Brontës

by Juliet Barker

  ECG Mrs Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810–65), Charlotte’s biographer

  EJB Emily Jane Brontë (1818–48)

  EN Ellen Nussey (1817–97), Charlotte’s friend

  GS George Smith (1824–1901), Charlotte’s publisher

  HM Harriet Martineau (1802–76), Charlotte’s friend and fellow writer

  JBL Joseph Bentley Leyland (1811–51), Branwell’s sculptor friend

  MB Mrs Maria Brontë, nee Branwell (1783–1821)

  MT Mary Taylor (1817–93), Charlotte’s friend

  MW Margaret Wooler (1792–1885), Charlotte’s headmistress at Roe Head and friend

  PB Reverend Patrick Brontë (1777–1861)

  PBB Patrick Branwell Brontë (1817–48)

  WSW William Smith Williams (1800–75), Charlotte’s editor

  II: MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS

  ACMS Archives of the Church Missionary Society, University of Birmingham

  All Saints’, Wellington All Saints’ Parish Church, Wellington, Shropshire (with St Catherine’s, Eyton), records available through the church archivist.

  Baptisms, Haworth Registers of Baptisms, (i), 1813–29; (ii) 1829–37; (iii) 1837–54; and (iv) 1854–76, St Michael and All Angels Church, Haworth: MSS BDP48, WYAS, Bradford. Photocopies in the church.

  Beinecke Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, Connecticut, USA

  Berg The Berg Collection, New York Public Library, New York, USA

  BFRL Barrow-in-Furness Reference Library, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria

  Birmingham Harriet Martineau Collection, The Library, University of Birmingham

  BL Manuscripts Department, British Library, London

  Bodleian Department of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford

  Borthwick Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, University of York, York

  BPM The Library, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, West Yorkshire

  Brotherton The Brotherton Collection(s), Special Collection(s), Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, Leeds, West Yorkshire

  Brown John Hay Library, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

  Buffalo Rare Book Room, Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, Buffalo, New York, USA

  Burials, Haworth Registers of Burials, (i) 1813–36; (ii) 1836–54; and (iii) 1854–84, St Michael and All Angels Church, Haworth: MSS BDP48, WYAS, Bradford. Photocopies in the church.

  CDSAR Clergy Daughters’ School, Admissions Register, 1824–39: MS WDS/38/2B, Cumbria Record Office, Kendal, Cumbria

  CERC Church of England Record Centre, Lambeth Palace, London

  Chatsworth The Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth House, Derbyshire

  Columbia Butler Library, Columbia University in the City of New York, USA

  CRO Cumbria Record Office, County Hall, Kendal (Westmorland Archives) and Barrow-in-Furness (Cumberland Archives), Cumbria

  ERO Essex Record Office, County Hall, Chelmsford, Essex

  Eton The Library, Eton College, Windsor, Berkshire

  Fales Fales Library, New York University, New York, USA

  Firth Elizabeth Firth Diaries (1812–25): MS 58 A (Q 091 Firth), Firth Papers, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire

  Fitzwilliam Department of Manuscripts, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

  Guildhall Manuscripts Section, Guildhall Library, Aldermanbury, London

  Halifax Halifax Reference Library, Halifax, West Yorkshire

  Harrogate Harrogate Reference Library, Harrogate, North Yorkshire

  Harvard The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

  Haverford The Quaker Collection, Haverford College Library, Haverford, Pennsylvania, USA

  Haworth Census Census Returns for Haworth Chapelry, 1821–61: Microfilm, Keighley Reference Library, Keighley, West Yorkshire

  Huntington Department of Manuscripts, The Huntington Library, San Merino, California, USA

  IGI International Genealogical Index, microfiche available most reference libraries

  Illinois Rare Books Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

  JMA Smith, Elder & Co. archives, formerly held in the archives of John Murray, now in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

  Keighley Keighley Reference Library, Keighley, West Yorkshire

  Kentucky The Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA

  Kirklees Kirklees Reference Library, Central Library, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

  Knox Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, USA

  KSC Hugh Walpole Collection, The Library, King’s School, Canterbury, Kent

  Law Large private collection made by Sir Alfred Law (1860–1939), MP for Littleborough, Lancashire, including many letters, manuscripts and items of memorabilia, most of which has not been located. Facsimiles of most of the important pieces are published or in the BPM.

  Lichfield Lichfield Record Office, The Friary, Lichfield, Staffordshire

  LFN Branwell Brontë’s so-called ‘Luddenden Foot Notebook’, a collection of poems, drawings and notes written in a notebook c.1840–2: MS divided between BS 127, BPM and Brotherton.

  LSL, Dewsbury Local Studies Library, Dewsbury, West Yorkshire

  LSL, Shrewsbury Local Studies Library, Castle Gates, Shrewsbury, Shropshire

  Maine Manuscripts & Special Collections, Maine Historical Society, Portland, Maine, USA

  Manchester Manuscript Room, Manchester Public Library, Manchester, Lancashire

  Marriages, Haworth Registers of Marriages, i, 1813–37 and ii, 1837–70, St Michael and All Angels Church, Haworth: MSS BDP48, WYAS, Bradford. Photocopies in the church.

  MCP Mildred Christian Papers, including photographs of the missing Brontë letters in the Law Collection, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, West Yorkshire

  Missouri-Columbia The Ellis Library, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri, USA

  Montague Montague Collection, New York Public Library, New York, USA

  NA The National Archives, Kew, London

  NL Manuscript not located

  NLS Department of Manuscripts, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland

  Pennsylvania Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

  Pforzheimer The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection, New York Public Library, New York, USA

  PM Department of Autograph Manuscripts, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, USA

  Princeton Parrish & Taylor Collections, Department of Rare Books & Special Collections, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA

  Redruth Redruth Reference Library, Redruth, Cornwall

  RHJ Charlotte Brontë’s so-called ‘Roe Head Journal’, a collection of unrelated autobiographical fragments written 1836–7 while Charlotte was teaching at Roe Head School.

  Rochester Department of Rare Books & Manuscripts, University of Rochester, New York, USA

  Rosenbach Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia, USA

  Rutgers Symington Collection, The Library, Rutgers University, New York, USA

  Rylands Special Collections, John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Manchester, Lancashire

  Scarborough Scarborough Reference Library, Scarborough, North Yorkshire

  Scripps Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps College, Clermont, California, USA

  Sheffield Firth Papers, Special Collections, The Library, University of Sheffield, South Yorkshire

  SJC Saint John’s College, Cambridge

  Skipton Skipton Reference Library, Skipton, North Yorkshire

  SUNY Poetry & Rare Books Collections, University Libraries, State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, USA

  Swarthmore Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College Library, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA

  TCC The Library, Trinity College, Cambridge

  TCD Manuscripts Department, The Library, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

  Texas Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, USA

  TLP The Library [a private subscription library], Morrab Gardens, Penzance, Cornwall

  ULC University Archives, University Library, Cambridge

  USPG Archives of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, Waterloo Road, London

  Wellesley Special Collections, Margaret Clapp Library, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, USA

  WGS Woodhouse Grove School, Rawdon, West Yorkshire

  Whitby Scoresby Papers, Archives of Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society, The Whitby Museum, Pannett Park, Whitby, North Yorkshire

  Wordsworth Trust The Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage, Grasmere, Cumbria

  WYAS West Yorkshire Archive Service in Wakefield, Bradford, Halifax (Calderdale), Huddersfield (Kirklees) and Leeds

  YMM Young Men’s Magazines, Charlotte and Branwell’s miniature books, written as children, containing a variety of poems and stories, all in different locations

  III: PRINTED SOURCES

  Unless stated otherwise, references to the Brontë’s published novels are to the World’s Classics editions published by Oxfrd University Press (Oxford, 1980–1993).

  A&S Christine Alexander and Jane Sellars, The Art of the Brontës (Cambridge, 1995).

  Allott Miriam Allott (ed.), The Brontës: The Critical Heritage (London, 1974).

  Babbage Benjamin Herschel Babbage, Report to the General Board of Health on a Preliminary Inquiry into the Sewerage, Drainage, and Supply of Water, and the Sanitary Condition of the Inhabitants of the Hamlet of Haworth (London, 1850).

  Baines Edward Baines, History, Directory and Gazetteer of the County of York (Leeds, 1822), 2 vols.

  BM Blackwood’s Magazine (1817–1861).

  BO Bradford Observer (6 Feb 1834–Dec 1861).

  Brontëana J. Horsfall Turner (ed.), Brontëana: The Reverend Patrick Brontë’s Collected Works (Bingley, 1898).

  BST Brontë Society, Transactions (Haworth, 1895–2001); from 2002 published as Brontë Studies.

  Buckworth Anon., Memoir of the Rev. John Buckworth, M.A., Late Vicar of Dewsbury, Yorkshire (London, 1836).

  C&P J.A.V. Chapple & Arthur Pollard (eds.), The Letters of Mrs Gaskell (Manchester, 1966), 3 vols.

  CA Christine Alexander (ed.), An Edition of the Early Writings of Charlotte Brontë (Oxford, 1987–91), 2 vols.

  CA EW Christine Alexander, The Early Writings of Charlotte Brontë (Oxford, 1983).

  CB BN Charlotte Brontë, ‘Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell’, in Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, edited with an introduction by Ian Jack (Oxford, 1981), 359–65.

  Chadwick Mrs Ellis H. Chadwick, In the Footsteps of the Brontës (London, 1914).

  Chitham Edward Chitham (ed.), The Poems of Anne Brontë: A New Text and Commentary (London, 1979).

  Du Maurier Daphne du Maurier, The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë (Harmondsworth, 1972).

  ECG, Life Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, edited with an introduction by Angus Easson (Oxford, 1996).

  Fraser Rebecca Fraser, Charlotte Brontë (London, 1988).

  Glen Heather Glen (ed.), Charlotte Brontë: Tales of Angria (London, 2006).

  Grundy Francis H. Grundy, Pictures of the Past (London, 1879).

  HG Halifax Guardian (9 Jan 1838–Dec 1861).

  HKW Henry Kirke White, The Remains of Henry Kirke White (London 1823).

  Holgate Ivy Holgate, ‘The Brontës at Thornton, 1815–1820’, BST:13:69:323–38.

  JB BLL Juliet Barker (ed.), The Brontës: A Life in Letters (London, 1997).

  JB CBJ Juliet Barker (ed.), Charlotte Brontë: Juvenilia 1829–35 (London, 1996).

  JB SP Juliet Barker (ed.), The Brontës: Selected Poems (London, repr. 1993).

  JB ST Juliet Barker, Sixty Treasures: The Brontë Parsonage Museum (Haworth, 1988).

  L&D John Lock and Canon W.T. Dixon, A Man of Sorrow: The Life, Letters and Times of the Reverend Patrick Brontë (London, 1965).

  L&L T.J. Wise and J.A. Symington, The Lives, Friendships and Correspondence of the Brontë Family (Oxford, 1932), 4 vols.

  LCB Margaret Smith (ed.), The Letters of Charlotte Brontë (Oxford, 1995–2004), 3 vols.

  Leyland Francis A. Leyland, The Brontë Family (London, 1886), 2 vols.

  LI Leeds Intelligencer (Nov 1809–Dec 1861).

  LM Leeds Mercury (Dec 1809–Dec 1861).

  Lonoff Sue Lonoff (ed. and trans.), The Belgian Essays: Charlotte and Emily Brontë: A Critical Edition (New Haven and London, 1996).

  LRPB Dudley Green (ed.), The Letters of the Reverend Patrick Brontë (Stroud, 2005).

  M&U T.J. Wise & J.A. Symington (eds.), The Miscellaneous & Unpublished Writings of Charlotte Brontë & Patrick Branwell Brontë (Oxford, 1934), 2 vols.

  Neufeldt Victor Neufeldt (ed.), The Works of Patrick Branwell Brontë (New York, 1997–9), 3 vols.

  Poems, 1846 Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (Aylott & Jones, 1846).

  Poems, 1934 T.J. Wise and J. Alex Symington (eds.), The Poems of Emily Jane Brontë and Anne Brontë (Oxford, 1934).

  PV William Morgan (ed.), The Pastoral Visitor (1815–16).

  Ratchford Fannie E. Ratchford, The Brontës’ Web of Childhood (New York, 1941).

  Reid T.W. Reid, Charlotte Brontë: A Monograph (New York, 1877).

  Roper Derek Roper (ed.) with Edward Chitham, The Poems of Emily Brontë (Oxford, 1995).

  Scruton William Scruton, Thornton and the Brontës (Bradford, 1898).

  Scruton EN William Scruton, ‘Reminiscences of the late Miss Ellen Nussey’, BST:1:7:24–42.

  Shorter Clement K. Shorter, Charlotte Brontë & Her Circle (London, 1896).

  Slugg J.T. Slugg, Woodhouse Grove School: Memorials and Reminiscences (London, 1885).

  Smith George Smith, A Memoir, with Some Pages of Autobiography (London, private circulation, 1902).

  Stevens Joan Stevens (ed.), Mary Taylor: Friend of Charlotte Brontë: Letters from New Zealand and Elsewhere (Oxford, 1972).

  THAS Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society.

  Venn J.A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigiensis: Part II (1752–1900) (Cambridge, 1951), 6 vols.

  VN CB Victor Neufeldt (ed.), The Poems of Charlotte Brontë: A New Text and Commentary (New York, 1985).

  VN PBB Victor Neufeldt (ed.), The Poems of Patrick Branwell Brontë: A New Text and Commentary (New York, 1990).

  WG AB Winifred Gérin, Anne Brontë (London, 1959).

  WG CB Winifred Gérin, Charlotte Brontë: The Evolution of Genius (Oxford, 1967).

  WG EB Winifred Gérin, Emily Brontë (Oxford, 1971).

  WG FN Winifred Gérin (ed.), Five Novelettes (London, 1971).

  WG PBB Winifred Gérin, Branwell Brontë (London, 1961).

  White William White, History, Gazetteer & Directory of the West Riding of Yorkshire (Sheffield and Leeds, 1837–8), 2 vols.

  Wright William Wright, The Brontës in Ireland (London, 1893).

  Yates W.W. Yates, The Father of the Brontës: His Life and Work at Dewsbury and Hartshead (Leeds, 1897).

  NOTES

  CHAPTER ONE: AN AMBITIOUS MAN

  1. Admissions Register 1802–35: MS C4.5 no. 1235, SJC.

  2. Residence Register: MS C27.1 no 2, SJC. James Wood, Patrick’s tutor, made a similar mistake and had to alter the name in his list of pupils from ‘Brante’ to ‘Bronte’: MS TU 1.1 p. 64, SJC. It seems likely that this was the moment Patrick formalized the spelling of his name (see below n. 6). As a classical scholar he would have known that Brontë was the Greek word for thunder but Horatio Nelson had been created Duke of Brontë (a village in Sicily) in 1799 by the King of the Two Sicilies and some contemporaries assumed there was a link with Nelson: Jane Gray Nelson, ‘Sicily and the Brontë Name’, BST:16:81:43–5; CB to WSW, 5 Nov 1849: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 279].

  3. PB to ECG, 20 June 1855: MS EL B121 pp. 1–2, Rylands [BST:8:43:88].

  4. The fictions of William Wright, The Brontës in Ireland (London, 1893) have entered Brontë mythol
ogy, despite the devastating and unanswerable criticisms which appeared within a few years of its publication in Angus Mckay, ‘A Crop of Brontë Myths’, Westminster Review, Oct 1895, 424–37; J. Ramsden, The Brontë Homeland (London, [1898]); Brontëana, 267–304. There is no evidence at all for Wright’s claims that Hugh Brontë was the originator of Irish tenant-rights theories, that Wuthering Heights was the story of his childhood and that Patrick owed his early career to local Presbyterian patron-age: as Wright himself admitted ‘none of the Irish Brontës knew anything of the early history of the family … the information they had to communicate was merely an echo from the English biographies’: ibid, 50. Edward Chitham, The Brontës’ Irish Background (London, 1986) is a misguided and unconvincing attempt to rehabilitate Wright.

  5. Wright originated the claim that Patrick’s mother was Roman Catholic. Eleanor McClory and Hugh Brontë were apparently married in 1776 at the Protestant Magherally Church, though there are no registers for the period to confirm this. Six of their children were baptized at the Protestant Drumballyroney Church but there were no registers at the time of Patrick’s birth and those for the period after 1791, when the three youngest daughters were born, are missing: Brontëana, 284. According to the Banbridge Chronicle’s account of the funeral of Patrick’s youngest sister, Alice, who died aged 95 on 15 Jan 1891, the family grave was also in Drumballyroney churchyard, on the south side of the church: Ramsden, The Brontë Homeland, 96.

  6. The name is recorded five times as ‘Brunty’ in 1779–91 and once as ‘Bruntee’ in 1786 in the Register of Baptisms, Drumballyroney Church [Brontëana, 284]. The family were known locally as ‘Prunty’ according to a report in the Belfast Mercury in April 1855, just after Charlotte Brontë’s death [L&L, iv, 184–5]. Several books said to have belonged to the Irish Brontës contain ‘Patrick Prunty’ autographs of extremely doubtful authenticity: see Elias Voster, Arithmetic in Whole and Broken Numbers (Dublin, 1789), 65: HAOBP:bb65, BPM; Abbé Lenglet du Fresnoy, Geography for Youth (Dublin, 1795), 129: HAOBP:bb200, BPM. Though these are cited as the main evidence for Patrick’s having deliberately changed his name, the autographs are inconsistent with his genuine signature and appear to me to be blatant forgeries. A John and William ‘Bronte’ were tenants of Henry Stafford Willock of Tullyquilly, near Rathfriland (close to the Brontës’ home) in 1780, though there were many variants of the name in the records of Counties Armargh and Tyrone: T.G.F. Paterson, ‘The Brontës and Co Armagh’, The Armagh Guardian, 16 Aug 1957 p.3. For arguments concerning the origin of the Brontë name see Brontëana, 280–5; Chitham, The Brontës’ Irish Background, 34–6.