of winter sighs:

  Now loud, it thunders o’er my head,

  And now in distance dies.

  But give me back my barren hills

  Where colder breezes rise;

  Where scarce the scattered, stunted trees

  Can yield an answering swell,

  But where a wilderness of heath

  Returns the sound as well.

  For yonder garden, fair and wide,

  With groves of evergreen,

  Long winding walks, and borders trim,

  And velvet lawns between;

  Restore to me that little spot,

  With grey walls compassed round,

  Where knotted grass neglected lies,

  And weeds usurp the ground.

  Though all around this mansion high

  Invites the foot to roam,

  And though its halls are fair within –

  Oh, give me back my HOME!

  ‘Home’

  The neglected garden, the grey stone walls, the bleak treeless landscape that was swept by wild and punishing winds, these were things of joy to Anne. During her time as governess to the Ingham family of Blake Hall she would see a different side to society, an elevated world where people with no financial or social barriers mixed, a world where anything was possible. At the regular garden parties that Joshua Ingham would arrange, Anne would be a figure lurking in the background, her sole job to keep the children out of the way of the adults, which was a difficult task in itself. But this silent woman would be watching, observing, judging, and she liked not what she saw.

  As a girl, her aunt had taught her the importance of keeping the proper order of things. The most important order of all was that God was in charge of all, and in this Anne acquiesced, even if she did have a very different view of her maker. God’s order, however, according to Aunt Branwell, spread down to the temporal world as well: he had ordained everything that happened, so that we must know our place in society and accept that it is God’s will; we must serve lords, ladies and gentlemen, and look up to them with respect; animals are subservient to people; and women are subservient to men. In these matters, as she gained for herself a first-hand understanding of the way the world really was, Anne could not agree.

  By June 1839 we receive another report of Anne at Blake Hall. Reverend Carter was no longer vicar of Mirfield but of Heckmondwike, but on 8 June he called in at Blake Hall and later passed on news of Anne to Reverend Brontë in Haworth. Charlotte reveals his report in a letter to Emily: ‘Mr Carter was at Mirfield yesterday and saw Anne. He says she was looking uncommonly well. Poor girl, she must indeed wish to be at home.’1

  If Charlotte had correctly guessed her sister’s feelings, she had not as yet discerned that Anne’s resolve was much greater than hers. Indeed, Charlotte had by this time taken on a governess’s position of her own, but she would last just over two months in the role. Anne was made of sterner stuff, but in December 1839, just before she was due to return to Haworth for the Christmas holiday, she was summoned to Mrs Ingham’s chamber. There Anne was told that she had been hired to improve the behaviour of the children, to round off their rough edges and improve their education, but as far as the parents could see, they had, if anything, gone backwards. In light of this, although Mrs Ingham admitted that she found no fault with Anne’s character itself, her services would not be required in the new year.

  Anne was devastated, and the conflicting emotions within her caused tears to stream down her face as soon as she was free of company. She was returning home to the family she loved, and she would be forever free of the unmanageable children who had made her life at Blake Hall a misery, yet she could not escape the feeling that she had failed. She had implored her family to have faith in her ability to govern children, but this position had lasted less than nine months. What was worse, she hadn’t left it on her own terms as Emily and Charlotte had, she had been dismissed. It was with a heavy heart, a bruised spirit and an even quieter demeanour that she returned to the family parsonage.

  In Anne’s portraits of the Ingham children, we get a glimpse of how they would be as adults. Both Cunliffe and his sister Mary would become notorious for their tempers, although Cunliffe would put his to use by becoming an army officer, and he served in the Crimean War. Blake Hall itself, that huge imposing edifice that once dominated Mirfield, was sold off piece by piece in the 1950s and then demolished, like so many other stately homes that had become too costly to maintain and run.

  There is an amusing, if rather unusual, postscript to this story. The grand staircase that ran from the entrance hall of Blake Hall was advertised at an antique furniture fair in Kensington, London, and was bought by a wealthy American called Allen Topping. At great expense he had it shipped over to, and rebuilt in, his Long Island mansion. In 1962 Mrs Topping, by then a widow, saw a ghostly figure descend the staircase. The figure was dressed in a long full skirt with a tri-cornered shawl, her hair was in a bun and she had a pensive look on her face. Mrs Topping’s dog became agitated, and when Mrs Topping spoke to soothe the dog, the figure smiled and then disappeared. She called out to ask who had been there and says that she heard a voice in her head saying ‘Anne Brontë’. She never saw the figure again, although she often heard footsteps going up and down the stairs.2

  Blake Hall is gone, but the memories remain. The area where it stood is now home to Mirfield’s Blake Hall housing estate, centred around Blake Hall Road and Blake Hall Drive. To the north of Blake Hall Road are the cul-de-sacs of Ingham Garth, Ingham Close and Ingham Croft, while branching off to the south are Brontë Way and Brontë Grove. In death, as in life, Anne and the Inghams are on opposite sides of the divide.

  Anne found Haworth Parsonage quite changed upon her return. Tabby’s leg had become infected after her fall, and her mobility was becoming increasingly impaired. In November 1839 she had been sent home to her family to recuperate, on the insistence of Charlotte and Emily that she could return when she recovered, which she later did. In Tabby’s absence, her work was shared between Charlotte and Emily, with the young Martha Brown soon moving into the parsonage and helping where she could. It was a role that Emily was born to, proving an excellent cook and domestic organiser, but Charlotte found it a little more difficult, reporting how she managed to burn all the clothing on her first attempt at ironing.

  Anne’s father, too, was suffering from bouts of ill health, as well as failing eyesight. Patrick Brontë was by now 62, yet he was still dealing with an immense workload. To help him, a young curate arrived in Haworth in August 1839. His name was William Weightman, and his easy-going, flirtatious nature and handsome good looks made him a hit with the ladies of the parish, including, before long, all three Brontë sisters.


  If Anne had been worried about the reception she would receive upon her return, her fears were soon allayed. Reticent to speak ill of anybody, let alone her recent employers, Anne laid the blame firmly on herself, but Charlotte would coax out of her the true character of the Inghams and their children, whilst stating her astonishment that Anne had lasted so long under the circumstances.

  Aunt Branwell would have been most surprised. She had a natural deference for the upper classes, and it was she who had urged Anne to take the post when it became available, vouchsafing that she had heard of their excellent character. Nonetheless, she could not believe any ill of the young woman she had raised from a baby, and soon Anne found herself welcomed with open arms as a hero rather than a failure.

  Anne had tried bravely to make her way in a world that was in many ways alien to her, and all things considered, she had done well to survive there for nearly nine months. She had satisfied her curiosity, and now she could return to life in the parsonage. She was always dedicated to whatever task was put before her, so with a little training from Emily, she would be able to help with the housework. She might be able to make a little money from providing needlework services or possibly music lessons. Patrick and Aunt Branwell even conjectured that their girls might be able to emulate their brother Branwell and sell some of their paintings. She was at home now, where she belonged, and would soon settle back into the Haworth routine, free of the longing for discovery and adventure that had led her to Blake Hall. That was what her family thought as 1839 turned into 1840, but Anne had other ideas.

  She would stay in Haworth throughout early 1840, and it was a period in which she grew emotionally. She provided domestic help and recommenced walking on the moors with Emily. She also resumed her daily writing, both on matters of Gondal and matters that were much more personal, although she and Emily would often write independently of one another now. The two sisters’ love for one another was undiminished, and, as Ellen Nussey said in her pen portraits of the girls she came to know well, ever would be, but they had both grown to love their private time alone as well. In these private hours, Anne could think of her writing, her beloved music and of new, strong emotions that were rising within her.