64. See, for example, A. Mary F. Robinson, Emily Brontë (London, 1883), 64; WG PBB, 146, 150; Du Maurier, 80, 90; WG FN, 173–5.
65. PBB to J.H. Thompson, 24 Aug 1839: MS BS 137 p.2, BPM [L&L, i, 187].
66. Ibid.; PBB to J.H. Thompson, 17 May 1839: MS BS 136 pp.1–2, BPM [Leyland, i, 176–7].
67. Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography (Oxford, 1980 repr. 1987), 50–1.
68. PBB to J.H. Thompson, 24 Aug 1839: MS BS 137 pp.2–3, BPM [L&L, i, 187] where Branwell refers to ‘our poor Master’ and Thompson’s kindness to his widow. Branwell’s letter of 17 May 1839 (see above n.66) is addressed to Thompson as ‘Artist Care of Mr Aglen Carver & Gilder’; by August, when he wrote again, Thompson was living in the George Hotel: Leyland, i, 202.
69. Ibid., 203–4. For Leyland’s obituary, which chronicles his later decline, see HG, 10 May 1851 p.8.
70. Leyland, i, 187–8; John James, The History of Bradford and its Parish (London, 1866).
71. PBB to J.H. Thompson, 24 Aug 1839: MS BS 137 p.2, BPM [L&L, i, 187].
72. WG PBB, 142 quoting Margaret Hartley.
73. Leyland, i, 178–9, quoting a Bradford friend, describes Branwell as ‘a quiet, unas-suming young man, retiring, and diffident, seeming rather of a passive nature, and delicate constitution, than otherwise’.
74. EJB, ‘The night was Dark yet winter breathed’, 12 Jan 1839: MS Bon 127 p.9, BPM [Roper, 73–4]. There is no extant poem thereafter till EJB, ‘What winter floods, what showers of spring’, 27 Mar 1839: MS in Berg [Roper, 75]. From the middle of April Emily was back in full poetic flow indicating that she was home again.
75. ECG, Life, 131.
76. CB to Henry Nussey, 5 Mar 1839: MS in private hands [LCB, i, 185–6].
77. CB to EN, 12 Mar 1839: MS Gr. E2 p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 187].
78. CB to EN, 15 Apr 1839: MS HM 24416 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, i, 189].
79. AB, Agnes Grey, 9.
80. Susan Brooke, ‘Anne Brontë at Blake Hall’, BST:13:68:250. Blake Hall, parts of which dated back to the 17th century, was demolished in 1954: its site is commemorated by several road names within a modern housing estate.
81. J.T.M. Nussey, ‘Notes on the Background of Three Incidents in the Lives of the Brontës’, BST:15:79:333–4; EN to C.K. Shorter, 22 Apr 1896: MS in bound volume of miscellaneous EN letters, Shorter Collection, no.6, Brotherton. Ellen says of Mrs Ingham, ‘A sister was a pupil of Miss W[ooler’s]. Formerly they were friends of ours & very kind to me when at school before Mr Ingham married – a family connection existed on his mother’s side. Mrs I was an amiable conventional woman – her sister Harriet clever – but refractory, was a pupil in C’s time of teacher’. For Ellis Cunliffe Lister’s election to Parliament see LM, 22 July 1827 p.1.
82. Brooke, ‘Anne Brontë at Blake Hall’, BST:13:68:241; CB to EN, 15 Apr 1839: MS HM 24416 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, i, 189].
83. Ibid., pp.1–2. No other source indicates Anne suffered from any kind of stammer or hesitation of speech.
84. AB, Agnes Grey, 34–6;Brooke, ‘Anne Brontë at Blake Hall’, BST:13:68:247.
85. CB to EN, 15 Apr 1839: MS HM 24416 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, i, 189].
86. CB to EJB, 8 June 1839: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 190–2]. The temporary nature of the situation is here suggested by Charlotte’s hoping that Miss Hoby, the Sidgwicks’ usual governess, would return after the family had been to Swarcliffe. For the Sidgwicks, see K. Geoffrey Rowley, Old Skipton (Clapham, 1969), 46–50.
87. The marriage took place on 10 Jan 1827 at Keighley Parish Church: Bishop’s Transcripts, Keighley (3), 1824–38: Microfilm, Keighley. Anon., Keighley Past and Present (London, 1858), 101 describes Knowle House as ‘the only one superior mansion to greet the eye of the traveller as he entered the town’; now a funeral parlour it retains little of its former grandeur.
88. In June Mrs Collins told Emily that Mrs Sidgwick intended to keep Charlotte permanently, so she clearly knew all about the appointment: CB to EJB, 8June 1839: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 191].
89. Rowley, Old Skipton, 47–8; CB to EJB, 8June 1839: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 190].
90. ’DRW’, Christ Church Lothersdale 1838–1888: A Short History (Leeds, 1988), 1. Mr Sidgwick had been the prime mover in building the new church in Lothersdale which opened in October 1838: Edward Carter was the first incumbent. His children were Ellen (4), Edward (3) and Susan (1). By 1841 they had moved to their new home at Oakcliffe in the village, had another daughter Catherine and employed 2 servant girls: Ibid.; Census Returns for Lothersdale, 1841: Microfilm, Skipton.
91. CB to EJB, 8June 1839: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 191].
92. Ibid., 190–1. Charlotte addressed the letter to ‘Dearest Lavinia’, probably a joking reference to the ‘lovely young Lavinia’, a ‘Recluse amid the close-embowering woods’ in James Thomson’s poem The Seasons (1730), ‘Autumn’, ll.177–310.
93. CB to EN, [30 June 1839]: MS 2696 R-V pp.1–3, PM [LCB, i, 193].
94. Shorter, ‘New Light on the Brontës’, BST:1:8:19. Mrs Sidgwick’s 5th child, Edward, was born on 18 August 1839, only a few weeks after Charlotte’s departure.
95. Ibid.; A.C. Benson, The Life of Edward White Benson, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1900), i, 12.
96. ECG, Life, 136; CB to EN, [30 June 1839]: MS 2696 R-V p.3, PM [LCB, i, 194].
97. ECG, Life, 136.
98. CB to EJB, 8June 1839: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 191].
99. CB to EN, [26 July 1839]: MS HM 24417 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 196]; LI, 27 July 1839 p.5.
100. CB to EN, [26 July 1839]: MS HM 24417 p.1, Huntington [LCB, i, 195–6].
101. CB to EN, [4 Aug 1839]: MS HM 24418 p.1, Huntington [LCB, i, 197].
102. Leyland, i, 238–40. The friend is simply referred to as ‘Mr M—’ so he could have been either Hartley or Michael Merrall. Branwell’s portrait of him was painted at the parsonage in several sittings: though untraced, it is described in ibid., 239–40: see also A&S no.261 ‘Mr M—’.
103. CB to EN, [4Aug 1839]: MS HM 24418 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 197].
104. Ibid., pp.2–3 [LCB, i, 197–8]. Charlotte calls him ‘Mr Price’, L&L, ii, 184, 197 and Shorter, ‘New Light on the Brontës’, BST:1:8:16 ‘Mr Bryce’. In fact he was David Pryce from County Wicklow, a fee-paying student at Trinity College, Dublin, who had graduated the previous summer: G.D. Burtchaell and T.U. Sadleir (eds.), Alumni Dublinenses (Dublin, 1935), 684.
105. CB to EN, [4Aug 1839]: MS HM 24418 p.4, Huntington [LCB, i, 198]; CB to EN, [24 Jan 1840]: MS MA 2696 R-V p.2, PM [LCB, i, 210].
106. CB to EN, 14 Aug 1839: MS BS 42 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 199]; CB to EN, 14 Aug 1839: MS BS 42 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 200].
107. EN, Reminiscences: MS p.27, KSC [LCB, i, 605].
108. Ibid., pp.29–30 [LCB, i, 605–6].
109. CB to EN, 24 Oct 1839: MS HM 24419 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 202].
110. CB to Henry Nussey, 28 Oct 1839: MS BS 43 p.3, BPM [LCB, i, 204]. Nussey’s first sight of the sea, ‘emblem of eternity’ as he called it, provoked only the phlegmatic comment that it was one of the finest sights mortal eyes could behold, ‘yet was not surprised at it, as it appeared much as I imagined it would’: Henry Nussey, Journal, 17 July 1832: MS Egerton 3268A, BL.
111. CB, watercolour of the Hudsons at Easton Farm, [Sept 1839]: original n.l. [A&S no.145]; CB, watercolour portrait of Mrs Hudson, [Sept 1839]: original n.l. [The Dalesman (Nov 2001), 48–50, esp 49. They also visited 2 of Nussey’s former parishioners at Burton Agnes: CB to Henry Nussey, 20 Oct 1839: MS BS 43 p.3, BPM [LCB, i, 204].
112. EN, Reminiscences: MS pp.31–2, KSC [LCB, i, 606–7]. Ellen could not remember where they had stayed but I have identified the lodgings from CB to EN, 24 Oct 1839: MS HM 24419 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 202], referring to Charlotte having lost her spectacles at Bridlington and hoping that ‘Madame Booth won’t refuse to give them up’. Pigot & Co., Directory of Yorkshire (1842), 37 lists an Ann Booth as lodging-house keeper in Garrison Street at Bridlington Quay. The de
scription of Quay and its pier fits exactly with that in Ellen’s account: see above, p.368–9.
113. EN, Reminiscences: MS p.33, KSC [LCB, i, 606–7].
114. CB to EN, 24 Oct 1839: MS HM 24419 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 202].
115. EJB, ‘I am the only being whose doom’, 17 May 1839: MS p.1, Princeton [Roper, 80]. Hatfield (ed.), The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë, 36 mistakenly dated the poem to 1837, causing much speculation that it is autobiographical, as Emily was then 18 like her fictional character. However, the ms is clearly dated 1839, when Emily was 20, and the poem equally obviously belongs to the Gondal cycle. Emily preserved 29 dated poems written in 1839, 17 of them in the second half of the year: see Roper, 73–100. Many more undated poems and fragments probably belong to this period. Charlotte is said to have written her novelette ‘Caroline Vernon’ in July–Dec 1839, though its French themes suggest to me that it belongs, in part at least, to 1840.
116. EJB, ‘And now the housedog streched once more’, 12 July 1839: MS 2696 R-V, PM [Roper, 87].
117. EJB, ‘Well, some may hate and some may scorn’, 14 Nov 1839: MS in Law [facsimile in Poems (1934), 314; Roper, 98].
118. BO, 11 July 1839 p.6. Scoresby took up residence in Bradford on 4October and preached his first sermon on 6 October: ibid., 10 Oct 1839 p.2.
119. Ibid., 28 Nov 1839 p.3; LI, 23 Nov 1839 p.5.
120. Tom and Cordelia Stamp, William Scoresby: Arctic Scientist (Whitby, [1976]), 141–2; William Morgan to Dr Scoresby, [9 Jan 1840]: MS in unsorted bundle, 1840, Whitby. Morgan pronounced himself ‘too fatigued to reply’ to his vicar.
121. According to the registers, Weightman took up office as assistant curate on 19 August 1839: Baptisms and Burials, Haworth.
122. CB to EN, 21 Dec 1839: MS HM 24420 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 206]; Haworth Census, 1841.
123. CB to EN, 21 Dec 1839: MS HM 24420 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, i, 206].
124. CB to EN, [24 Jan 1840]: MS MA2696 R-V p.1, PM [LCB, i, 210].
CHAPTER TWELVE: PATRICK BOANERGES
Title: Referring to Branwell as ‘a distant rela-tion of mine, one Patrick Boanerges’: CB to EN, [29 Sept 1840]: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 228].
1. LI, 21 Dec 1839 p.1. The Postlethwaites must have paid for 3 entries as the advertisement appeared again on 28 Dec 1839 p.4and 4Jan 1840 p.4.
2. HAOBP:bb212, BPM. The title page and publication details are missing but Patrick also notes that he read with Branwell the first 3books of the Aeneid and the first four chapters of St Matthew’s Gospel in Greek.
3. PBB, translations of Horace Odes xiv and xv, 30 Apr–1 May 1838, transcribed into his fair copy notebook, 12 May 1838: MS BS 125 pp.77–9, BPM [VN PBB, 524, 526].
4. CB to EN, [?28 Dec 1839]: MS in Beinecke [LCB, i, 207].
5. Most sources, following Leyland, i, 245, say Branwell attended the meeting of 25 December 1839 and acted as organist on this occasion. However, this meeting was actually on 16 December 1839. Leyland also wrongly asserts that this was the last meeting Branwell attended: he attended twice in 1842 and once in 1847: MS Masonic Records, in private hands.
6. PBB to John Brown, [13 Mar 1840]. The original of this letter is lost so my transcript is an amalgam of 3 different and incomplete copies: Lord Houghton, Commonplace Book, 1857–60: MS p.336, TCC; half a copy, possibly by John Brown, MS BS 137.5, BPM; the printed (and heavily edited) version in L&L, i, 198–9. The first and last of these place the riotous evening in Kendal but the stage-coach from Keighley went to the Royal Hotel at Kirkby Lonsdale; there was no Royal Hotel in Kendal. I am immensely grateful to Diana Chardin of Trinity College Library for discovering the references in Lord Houghton’s Commonplace Book, drawing them to my attention and assisting me in transcribing Houghton’s appalling hand.
7. See, for example, PBB, [Angria and the Angrians II(d), IV(g) and IV(i)], 19 Nov 1836–20 Oct 1837 [Neufeldt, ii, 632ff; iii, 137–43, 144ff].
8. PBB to John Brown, [13 Mar 1840]: see above, note 6. WG PBB, 166 wrongly states that the family had county connections going back to the 13th century and that Robert Postlethwaite was a Deputy Lieutentant of Cumberland. Postlethwaite was actually a second-generation merchant; his father had been a D.L. but he was only a magistrate: Timothy Cockerill, ‘A Brontë at Broughton-in-Furness’, BST:15:76:34; P.J. Mannex, History, Topography and Directory of Westmoreland (London, 1849), 434. Postlethwaite’s age is uncertain: according to Cockerill he was baptized in 1786 but the census, which correctly gives the ages of his children, puts him at 50 in 1841 and 62 ten years later: Census Returns for Broughton West, 1841, 1851: Microfilm, BFRL.
9. Mannex, History, Topography and Directory of Westmoreland, 430. By 1840 the woollen industry had been destroyed by mechanization and the town had fallen back on producing hoops and baskets and quarrying blue slate. There was still a prosperous weekly market and 3annual sheep and cattle fairs.
10. PBB to John Brown, [13 Mar 1840]: see above, note 6. A plaque over the door at High Syke House declares it was built by the Robinsons in 1753. The house was for sale when I visited Broughton and the particulars stated that all the timbers in the property came from old sailing ships.WG PBB, 167 says that Branwell lodged with a Dr Gibson but there was no surgeon of that name in Broughton. There were only 2 surgeons, Edward Fish of High Syke House, and Robert Lightfoot, a single man lodging at the Black Cock Inn in Prince’s Street, so Fish must have been Branwell’s landlord: Census Returns for Broughton West, 1841, 1851: Microfilm, BFRL.
11. PBB, pencil drawing, ‘Broughton Church’, 2Mar 1840: HAOBP:P.Br. Bon 18, BPM. On the verso is a wonderfully characteristic sketch, a self-portait in profile. [A&S nos.266 and 267]. The church had been substantially altered in the 18th century and had 300 sittings in Branwell’s day: it was virtually demolished and rebuilt on the same site in 1874: Guide to St Mary Magdalene Church, Broughton-in-Furness, 2–3. A window in the church is dedicated to Revd John Postlethwaite, Branwell’s pupil, who died in 1886, and his wife Isabella, who died in 1875.
12. William Wordsworth, ‘The River Duddon: A Series of Sonnets’, composed 1806–20, published 1820; ‘Written with a Slate Pencil on a Stone, on the Side of the Mountain of Black Comb’ and ‘View from the Top of Black Comb’ composed 1813, published 1815 [William Wordsworth, The Poems, edited by John O. Hayden (London, 1977), ii, 380–97; i, 851, 850].
13. PBB to John Brown, [13 Mar 1840]: see above, note 6. ‘Prince William of Springhead’ is William Cockroft Greenwood, son and heir of Joseph Greenwood of Springhead. Like all his family, apart from his father, he was a Baptist, hence the reference to ‘his friend, Parson Winterbotham’. Enoch Thomas was the innkeeper of the King’s Arms, William Hartley a tinner and brazier. ‘Billy’ [William] Brown was John Brown’s brother and, like him, a stonemason; the ‘Doctor’ was possibly William Cannon, surgeon, who died by delenum tremens, aged 46, on 18 Oct 1842 [WRPB, 138–9]. I have been unable to identify the others mentioned by Branwell as their names are not given in any existing copy of the letter.
14. PBB to John Brown, [13 Mar 1840]: see above, note 6.
15. CB to EN, [?28 Dec 1839]: MS in Beinecke [LCB, i, 207]; CB to EN, 12 Jan 1840]: MS BS 44 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 208].
16. WG CB, 164, 166–8 introduced the idea that Anne was in love with Weightman, expanding on it in WG AB, 136–50, 173–5, 180–8. It has since been accepted without qualification or question by all subsequent biographers.
17. Son of William and Hannah Weightman, he was baptized in St Lawrence’s Church, Appleby, on 29 May 1814: Westmorland IGI.
18. PB, A Funeral Sermon for the late Rev. William Weightman (Halifax, J.U. Walker, 1842), 10 [Brontëana, 257–8]. I am grateful to Dr Ian Doyle and Dr Hall of the University of Durham library for supplying me with details of Weightman’s career at University College. According to the University Warden’s Book, he matriculated on 24 October 1837 and resided each term till Easter 1839. For his degree see Durham University Calendars, 1839–43; LI, 23 June 1838 p.7; 25 July 1840 p.7. Patrick’s mi
staken belief that he was both a BA and an MA may have been based on reports in LI, 21 Dec 1839 p.5that ‘William Wightman’ had just been admitted MA: this Wightman, however, was a graduate of Queen’s College, Oxford, and a noted lawyer, who was receiving his honorary degree. Patrick also says that his curate went straight from school to university but this is impossible, given that he was already 24 when he went to Durham: I cannot account for the missing years.
19. PB, A Funeral Sermon for … Weightman, 10 [Brontëana, 257]. Weightman was ordained priest in July 1840: LI, 25 July 1840 p.7. For the commencement of his duties see above, p.1051 n.121.
20. PB, A Funeral Sermon for … Weightman, 10 [Brontëana, 257–8].
21. In the 1841 census he appears as a 25-year-old clergyman lodging at Cook Gate with the Ogden family, Grace (60), a lady of independent means, Susanna (25) and Grace (9): Haworth Census, 1841; CB to EN, [17 Mar 1840]: MS HM 24421 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 211].
22. EN, Reminiscences [L&L, i, 201 n.1].
23. Ibid.; CB to EN, [17 Mar 1840]: MS HM 24421 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 211].
24. CB/EJB/AB/EN, ‘A Rowland for your Oliver’, [14 Feb 1840]: MS n.l. [Whitehaven News, 17 Feb 1876 p.4; VN CB, 271–2].
25. CB to EN, 12 Mar 1839: MS Gr. E2 p.3, BPM [LCB, i, 187].
26. EN, Reminiscences [L&L, i, 201].
27. CB, pencil portrait, [Feb 1840]: HAOBP:P.Br B35, BPM [A&S no.149]; Juliet Barker, ‘A Possible Portrait of William Weightman’, BST:19:4:175–6. For the Walton portrait see CB to EN, [7 Apr 1840]: MS HM 24422 p.3, Huntington [LCB, i, 214].
28. Ibid., p.3 crossed. I cannot locate the news-paper carrying the reports of the lectures to which Charlotte refers. A report of the Church Rate meeting, naming no names, appeared in BO, 2 Apr 1840 p.2. The meeting refused to grant a rate but, as the church-wardens had incurred expenses of £21 it was agreed to pay this off by means of collections in church, aided by the Dissenters.
29. CB to EN, [7Apr 1840]: MS HM 24422 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, i, 214]. Charlotte used the nickname in 2letters, here and in CB to EN, [17 Mar 1840]: MS HM 24421 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 211–12]. In future, when her attitude towards him had cooled, she refers to him as ‘Mr Weightman’.
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