Brontes and Branwell

I’ve always been fascinated by the Bronte family who were born in Yorkshire, at the end of the Regency era. Their parents were a Cornish mother and an Irish father. Patrick, the father, was from a poor farming background in Northern Ireland. He was a clever young man and overcame his poverty to go to Cambridge, as a “sizar”, i.e. a student who is taught for free in return for undertaking some duties in the college…It was a hard life for him, to get from poverty and a peasant upbringing to being a curate of the Church of England. He became Curate of Haworth in 1819. By then he was married to Maria Branwell, a young woman from a middle class Cornish family and they had a growing family. Patrick was interested in literature –he wrote some poems and tried his hand at stories. would become. He was very busy with the work of a curate in a poor Parish. Haworth was full of poor families, and had very limited facilities. The infant mortality rate was high and hygiene conditions were appalling by modern standards. He had to function as a sort of social worker and activist, trying to get conditions improved. He was a good hearted man, but was in many ways awkward in his social relations. Possibly it was difficult for him to mingle in society, when he had come from such a modest background.  As he grew older, he became reclusive and only did as much “mixing” as was necessary for a clergyman. This had an effect, a negative one, on his children. However he was an intelligent well-meaning man, and in spite of his stiffness, he was a kindly loving father. He and Maria had six children, 5 girls and one son. But when Anne, the youngest was a baby, Maria died of cancer. Her husband became more retiring, but he did make one attempt to marry again, to find a mother for his brood. Alas, he made a comical mess of it, writing to an old flame and reminding her that she was still single… provoking the lady to write back angrily and with a tart refusal.  He gave up then, and seems to have resigned himself to living alone.  He brought in his sister in law, Elizabeth Branwell, to keep house and look after his children. The Bronte children were highly intelligent and had a strong creative impulse, hat clearly came from their father.  But his social isolation affected them. They were not used to mixing much outside their own circle and apart from Branwell, found it hard to make friends. Patrick’s income was moderate, as a perpetual curate and he didn’t have a lot of friends or influence in the church, to secure a better paid or more comfortable living. The money was adequate while he was alive, but when he knew that when he died, his family would have nothing.  He needed to ensure that they were equipped to earn their living. He taught Branwell himself, believing that his son was a very talented young man who would be able to help look after the girls financially. He sent the girls to a school for the Daughters of clergymen” which was supposed to provide a good education at low cost. However, like a lot of private schools at the time, it was badly run, and conditions were terrible. The food was bad, the discipline was harsh. The girls were poorly fed, the building was extremely cold. Patrick’s 2 eldest children, Maria and Elizabeth, were taken seriously ill during an epidemic. Patrick brought them home, together with Charlotte and Emily who had been sent there more recently. However it was too late, the older girls both died. Charlotte never forgot the callousness with which she and her sisters had been treated and took her revenge by writing about the school in Jane Eyre. The girls were educated at home for a time... Later- he found a more pleasant school, Miss Woolers, in Yorkshire and sent Charlotte there, first. She was happy there, made a few friends and furthered her education.  She even spent time there as a teacher. But Emily who came to the school a bit later, hated being away from home and soon departed. She was the most reclusive of the girls.  All of them were shy, and disliked going among strangers or leaving home.  They hated the thought of being governesses, having to put up with spoiled children. Anne and Charlotte did not like the work but forced themselves to do it. Emily again found it nearly impossible and only worked briefly as a teacher in a girls’ school.