5. CB to Mrs Rand, 26 May [1845]: MS 2696 R-V, PM [LCB, i, 393]. Nicholls was ordained deacon by the bishop of Lichfield on behalf of the bishop of Ripon on Trinity Sunday 1845: ABN, Application for a Missionary Appointment, 23 Jan 1853: MS in archives of USPG; Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, Haworth.
6. PB to Joseph Rushworth, 21 Apr [1845]: MS BS 192, BPM [LRPB, 184]. Patrick dictated this letter, only signing it himself. Of the 3 existing church bells, the little one had been installed in 1664, the middle one in 1742 and the tenor in 1747, the two latter dating from Grimshaw’s incumbency: LI, 5 July 1845 p.5; BO, 5July 1845 p.5. For the installation of the new bells and an example of the Haworth ringers entering a competition see ibid., 6 Nov 1845 p.5and LI, 21 Mar 1846 p.5.
7. Ibid., 31 July 1845 p.5. Oakworth was officially in Keighley Parish, but unofficially the outer reaches near Haworth had been included in Patrick’s ministry.
8. CB to Constantin Heger, 24 Oct 1844: MS Add 38732(b) p.3, BL [LCB, i, 369]. The ‘little library’ included the complete works of Bernardin St Pierre, Pascal’s Pensées, a book of poetry, two books in German and ‘worth all the rest’, as Charlotte told Heger, two of his own discourses delivered at the presentation of prizes at the Athénée Royal.
9. Ibid.; CB to Constantin Heger, 8 Jan 1845: MS Add 38732(d) pp.1–2, BL [LCB, i, 377–8].
10. ECG to EN, 9 July 1856 [C&P, 394]. The letters could not be found. Gaskell suspected Nicholls had destroyed them; it is more likely that, as was then customary, Charlotte did so before her marriage.
11. ECG to Emily Shaen, 7–8Sept 1856 [C&P, 409]. ‘I believed him to be too good to publish those letters – but I felt that his friends might really with some justice urge him to do so’.
12. CB, ‘At first I did attention give’, [Jan 1845]: MS in Berg [VN, CB, 274]. A revised version was later included as a song in CB, Jane Eyre, 274–5. See also CB, Gilbert, [Spring 1845]: MS Bon 118 pp.1v-8v, BPM [VN, CB, 279–89], which tells of a self-centred man who rejects his devoted lover: it was published in Poems 1846.
13. CB to EN, [?30 Dec 1844]: MS BS 53.5, BPM [LCB, i, 375–6].
14. CB to EN, [?20 Feb 1845]: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 382]. As Charlotte did not know Ellen’s address, she sent it via the Hudsons of Easton Farm.
15. MT to ECG, 18 Jan 1856: MS n.l. [Stevens, 161].
16. CB to EN, [?20 Feb 1845]: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 382].
17. CB to EN, 24 Apr 1845: MS HM 24438 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, i, 391–2].
18. CB to EN, 2 Apr [1845]: MS HM 24437 pp.3–4, Huntington [LCB, i, 388–9].
19. MT to ECG, MS n.l. [Stevens, 133]. The text says a ‘walking nightmare’ but Margaret Smith points out that this is probably a mis-reading for the more appropriate ‘waking nightmare’. MT to CB, 5Apr 1850: MS p.1, Texas [LCB, ii, 378].
20. MT to ECG, [1857]: MS n.l. [Stevens, 165–6]. Charlotte’s definition of a ‘sister of charity’ appears in her portrayal of Miss Ainley in CB, Shirley, 182.
21. HG, 5Sept 1840 p.5. The statistics, taken from the Scotsman, calculated a woman’s chance of marrying by taking 100 as the number of chances she would have over the years, from which it deduced the following figures: 14½% aged 15–20; 52% aged 20–25; 18% aged 25–30, 6½% aged 30–35, 3½% aged 35–40, 2½% aged 40–45 and 1½% aged 45–50.
22. CB to MW, 23 Apr 1845: MS FM 1 pp.1–2, Fitzwilliam [LCB, i, 389–90].
23. Ibid p.2[LCB, i, 390].
24. The probate papers of both Emily and Anne are stamped by the York and North Midland Railway Company and the Reeth Consolidated Mining Company, indicating that they still had Aunt Branwell’s railway shares; her shares in Cornish mines had been worthless when she died. The Yorkshire-based Reeth Consolidated Mining Company floated in 1836 but its shares are not mentioned in Aunt Branwell’s probate so it is possible that the girls had purchased them: EJB, Grant of probate to PB, 5Feb 1849: MS Bon 73, BPM: AB, Grant of probate to PB, 5Sept 1849: MS Bon 74, BPM. See also above, p.1067 n.95.
25. CB to EN, 24 Mar [1845]: MS in Law [LCB, i, 385].
26. AB, Diary Paper, 31 July: MS in Law [LCB, i, 410].
27. CB to EN, 13 June 1845: MS HM 24439 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, i, 397]. The marriage, at which Ellen was bridesmaid, is mentioned in CB to EN, 1 June [1845]: MS BS 54.2, BPM [LCB, i, 395]. For the Hathersage arrangements see CB to EN, [?18 June 1845]: MS HM 24440 p.1, Huntington [LCB, i, 399]; CB to EN, [c.27 June 1845]: MS Bon 168 pp.1–2, BPM. [LCB, i, 402].
28. Ibid., p.1[LCB, i, 402].
29. EJB, Diary Paper, 30 July 1845: MS p.1, in private hands [LCB, i, 408].
30. LI, 13 Apr 1844 p.5; 24 Aug 1844 p.5.
31. CB, ‘The Missionary’, [Spring 1845]: MS n.l. [VN CB, 291–4]. Neufeldt dates this, and several other ‘story poems’ published in Poems 1846, to the spring of 1845. I think there is a good case for dating it slightly later to the Hathersage visit. Charlotte had earlier written of Nussey: ‘his notion of being a Missionary is amusing – he would not live a year in the climates of those countries where Missionaries are wanted’: CB to EN, [?late June 1843]: MS 2696 R-V pp.2–3, PM [LCB, i, 402].
32. The brasses are still to be seen today in St Michael’s Church, Hathersage.
33. Though there are many contenders for the orginal of Thornfield, North Lees Hall best fits the novel’s description of a 3-storey gentleman’s manor with a rookery behind, large meadow in front and hills in the distance: CB, Jane Eyre, 100. Charlotte may well have been inside the hall as she also graphically describes (ibid., 212) the Apostles’ Cupboard which belonged to the Eyres and is now HAOBP: F32, BPM. The Hathersage locations were ‘identified’ as early as the 1890s: see J.J. Stead, ‘Hathersage and Jane Eyre’, BST:1:4:26. It should be borne in mind, however, that Charlotte always said that she only allowed reality to suggest, never to dictate, her fictional creations.
34. Local tradition, influenced by Jane Eyre, has it that Charlotte arrived at the George Inn by public coach from Sheffield but it is more likely that Ellen met the omnibus at Sheffield with her own private transport as she had when expecting Charlotte to arrive the previous week: CB to EN, [c.27 June 1845]: MS Bon 168 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 402]. 35.EN to Mary Gorham, 22 July [1845]: MS BS viii, pp.2, 4, BPM [LCB, i, 404–5].
35. M.F.H. Hulbert. Discovering Hathersage Old Vicarage (Hathersage, 1985), 10–11.
36. CB to EN, [?18 June 1845]: MS HM 24440 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 399]; EN to Mary Gorham, 22 July 1845: MS BS viii, pp.2, 4, BPM [LCB, i, 404].
37. Ibid.
38. EJB to EN,? 16 July [1845]: MS BS 108 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 403]. The last sentence, valedication and signature have been cut off and are now missing: a transcript, possibly in Ellen’s hand, is written opp. p.3 of the letter.
39. Haworth Church Hymnsheets, 20 July 1845: MS BS x, H, BPM. See above, n.3.
40. The 5published in Poems 1846 were ‘Cold in the earth – and the deep snow piled above thee!’, 3Mar 1845: MS Add 43483 pp.52–3, BL [Roper, 166–7] and ‘Enough of Thought, Philosopher’, [3Feb 1845]; ‘Death, that struck when I was most confiding’: 10 Apr 1845; ‘Ah! why, because the dazzeling sun’, 14 Apr 1845; and ‘How Beautiful the Earth is still’, 2 June 1845: MSS in Law [facsimiles in Poems 1934, 324–6, 327 (twice) 328; Roper, 164–6, 167–8, 169–70, 173–5].
41. EJB, Diary Paper, 30 July 1845: MS pp.1–2, in private hands. I am grateful to William Self for sending me a photocopy of this manuscript and allowing me to quote from it.
42. I think it is dangerous to argue that all Anne’s religious poems are autobiographical, particularly those written during spring and early summer 1845. There are many parallels in storyline and mood with those written by Emily at this time. We know from Emily’s diary paper (see above p.535 that they were both writing about the First Wars between the Royalists and Republicans, a subject which naturally lent itself to contemplation of blighted hopes and expressions of despair from families and lovers separated by the political divide. Anne’s ‘I love the silent hour of night’ which is usually seen as a per
sonal lamentation for Weightman, is closely paralleled by Emily’s ‘Cold in the earth – and the deep snow piled above thee!’, also written at this time. Similarly, Anne’s ‘Oppressed with sin and wo’ and ‘When sinks my heart in hopeless gloom’ find strong echoes in Emily’s ‘How beautiful the Earth is still’, the first and last poems being written on consecutive days in June. The fact that Anne’s heroes and hero-ines look to God rather than hope or imagination for comfort is simply a reflection of her character. If, as I suspect, most of Anne’s poems of this period belong in a Gondal setting, then the depth of her own despair at Thorp Green may have been unduly exaggerated.
43. AB, ‘Call me away; there’s nothing here’, 24 Jan 1845: MS in Law [facsimile in Poems 1934, 344; Chitham, 107]. I cannot agree with Chitham that this poem reflects the Branwell–Mrs Robinson situation. The lovers are clearly a Gondal Romeo and Juliet and, as we know from Emily’s diary paper that both she and Anne were writing about the First Wars, it seems likely that their families came from opposing sides.
44. AB, ‘Oppressed with sin and wo’, 1 June 1845: MS Bon 134 p.4, BPM [Chitham, 114].
45. AB, Diary Paper, 31 July 1845: MS p.1, in private hands [LCB, i, 410]. I am grateful to William Self for sending me a photocopy of this manuscript and allowing me to quote from it. It has been suggested that Anne’s ‘passages in the life of an Individual’ may be an early version of Agnes Grey but Emily’s diary paper of the same date says that Anne is working on a book by Henry Sophona: a masculine narrator makes it unlikely that this was a forerunner of Agnes Grey.
46. AB, Diary Paper, 31 July 1845: MS pp.1–3, in private hands [LCB, i, 409–11].
47. The myth of Emily’s sympathy and support for a beleaguered Branwell relies on 2 principal sources: her poem ‘Well, some may hate and some may scorn’, which expresses pity for a man of ‘ruined hopes’ and ‘blighted fame’ who has died unlamented, and the story that Emily used to put a lighted lamp in the parsonage window to guide the drunken Branwell home from the Black Bull. The poem belongs to 1839 (see above, p.370) and there is no contem-porary evidence for the story which, if true, would have meant that Emily was encouraging Branwell’s vices, a scenario which is inherently unlikely.
48. EJB, Diary Paper, 30 July 1845: MS pp.2–3, in private hands [LCB, i, 408–9].
49. Ibid., p.1[LCB, i, 408]. Emily’s apparent lack of concern is even more striking because in the original ms, which she may have copied out from rough drafts, she transposed the first sentence of the next paragraph into her statement about Branwell, so it actually read ‘Branwell
50. AB, Diary Paper, 31 July 1845: MS p.1, in private hands [LCB, i, 410].
51. Mildred Christian, ‘Branwell Brontë and the Robinsons of Thorp Green’, unpublished article, c.1965, in MCP, BPM; Du Maurier, 163–4.
52. ECG to GS, 2Oct 1856 [C&P, 418].
53. CB to EN, 31 July [1845]: MS Gr. E6 p.3, BPM [LCB, i, 412]. Charlotte wrote to Ellen’s mother 3 days earlier, declining an invitation to Brookroyd but giving no hint of Branwell’s affairs: CB to Mrs Nussey, 28 July 1845: MS BS 54.5, BPM [LCB, i, 406–7].
54. ECG, Life, 524, 523.
55. GS, ‘Recollections’: MS Acc 6713, Box 5 item 4p.105, NLS, quoted in Christian, ‘Branwell Brontë and the Robinsons of Thorp Green’, 20–2.
56. PBB to Francis Grundy, Oct 1845: MS in Brotherton [Grundy, 87–8]. Grundy’s transcript is clearly inaccurate: he misreads 1843 as 1848, for example, and omits all the names. Mrs Robinson was cousin of Sir George Trevelyan and Grundy may have accidentally transposed this to ‘Lord’. The last two omissions in the text are Grundy’s own and may well be crucial for they would seem to have contained further personal revelations about Mrs Robinson.
57. See, for example, Christian, ‘Branwell Brontë and the Robinsons of Thorp Green’, 55. WG PBB, 226 is a proponent of the idea that Branwell was living through his Northangerland persona.
58. Lord Houghton Commonplace Book, 1857–60: MS pp.338–9, TCC.
59. CB to EN, 23 Jan 1844: MS in Law, photograph in MCP, BPM [LCB, i, 342].
60. In his letter of January 1840 to John Brown, (see above, p.377–8 and n.) Branwell suggests that ‘Beelzebub means to make a walking-stick of yours [prick]’ which I take to mean Brown was promiscuous.
61. ECG to GS, 29 Dec 1856 [C&P, 432].
62. Lydia eloped with Roxby on 20 October 1845 and married him the same night at Gretna Green: Hibbs, Victorian Ouseburn, 16(k). For Elizabeth’s breach of promise suit see Robinson Papers, BPM and for her and Mary’s broken engagements see CB to EN, 28 July 1848 [LCB, ii, 92]. Breaking an engagement was then one of the most serious civil offences a person, especially a woman, could commit: it is a subject which occurs frequently in the novels of Anthony Trollope.
63. Jacob, twin brother of Esau, so named because he was born holding on to his brother’s heel. The name therefore literally meant ‘he takes by the heel’ and came to mean ‘the supplanter’: Genesis, ch.25, v.26.
64. Lord Houghton Commonplace Book, 1857–60: MS p.339, TCC.
65. Census Return for Thorpe Underwoods, 1841: Microfilm, Harrogate; Hibbs, Victorian Ouseburn, 511(l); MS 89, Robinson Papers, BPM; WG PBB, 237; Christian, ‘Branwell Brontë and the Robinsons of Thorp Green’, 42–5.
66. Ibid.
67. Leyland, ii, 36; Census Returns for Greater Ouseburn, 1841: Microfilm, Harrogate. A memorial to Dr Crosby in Great Ouseburn church is at odds with the role he played as go-between, suggesting he too may have been duped by Mrs Robinson: ‘This tablet is erected by sub-scription in memory of the late John Crosby Esqr Surgeon Great Ouseburn who died December 1st 1859 aged 62 years. His universal kindness, professional ability, benevolent disposition & active usefulness, during a residence here of 30 years warmly endeared him to a large circle of friends who deeply lament his sudden removal.’
68. ECG, Life, 218, omitting the first 11 words which Gaskell cut for the third edition.
69. CB to EN, 13 Jan [1845]: MS HM 24436 p.4, Huntington [LCB, i, 381]; CB to Constantin Heger, 24 Oct 1844: MS Add 38723B p.2, BL [LCB, i, 369].
70. WG PBB, 233 claims ‘no greater proof of his mental preoccupation at Thorp Green can be found than in the almost total cessation of creative writing which marked those years’. Everard Flintoff, ‘Some Unpublished Poems of Branwell Brontë’, Durham University Journal, lxxxi (1989), 241–53. This important article not only makes out a case for there being a Thorp Green notebook but also partially reconstructs it.
71. PBB, ‘Oer Grafton Hill the blue heaven smiled serene’, [1843–4]: MS n.l., sold at Sotheby’s Sale, 13 Dec 1993, lot 40: photograph in HT 43 (212), BPM [VN PBB, 261, 496].
72. PBB, ‘I saw a picture, yesterday’, [1843–4]: MS in Brotherton [VN PBB, 262].
73. PBB to JBL, [25 Nov 1845]: MS p.1, Brotherton [L&L, ii, 72].
74. City of York Directory: 1843 (Hull, 1843), 84, 100, 115; Edmund Robinson, Cash Book, 1845: MS 93/2, Robinson Papers, BPM. See below, n.78 for Branwell’s sub-scription to the library.
75. Yorkshire Gazette, 10 May 1845 p.7.
76. PBB, The Emigrant, 26 May 1845: MS BS 128, BPM [VN PBB, 263]; Yorkshire Gazette, 7 June 1845 p.7.
77. AB, Diary Paper, 31 July 1845: MS p.1, in private hands [LCB, i, 409–10].
78. PBB to Mr Bellerby, 3 June 1845: MS in private hands. The books were intended for Branwell’s own pleasure, rather than teaching purposes, and reveal his tastes had changed little since childhood: he requests any 2 volumes of the following works: Freycinet’s Voyage Autour du Monde, Blackwood’s Magazine for 1843 and 1844, the Quarterly Review and Fraser’s Magazine for 1844, Brougham’s Sketches, William Miller’s Biography (actually Memoirs: Miller was a soldier in the Peninsular War), any one or 2volumes from the Annual Biography of 1837 and Davy’s Ceylon.
79. Edmund Robinson, Cash Book 1845: MS 93/2, Robinson Papers, BPM: Hibbs, Victorian Ouseburn, 15(g); see below n.82.
80. CB to EN, 13 June 1845: M
S HM 24439, Huntington [LCB, i, 397–8]; CB to EN, [?18 June 1845]: MS HM 24440 p.1, Huntington [LCB, i, 399]; CB to EN, [c.27 June 1845]: MS Bon 168 p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 402].
81. WG PBB, 239–40; Du Maurier, 162. The actual date of Branwell’s dismissal remains unclear, though the weight of evidence points to 17 July. According to his sisters’ diary papers Branwell went to Liverpool on Tuesday 29 July; he himself said (PBB to Francis Grundy, Oct 1845: MS n.l. [Grundy, 87–8]) he went after ‘eleven continuous nights of sleepless horror’ after his dismissal had ‘reduced me to almost blindness’, confirming 17 July date. Only Charlotte’s letter to Ellen of 31 July contradicts this, saying Branwell had received his dismissal ‘last Thursday’, (i.e. 24 July) but this is probably a mistake due to her agitated state: she had not been there when the dismissal letter was received and probably reported the news as she heard it, without taking account of the week that had passed since then. I am grateful to Margaret Smith for her argument in favour of the 17 July date.
82. Inclusion on a list does not necessarily mean that the visitor arrived that particular day: the lists cover visitors arriving and departing throughout the previous week and no specific dates are ever mentioned. Both the Scarborough Herald and Scarborough Record initially refer to the family as ‘Rev E Robinson, Mrs Robinson and the Misses Robinson’, implying Edmund had been left behind. The Herald then apparently notes his arrival when it adds ‘Master Robinson’ to the list printed on 24 July. Neither the Record nor the other paper, the Scarborough Gazette, mentions Edmund by name at any time. All 3 papers give different and conflicting dates of arrival. (A) Scarborough Record, published on Saturdays, notes arrival of ‘Revd E Robinson, Mrs & Misses Robinson’ at No.7A The Cliff by 5 July: their listing remains unchanged (and without Edmund) till 2 August when it becomes ‘Rev E Robinson & fam[ily]’, a change probably dictated by constraints of space in the paper: ibid., 5July 1845 p.4; 12 July 1845 p.4; 19 July 1845 p.4; 26 July 1845 p.4; 2Aug 1845 p.4; 9 Aug 1845 p.4. (B) Scarborough Herald, published on Thursdays, notes Mrs Robinson snr (Mr Robinson’s widowed mother) staying at No.2The Cliff from 10 July but does not record the arrival of ‘Robinson Rev E & Mrs Robinson 3Misses’ until 17 July, twelve days after the Record. It is the only paper to notice ‘Master Robinson’ but only from 24 July, a week after the date given by Gérin and Du Maurier and a week before the Record altered its listing: ibid, 10 July 1845 p.3; 17 July 1845 p.3; 24 July 1845 p3; 31 July 1845 p.3; 7 Aug 1845 p.3. Mrs Robinson snr is listed alone ibid., 14 Aug 1845 p.3. (C) Scarborough Gazette, published like the Record on Saturdays, notes the arrival of Mrs Robinson snr and ‘Robinson E Mrs & fam[ily]’ from 12 July until 2August: ibid., 12 July 1845 p.2; 19 July 1845 p.2; 26 July 1845 p.2; 2Aug 1845 p.2. This paper also notes Mrs Robinson snr stayed on another week and, like the Herald, moves her from No.2to No.3The Cliff from 26 July: ibid; 9Aug 1845 supplement.
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