Brontës
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20. C.H. Lemon, ‘An American Visitor for Mr Brontë [James Hoppin]’: BST: 15:79:329–30. The date of Hoppin’s visit is deduced from the fact that Patrick was still preaching and his remarking on the ‘new marble tablet’. Patrick’s attack of bronchitis is mentioned in PB to Revd Robinson Pool, 18 Mar 1858: MS BS 206 p.1, BPM [LRPB, 272].
21. [Hoppin], BST:15:79:329–30.
22. Reid, 194–5 quoting Henry Jarvis Raymond, c.1858–9.
23. See, for example, PB to unidentified, 10 Nov 1858: MS in Texas [LRPB, 275]; PB to Franklin Bacheller, 22 Dec 1858: MS MA 2696 R-V, PM [LRPB, 277]; PB to Mrs Abba Woolson, 16 July 1859: MS 3158/1–3, TCD. All 3 applicants were sent pieces cut from CB to PB, 9 June 1849: see above p.1097, n.99.
24. LI, 10 Oct 1857 p.6; L&D, 438.
25. See, for example, the report in the Halifax Courier, 18 Apr 1858 p.2.
26. Bradford Review, 23 Oct 1858 p.2. Parker sang at a benefit concert for a widow and her children at Hall Green Baptist Chapel on Christmas Eve 1860: Halifax Courier, 5Jan 1861 p.5.
27. Thackeray lectured on ‘The Four Georges’ in the Mechanics’ Institutes of Bradford and Halifax in the winter of 1856: BO, 11 Dec 1856 p.5; 18 Dec 1856 p.8; HG, 13 Dec 1856 p.5; 14 Feb 1857 p.7. Gaskell, who was angry that he never wrote to Patrick after Charlotte’s death, thought he ought to use the opportunity to go to Haworth: ‘it would gratify poor old Mr Brontë if he did!’ but he did not: ECG to GS, [?1 Oct 1859] and 11 Dec [1856] [C&P, 576, 424]. Dickens gave readings in the same towns from December 1854: BO, 21 Dec 1854 p.5; 14 Oct 1858 p.5; 27 Oct 1859 p.5; HG, 18 Nov 1854 p.5; Halifax Courier, 18 Sept 1858 p.5. Ruskin gave the inaugural lecture at the new school of the Bradford Mechanics’ Institute: BO, 3Mar 1859 p.5.
28. Ibid., 6 Jan 1859 p.5; Bradford Review, 8 Jan 1859 p.4; LM, 8Jan 1859 p.7 (Keighley). Massey’s lecture was drawn entirely from the first edition of ECG, Life. He returned again with his lecture to Bradford in 1860 and printed an article on Charlotte in Abraham Holroyd’s publication, The Bradfordian, in 1861: Bradford Review, 20 Oct 1860 p.4; LM 20 Oct 1860 p.7; BO, 3Jan 1861 p.5.
29. PB to John Milligan, 25 Jan 1859: MS BS 208, BPM [LRPB, 277–8]; Bradford Review, 15 June 1861 p.6.
30. Eight copies were sent to the parsonage: Martha Brown to Abraham Holroyd, 10 Aug 1859: MS BS ix, B, BPM [L&L, iv, 235]. Holroyd had visited Haworth in the summer of 1853 shortly after his return from America. Having read Jane Eyre and Shirley there, he was determined to meet Charlotte and travelled to Haworth one Sunday to attend church. He waited for her at the end of the service and presented her with a copy of the Book of Common Prayer used in the American Episcopal Church. As a child living in Clayton he remembered hearing Patrick preach at the Old Bell Chapel, Thornton: Scruton, 111–15, quoting Abraham Holroyd.
31. ECG to GS, 17 Mar [1858] [C&P, 495–6]; ECG to GS, [?1Oct 1859] [C&P, 577].
32. ABN to GS, 11 Oct 1859: MS File 8no.3, JMA [BST:19:3:102]; ABN to GS, 14 Oct 1859: MS File 8no.4, JMA [BST:19:3:102–3].
33. ABN to GS, 17 Oct 1859: MS File 8no.5pp.1–2, JMA; ABN to GS, 11 Nov 1859: MS File 8no.7p.1, JMA [BST:19:3:103].
34. Ibid., p.2; ABN to GS, 23 Dec 1859: MS File 8no.8, JMA.
35. ABN to GS, 25 Jan 1860: MS File 8no.9, JMA; ABN to GS, 27 Jan 1860: MS File 8no.10 p.2, JMA.
36. PB to GS, 26 Mar 1860: MS SG 93 pp.1–2, BPM [LRPB, 286]; ABN to GS, 11 Apr 1860: File 8no.13 p.2, JMA; CB, ‘The Last Sketch’, Cornhill Magazine, i (Jan–June 1860) 485–98.
37. EJB, The Outcast Mother, Cornhill Magazine, i (Jan–June 1860), 616; CB, Watching and Wishing and ‘When thou sleepest’ ibid, ii (July–Dec 1860), 741 and ibid., iv (July–Dec 1861), 178 respectively. For Nicholls’ letters to George Smith regarding poems for publication, 31 Jan 1860–4Apr 1861 see File 8, nos.11, 13, 15–19, JMA.
38. Lord Houghton Commonplace Book, 1857–60: MS at TCC; T.W. Reid, The Life, Letters and Friendships of Lord Houghton (London, 1890), i, 527. Mrs Gaskell, Patrick and Arthur cannot have been aware that Richard Monckton Milnes had a prized collection of pornography, which may explain his pursuit of, and interest in, John Brown’s letters from Branwell: see Robert B. Martin, Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart (Oxford, 1980), 96, 420, 541. I am grateful to Margaret Smith for this reference.
39. ABN to Richard Monckton Milnes, 21 Dec 1859: MS pp.1–2, TCC. Francis Leyland claimed to possess 112 letters from Branwell to his brother, though only a fraction of these are extant: Anonymous Memo, Visit to Mr Leyland, n.d.: MS BS x, V, BPM [BST:12:63:200–2].
40. Marriages, Haworth (24 Feb 1857); Baptisms, Haworth (26 Apr 1857; 14 Nov 1858); Burials, Haworth (26 Oct 1858). The story is only told from the Greenwood point of view and is repeated in ECG to WSW, 20 Dec 1860 [C&P, 641–2] and Meta Gaskell to unidentified, 25 Oct 1860: MS Ashley 2829, BL [L&D, 521–2]. Meta says the child was 6 months old but the date of birth she gives and the baptismal register both agree he was 9months old.
41. BO, 9Aug 1860 p.5, correcting a report in the Halifax Courier, 4 Aug 1860 p.4that Patrick had taken a final leave of his parishioners on 21 July 1860. The 30 October 1859 date for his last sermon is confirmed by William Wright, memo, 12 Aug 1860: MS BS ix, W, BPM. The Halifax Courier’s dating is accepted by L&D, 518, who did not see the correction that followed.
42. ABN to GS, 27 Jan 1860: MS File 8 no.10 p.4, JMA; ABN to GS, 29 Feb 1860: MS File 8no.12 pp.2–3, JMA. See also ABN to Richard Monckton Milnes, 21 Dec 1859: MS pp.2–3, TC.
43. BO, 9Aug 1860 p.5; 16 Aug 1860 p.5; Baptisms, Haworth (5 Aug 1860). The Bishop of Ripon was now Robert Bickersteth, Clifford Longley having translated to the see of Durham in 1856.
44. Halifax Courier, 21 July 1860 p.4; BO, 9Aug 1860 p.5. The denial of the report seems to have originated with Nicholls or at least to have been authorized by him.
45. BO, 13 Sept 1860 p.5.
46. PB to ECG, 2 Oct 1860: MS EL B121, Rylands [LRPB, 288–9]; Meta Gaskell to unidentified, 25 Oct 1860: MS Ashley 2829, BL [L&D, 519], referring to the note as ‘a few tremulous, feeble lines’.
47. ibid. [L&D, 519–21]; ECG to WSW, 20 Dec 1860 [C&P, 641]; ECG to GS, [23 Aug 1857] [C&P, 468].
48. ECG to WSW, 20 Dec 1860 [C&P, 641]; Meta Gaskell to unidentified, 25 Oct 1860: MS Ashley 2829, BL [L&D, 522].
49. ABN to GS, 30 Oct 1860: MS File 8no.17 p.2, JMA; ABN to GS, 23 Nov 1860: MS File 8no.19 p.2, JMA; Bradford Review, 12 Jan 1861 p.8; BO, 17 Jan 1861 p.5.
50. PB, Account Book, c.1845–61: MS BS 173 p.3, BPM.
51. Halifax Courier, 16 Feb 1861 p.5; 23 Mar 1861 p.5.
52. ABN to GS, 4Apr 1861: MS File 8no.18 pp.1–2, JMA; Venn, iv, 573.
53. ABN to GS, 25 June 1861: MS File 8no.20 p.2, JMA; Bradford Review, 8June 1861 p.5. For other obituaries, nearly all quoting extensively from ECG, Life see: LM, 11 June 1861 p.3; BO, 13 June 1861 p.5; HG, 15 June 1861 p.5; LI, 15 June 1861 p.5; Halifax Courier, 15 June 1861 p.5. Freed from the constraints Patrick had imposed on him during his lifetime, Dearden took the opportunity to write an obituary defending Patrick against Gaskell’s claims: William Dearden in BO, 27 June 1861 p.7.
54. LI, 15 June 1861 p.5.
55. Ibid., Bradford Review, 13 June 1861 p.2; HG, 15 June 1861 p.5.
56. LI, 15 June 1861 p.5. L&D, 527, 529 state that permission had to be obtained from the Secretary of State for Patrick’s burial because the churchyard had been closed. This would seem to have been unnecessary. Although an order of Council issued on 28 July 1856 had closed all churchyards and burial grounds in the parish of Bradford with immediate effect, an exemption was made for ‘private vaults and graves which can be opened without the disturbance of remains, in which each coffin shall be embedded in powdered charcoal, and separately entombed in an airtight manner’: HG, 2Aug 1856 p.2. It may have been necessary, of course, to demonstrate that this was the case and acquire a faculty in order for a burial to go ahead.
57. ’N’ in Bradford Review, 12 Oct 1861 p.5.
58. HG, 29 June 1861 p.5. Burnett took I Thessalonians, ch.4vv.16–17 as the t
ext for his sermon.
59. HG, 10 Aug 1861 p.4; 17 Aug 1861 p.5. A friend of both Branwell and Nicholls, Sowden was ‘about 46 years of age’ and had ‘won the respect and esteem of all – church-men and dissenters alike. In him the church has lost a faithful and diligent servant, and the poor a generous friend. Of a philosophical turn of mind, Mr Sowden was noted as a geologist and an ardent lover of nature. Excursionists into the deep and lovely valleys of this secluded district looked forward to his company with much anticipation and delight’: ibid, 10 Aug 1861 p.4.
60. Ibid., 17 Aug 1861 p.5.
61. ’N’ in Bradford Review, 12 Oct 1861 p.5.
62. See, for example, WG CB, 567; L&D, 529.
63. ECG to WSW, 20 Dec 1860 [C&P, 641–2]; Meta Gaskell to unidentified, 25 Oct 1860 [L&D, 521–2]; Charles Hale to his mother, 11 Nov 1861 [BST:15:77:128–9]. In the immediate aftermath of the publication of ECG, Life, Nicholls himself believed that gossip in Haworth blamed him for supplying Gaskell with lurid anecdotes about Haworth and that Sarah Baldwin, the defender of the Clergy Daughters’ School, was trying to stir up ill-feeling in the parish against him: ABN to GS, 23 May 1857: MS File 8 no.30 p.3, JMA; Revd William Baldwin to ABN, 13 Aug 1857: MS pp.3, 5, in private hands.
64. See, for example, Ernest Raymond, quoted in Reid, 194–6 and Walter White, ‘An Early Visitor to Haworth’, BST:16:83:219–21. See also the local people quoted in Cautley, ‘Old Haworth Folk who Knew the Brontës’, 76–84, Whiteley Turner, A Spring-Time Saunter Round and About Brontë Land, 212 and above, pp.839.
65. ’N’ in Bradford Review, 12 Oct 1861 p.5. See above n.56.
66. Bradford Observer, 29 Mar 1860 p.5; Bradford Review, 31 Mar 1860 p.5. When Wade was presented with a testimonial by his former parishioners at Daisy Hill, Bradford, a post he had resigned in expectation of getting the incumbency of Girlington, Burnett announced that ‘he disbelieved the charges against Mr Wade, and expressed the fullest confidence in him. He felt it to be due to himself to demand, at an early period, an explanation of the “insuperable difficulty” which it had been alleged stood in the way of the election of Mr Wade to the incumbency of Girlington Church’: ibid. Perhaps the Simeon Trustees had found Wade’s views, like Revd William Carus Wilson’s, ‘unduly Calvinistic’ (see above, p.1015 n.86), something which might have been in his favour at Haworth.
67. L&D, 531.
68. Burials, Haworth (25 June–4 Aug 1861); Baptisms (23 June–18 Aug 1861); see above p.918.
69. Nicholls signed himself ‘O.M.’ on 11 August 1861 when he baptized 2 children but this may have been force of habit: he had reverted to ‘curate’ by 18 August: Baptisms, Haworth. For the public announcement of Wade’s appointment see Halifax Courier, 21 Sept 1861 p.5.
70. BO, 26 Sept 1861 p.4.
71. HG, 28 Sept 1861 p.8; Bradford Review, 26 Sept 1861 p.2; Baptisms, Haworth (22 Sept 1861).
72. Haworth Parsonage, Notice of Sale, 1 Oct 1861: MS BS x, H, BPM [Joanna Hutton, ‘The Sale at Haworth Parsonage’, BST:14:75:46–50 extracts only].
73. Charles Hale to his mother, 11 Nov 1861 [BST:15:77:128]. Nicholls signed the registers for the last time on 17 September 1861, the last duties before Wade arrived for his inaugural sermon: Baptisms, Haworth (17 Sept 1861); Burials, Haworth (17 Sept 1861). Nicholls’ last wedding had been on 29 July 1861: Joseph Grant acted in the brief interregnum, including officiating at a marriage on 21 Sept 1861: Marriages, Haworth.
74. Ann Dinsdale, ‘Martha Brown: Life after the Brontës’, BST:24:1:97–101; Marjorie Gallop, ‘Charlotte’s Husband: Sidelights from a Family Album’, BST:12:64:298–9; ‘Reminiscences of a Relation of Arthur Bell Nicholls’, BST:15:79:347; Martha Brown, Gravestone, Haworth Churchyard; Martha Brown, Funeral Card, 19 Jan 1880: MS in private hands. Martha was still in Nicholls’ employment in the spring of 1874 when Leyland met her on one of her trips home: Francis Leyland, Memos, 28 Jan 1874: MS no.7 and 21 May 1874, MS E.2008.3 p.4, BPM.
75. BST:11:60:374 quoting Ethel Selkirk. Nicholls’ new home, where he lived until his death, was Hill House, Banagher, which has recently been refurbished.
76. Gallop, ‘Charlotte’s Husband: Sidelights from a Family Album’, BST:12:64:299; ‘Reminiscences of a Relation of Arthur Bell Nicholls’, BST:15:79:348; BST:11:60:374 quoting Ethel Selkirk.
77. Gallop, ‘Charlotte’s Husband: Sidelights from a Family Album’, BST:12:64:299; ABN, Gravestone, Banagher Churchyard, Co. Offaly (Formerly King’s County): The inscription in full reads: ‘In Loving Memory of the The Revd Arthur Bell Nicholls, formerly curate of Haworth, Yorkshire, who died at the Hill House Banagher, December 2nd 1906, aged 88. Also of Mary Anna, his wife who died at the Hill House Banagher, February 27th 1915, aged 83’. I am grateful to Vicki Fattorini for supplying me with photographs of the church and gravestone.
78. Sotheby’s Sale of Books and Manuscripts, 26 July 1907 and 19 June 1914. See above, n.77 for Mary’s death.
79. It was not until the last decade or so of his life that he was harassed by the acquisitive Clement Shorter and his notorious forger friend, Thomas J. Wise: the story of how they acquired Nicholls’ manuscripts (and Ellen’s) is a nefarious one which ought to be told.
80. Gaskell died suddenly of a heart-attack in the midst of regaling her family with an anecdote: Jenny Uglow, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories (London, 1993), 609–10.
81. James Taylor died as a result of complications following a fall and is buried in the Bombay cemetery where the perfunctory inscription on his tomb, ‘James Taylor. Died April 29, 1874, aged 57’, belies the respected status he had achieved: LCB, ii, liii-lv; L&L, iv, 312. William Smith Williams died in retirement at Twickenham on 21 August 1875, aged 75: Norman Perry, The Discovery of Charlotte Brontë: William Smith Williams 1800–1875: A Genealogical Quest (Surrey, 2006), 36. George Smith died on 6 April 1901, aged 77, the year after the completion of his Dictionary of National Biography begun in 1882: LCB, ii, li-liii.
82. Constantin Heger died on 6May 1896 aged 86; his wife predeceased him, dying on 9 January 1890: the Pensionnat Heger closed in 1894: L&L, i, 251 n.1; LCB, i, 92–3.
83. Wooler Family Tree, BPM; Blakeley, ‘Memories of Margaret Wooler and her Sisters’, BST:12:62:114.
84. Juliet Barker, ‘Mary Taylor’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), no.53213; Stevens, 142–7.
85. EN to T.J. Wise, Nov 1892, MS in Brotherton [Stevens, 147–8].
86. EN to GS, 1 June [1860]: MS File 7 no.5, JMA. See also EN to GS, 15 Aug 1860: MS File 7no.8, JMA.
87. EN to GS, 20 Feb 1869: MS File 7no.18, JMA.
88. EN to GS, 16 Feb 1869: MS File 7no.18, JMA.
89. ABN to [?Clement Shorter], 12 July 1898: MS p.2, Fales.
90. The only pieces she succeeded in publishing were her own memoir, ‘Reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë’, Scribner’s Monthly (May 1871), reprinted in BST:2:10:58–83, and some excerpts from Charlotte’s letters in Hours at Home (April 1871). For her failed attempts to publish the letters, including a private publication edited by J. Horsfall Turner, which had to be pulped, see LCB, i, 33–52.
91. See, for example, William Scruton, ‘Reminiscences of the late Miss Ellen Nussey’, BST:1:7:24–42; ‘M.C.’, ‘Memories of Ellen Nussey’, BST:11:56:40–1; Helen Arnold, ‘The Reminiscences of Emma Huidekoper Cortazzo: A Friend of Ellen Nussey’, BST:13:68:228–9.
92. LCB, i, 93–5; BO, 29 Nov 1897 p.4.
93. PB to ECG, 30 July 1857: MS EL B121 p.3, Rylands [LRPB, 258].
94. Uglow, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories, 399.
INDEX
NOTE: Works by Anne, Branwell, Charlotte and Emily Brontë appear directly under title; other works appear under the author’s name.
Abbott, John, 60 787
Act of Union (1801), 4 503
Aglen (Bradford carver and gilder), 356
Agnes Grey (Anne Brontë): home life in, 161 on governess’s life, 358 593 difficult children in, 360 593 writing, 590 qualities, 593 publication, 619 636 recep
tion 630 637 sales, 634 955 Smith, Elder issue reprint with Charlotte’s preface, 771 782 785 Mrs Gaskell on, 978
Aked, Robert, 172 260
Alexander, Miss, 567 748
Allbutt, Marianne (née Wooler), 199 328 496
Allbutt, Revd Thomas, 328 332
Allerton (Yorkshire), 73
Allison, William, 552 584
Ambleside (Lake District), 769 782 786
Anderson, John Wilson, 356 434
Anderton, Revd William, 120
Andrew, Dr Thomas, 106 117 death and funeral, 464
Andrews, Miss (Cowan Bridge teacher), 145 146 148 150
Angria (imaginary world), 175 185 210 225 233 235 241 267 270 273 276 282 288 294 302 305 314 316 319 321 4 337 353 411 451 546 567 575 590 619
‘Appeal’ (Emily Brontë poem), 402
Arabian Nights, 186
Armer, Thomas, 391
Armitage, Sir George, 45 52
Armstrong, William, 751
Arnold, Matthew, 783 ‘Haworth Churchyard’, 917
Arnold, Thomas, 769 778
Askew, Anne, 452
Athenaeum (journal): reviews Poems, 587 reviews Jane Eyre, 632 on the Bells, 637 reviews Wildfell Hall, 665 James Taylor sends to Charlotte, 771
Atkinson, Frances (née Walker), 70 75 81 marriage, 86 and Charlotte’s attendance at Roe Head school, 200 Charlotte’s visits, 206
Atkinson, Frances (of Broughton): and daughter, 391
Atkinson, Henry, 784
Atkinson, Revd Thomas, 54 70 75 marriage, 86 at Mirfield, 200 on staff of Roe Head, 329
Atlas (journal), 637
Austen, Jane: Charlotte reads, 646 749
Aykroyd, Tabitha: at Haworth Parsonage, 114 155 165 503 509 and Brontë children’s exuberance, 175 Ellen Nussey describes, 226 fractures leg, 300 333 leaves Brontës’ service, 371 present from Ellen Nussey, 624 at Emily’s funeral, 683 and Anne’s final trip to Scarborough, 698 suffers from fall, 713 dislikes Richmond portrait of Charlotte, 766 influenza, 812 and Charlotte’s wedding, 893 ill with diarrhoea, 905 death, 909