CHAPTER 1
SOURCES
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
The Life of Charlotte Brontë: E. C. Gaskell
The Leyland Manuscripts: J. A. Symington
The Leyland Family: Mary Leyland
The Miscellaneous Works of Charlotte and Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
The Brontës’ Web of Childhood: F. E. Ratchford
Letter from Charlotte Brontë to W. S. Williams. October 6th, 1848
Extract from And the Weary Are At Rest by P. B. Brontë
Extract from Speech of Alexander Percy by P. B. Brontë (MS. in the Brotherton Collection)
CHAPTER 2
SOURCES
The Life of Charlotte Brontë: E. C. Gaskell
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. I
In the Footsteps of the Brontës: E. H. Chadwick
Brontë Papers: C. M. Edgerley
Brontëana: The Collected Works of the Rev Patrick Brontë: J. Horsfall Turner
Extract from the poem Caroline by P. B. Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
Nancy and Sarah Garrs were sisters. Nancy was nurse to the children at Thornton and went with them when they moved to Haworth. Sarah came later to help.
Mary Burder. Mr Brontë’s first love, to whom he became attached at Wethersfield, Essex, during his first curacy. She left that neighbourhood and he never saw her again, but wrote to her two years after his wife died, expressing the hope that she might become his second wife.
CHAPTER 3
SOURCES
The Life of Charlotte Brontë: E. C. Gaskell
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. I
The Brontës’ Web of Childhood: F. E. Ratchford
Shakespeare Head Brontë, Misc. Works. Vol. I
A Brontë Moorland Village and Its People: A History of Stanbury: J. Craven
The Heaton Records
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
Extract from History of the Young Men by P. B. Brontë
Extract from Letters from an Englishman by P. B. Brontë
CHAPTER 4
SOURCES
The Life of Charlotte Brontë: E. C. Gaskell
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. I
In the Footsteps of the Brontës: E. H. Chadwick
The Brontës’ Web of Childhood: F. E. Ratchford
The Miscellaneous Works of Charlotte and Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head) Vol. I
Noctes Ambrosianae. 4 vols.: Professor Wilson
The Heaton Records
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
A Leaf from an Unopened Volume (an early Brontë story printed in Derby Day and Other Adventures: A. E. Newton)
Morning Chronicle, December 2nd, 1834
Extract from A Peep into a Picture Book: Misc. works of Charlotte Brontë
Extract from The Wool Is Rising: P. B. Brontë
Extract from Lines Written During a Period of Insanity: William Cowper
Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: James Hogg
Extract from Death of Mary Percy by P. B. Brontë (Brotherton Collection)
Ellen Nussey, 1817–1897. Twelfth and youngest child of John and Ellen Nussey. Lived at Rydings, Birtall. Educated at Roe Head with Charlotte Brontë, and became her dearest friend. Almost every description of the Brontës and life at the parsonage, compiled by Mrs Gaskell, came from Ellen Nussey’s pen.
Mary Taylor, 1817–1893. Elder daughter of Joshua and Anne Taylor, of the Red House, Gomersal. Educated at Roe Head with Charlotte Brontë, and her closest friend next to Ellen Nussey. She was in Brussels at the same time as Charlotte. Emigrated to New Zealand in 1845 and returned to England in 1860. In 1890 she wrote a novel, Miss Miles.
Noctes Ambrosianae. These appeared month by month in Blackwood’s Magazine, the old numbers of which would have been kept at the parsonage. The number of May, 1830, contains a discussion on Lord and Lady Byron, and on Moore’s Life of Byron, between the four ‘conversationalists’ of the Noctes: Christopher North (Professor Wilson), ‘the Shepherd’ (James Hogg), ‘the Opium Eater’ (de Quincey) and ‘Tickler’.
J. B. Leyland, 1811–1851. Joseph Bentley, elder son of Roberts Leyland, bookseller and printer of Halifax, began to sculpt at the age of sixteen. In 1832 his ‘Spartacus’ was exhibited in Manchester. He studied in London under Haydon. His ‘Satan’ was exhibited at Leeds in 1834. His best-known extant monument is that to Dr Stephen Beckwith in York Minster. There is no trace today of ‘Satan’ or ‘Spartacus’ or of other sculptures which were famous in their day—‘Kilmeny’, ‘African Bloodhounds’, etc.—nor of his plaster bust of ‘Thracian Falconer’, though the bronze is at Hollins, Warley. He became insolvent in 1850, and this, coupled with grief at his mother’s death and ill-health from excessive drinking, led to his death in Manor Gaol, of dropsy, on January 28th, 1851.
James Hogg, 1770–1835. The Ettrick shepherd, Scottish poet and storyteller. Wrote for Blackwood’s Magazine. His Confessions of a Justified Sinner was published by Longmans in 1824. The many tales by him which originally appeared in Blackwood’s are of a particularly horrifying nature, likely to appeal to Branwell and Emily Brontë—e.g., The Mysterious Bride, The Spanish Professor, Expedition to Hell, The Marvellous Doctor, etc., etc.
CHAPTER 5
SOURCES
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. I
The Life of Charlotte Brontë: E. C. Gaskell
The Queen’s Wake: James Hogg
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
Extract from The Adventures of Charles Wentworth by P. B. Brontë
In the Footsteps of the Brontës: E. H. Chadwick
A Brontë Moorland Village and Its People: J. Craven
A Spring Time Saunter: Whiteley Turner
The Heaton Records
The Life of William Grimshaw: John Newton
Freemasonry in Airedale in the Early Nineteenth Century: Lecture by Wade Hustwick
Manual of Freemasonry: Richard Carlile
Kilmeny. The sinless maid, the subject of one of the most popular of James Hogg’s poems, which appeared in The Queen’s Wake.
Rev William Grimshaw, 1708–1763. Famous evangelical preacher. Vicar at Haworth from 1742 until his death. He was a friend of Wesley, and ‘had visions’. At his own wish he was buried at Luddenden, next to his first wife.
CHAPTER 6
SOURCES
The Miscellaneous Works of Charlotte and Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head) Vols. I and II
Extract from A New Year’s Story by P. B. Brontë
Extract from MS. in Brotherton Collection
Extracts from the poems Caroline, Harriet I and Harriet II by P. B. Brontë
A Leaf from an Unopened Volume by Charlotte Brontë
Poems of Emily Brontë
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. I
Poem ‘However young…’ by P. B. Brontë
Extract from Letters of an Englishman by P. B. Brontë
In the Footsteps of the Brontës: E. H. Chadwick
Anne Brontë: Winifred Gérin
Minutes of the Three Graces Lodge
MS. Percy by P. B. Brontë
Brontë Society Transactions, Part 8, Vol. 1
Alexander Percy, Earl of Northangerland, Branwell’s fictitious hero. He was born in 1792, son of Edward Percy of Raiswick Hall, Northumberland, and of Lady Helen Beresford. Mr Percy, Sr, settled in Arthurstown, Africa, and bought an estate which he called Percy Hall, where Alexander was born. Alexander married, 1st, Augusta di Segovia, an Italian countess; 2nd, Mary Henrietta Wharton, by whom he had Edward, William and Mary Henrietta; 3rd, Lady Zenobia Ellrington. He also had an illegitimate daughter, Caroline, by a French mistress. His daughter Mary married the Duke of Zamorna, against whom Northangerland led a rebellion, but they finally made peace and became friends again.
Angrian Tales. More details of Alexander Percy’s youth are given in a story Zamorna, attributed to Charlotte, relating to letters between Alexander Percy and Harriet O’Connor. Harriet later married H. M. M. Montmorency, a barrister, committed adultery with Percy, ran away with him, and died in solitude. The MS. relating this has not been traced, but the event is alluded to in Branwell’s poems and in various Angrian stories.
Gondal Saga. The many poems written by Emily Brontë between 1836 and 1846 concern the inhabitants of an imaginary kingdom named Gondal—the rival kings, queens, princesses, nobles, etc. The narrative ballad style shows the strong influence which The Queen’s Wake, The Queen’s Hynde and The Pilgrims of the Sun, all by James Hogg, which had appeared in Blackwood’s, must have made upon Emily when she first read them.
Martha Taylor, 1819–1842. Younger sister of Charlotte’s friend Mary. Ellen Nussey gave a vivid description of her. Both the Taylor sisters were described from life in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley as the Yorke sisters, but in the Angrian tales they were very likely the originals of Mary Percy (Percy’s legitimate daughter) and Caroline Vernon (his illegitimate daughter). Martha also bears a resemblance to the two Cathys in Wuthering Heights.
CHAPTER 7
SOURCES
Brontë Society Transactions, Part 3, Vol. 1, Parts 62 and 63, Vol. 12, Part 68, Vol. 13
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. I
The Leyland Family: Mary Leyland
Poems of Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
Lines to an African Bloodhound: William Dearden
MS. Percy by P. B. Brontë
Zamorna by Charlotte Brontë
Caroline Vernon by Charlotte Brontë, transcribed in Legends of Angria by F. E. Ratchford
A Brontë Moorland Village and Its People: J. Craven
The Heaton Records
Azrael by P. B. Brontë (Shakespeare Head Brontë and Brontë Society Transactions, Part 43, Vol. 8)
Arthur Bell Nicholls, 1818–1906. Born in County Antrim, entered Trinity College, Dublin, and became curate to Mr Brontë in 1845. Married Charlotte on June 29th, 1854, after much opposition on the part of her father. Charlotte died the following year, and Mr Nicholls remained with Mr Brontë as curate, sharing his house, until Mr Brontë died in 1861. He then returned to Ireland, and in August, 1864, married his cousin, Miss Bell. He disliked all publicity concerning his first wife, and kept the many unpublished MSS. of all four Brontës hidden away, possibly destroying some. Charlotte, in 1847, had remarked to Ellen Nussey on his ‘narrowness of mind’, but in 1855, when she lay dying, she whispered, ‘I’m not going to die, am I? We have been so happy.’
F. A. Leyland, 1813–1894. Younger brother of J. B. Leyland. He entered the printing and bookselling firm of his father, from whom he also inherited antiquarian tastes. He became a Roman Catholic, and in 1845 married Ann Brierley, who died in 1849. He was devoted to his brother, and administered his belongings after his death. His book, The Brontë Family, endeavoured to atone for Mrs Gaskell’s treatment of Branwell.
William Dearden, 1805–1888. Son of John Dearden, tailor and clothier of Hebden Bridge. Educated at Heptonstall Grammar School, and taught at Keighley and Huddersfield. He was principal of Warley Grammar School for many years from 1847. He was author of The Star Seer and many other local poems.
Scattering of Pennies. Branwell’s ‘largesse’ to the children of Haworth was recounted by a descendant of one of the children to Miss Bates of Sowerby Bridge.
CHAPTER 8
SOURCES
Modern Domestic Medicine: T. J. Graham
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. I
Extract from the poem Harriet by P. B. Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
Poems of Emily Brontë
Confessions of an Opium Eater by de Quincey
Life of Francis Thompson by J. C. Reid
Extract from sermon on ‘anti-Christ’ by the Rev Hugh McNeile, at St Jude’s, Liverpool
Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society
The Leyland Family: Mary Leyland
Boaties. Almost every scrap of information about the old days in Sowerby Bridge, Luddenden and Luddenden Foot has been received from Miss Dorothy Bates of Sowerby Bridge, who made exhaustive inquiries among friends, relatives and others in the district. The bargees were invariably called ‘boaties’.
The Rev. Hugh McNeile, 1795–1879. Born in Ballycastle, son of the sheriff of Antrim. Appointed perpetual curate to St Jude’s, Liverpool, in 1834. Canon of Chester Cathedral, 1845, and Dean of Ripon, 1868. Married Ann, daughter of Archbishop Magee. He held strongly evangelical views, and was implacably opposed to Rome. He wrote innumerable sermons.
‘The Gentry’. It seems certain that the young Brontës must have based many of their Angrian tales on the lives and genealogy of local and nearby ‘big’ families. The Heatons of Ponden would take pride of place, but ‘Johnny’ Grimshaw, son of Mr Brontë’s predecessor, would excite their interest as heir to the vast estates at Ewood of his mother, Sarah Lockwood, which he inherited at the age of twelve. At twenty he married Grace Gibson, who was six years older than himself. A great drinker, he died childless, leaving his estates to a maternal cousin, William Lockwood. An intriguing piece of intermarriage was that his widow Grace, an ardent Methodist, subsequently married, first, another Lockwood brother, and, secondly, John Sutcliffe, whose first wife had been a sister-in-law of the Rev William Grimshaw. Thus she found herself married to her ex-father-in-law’s brother-in-law! Into this complicated tale of intermarriage come many names which students of Wuthering Heights might note—Ellis, Grimshaw, Lockwood, Sutcliffe, Scaitcliffe.
CHAPTER 9
SOURCES
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
The Heaton Records
History of the Three Graces Lodge: Wade Hustwick
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. I
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Poems of Hartley Coleridge, with a Memoir by his brother Derwent Coleridge
Odes of Horace by P. B. Brontë (Shakespeare Head Misc. Works)
Fragment of poem, Amelia, by P. B. Brontë
The Devil’s Thumb, etc. Local inhabitants of present-day Haworth might find amusement in tracing these disguised gentlemen from lists of the Conservative Committee in 1837 and from members of the Three Graces Lodge.
| Conservative Committee | Three Graces Lodge |
| (June 27th, 1837) | (Sept. 11th, 1837) |
| William Hartley | John Brown |
| William Garnett | William Hartley |
John Sutcliffe John Bland
John Heaton John Roper
| Conservative Committee | Three Graces Lodge |
| (June 27th, 1837) | (Sept. 11th, 1837) |
| Enoch Thomas | Jas. Akroyd |
| John Brown P. | B. Brontë |
| William Sutcliffe | W. C. Greenwood |
John Feather
Jas. Brown
W. Mosley
W. Brown
John Greenwood
CHAPTER 10
SOURCES
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. I
Letters from Miss Bates of Sowerby Bridge
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
The Leyland Family: Mary Leyland
Sowerby and Luddenden Directories
List of members of the Luddenden Library in 1840
Pictures of the Past: F. A. Grundy
Extract from The Wool Is Rising by P. B. Brontë
Luddenden Notebook of P. B. Brontë
Poems of Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
Poems of Emily Brontë
It Happened Here: Arthur Porritt
‘Whey-Faced Hermaphrodite’. This curious dialogue in Corner Dishes, attributed to Charlotte Brontë, is much more likely to have been Branwell’s invention. A further sentence is: ‘I’ve heard him swear many a time till questionable company has been raised like a cock in the very midst of us.’ An eighteen-year-old girl would hardly use such a phrase, but her seventeen-year-old brother might easily do so.
Monsieur Héger, 1809–1896. It was Constantin Héger’s second wife who started the school in the rue d’Isabelle. M. Héger took charge of the upper French classes. According to Miss Wheelwright, one of his pupils, his keen intelligence amounted to genius. His heavy black hair and black moustache made him a striking figure. He originally tore up all Charlotte’s letters, and threw them in a wastepaper basket. They were retrieved by his wife, who put them away in her jewel-case. Mrs Gaskell was shown some of them when she interviewed M. Héger during her research for Charlotte’s biography, but kept silent about their subject matter. In 1913 the Hégers’ son and daughter, whose parents were long since dead, presented the letters to the British Museum.
CHAPTER 11
SOURCES
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
Charlotte Brontë E. F. Benson
The Leyland Manuscripts
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. I
Letter from William Dearden to Halifax Guardian
Extract from And the Weary Are At Rest by P. B. Brontë
Brontëana: The Collected Works of the Rev Patrick Brontë J. Horsfall Turner
And The Weary Are At Rest. There is no date to this manuscript, which is housed in the Berg Collection, New York. The curator writes: ‘There are fifty-seven pages in the MS. Changes occur in the tone, but not colour of ink and point of pen. The paper is apparently a copybook from which the covers have been stripped. There is nothing indicating an appreciable time elapsed in the writing of this MS. It is quite possible it is a slightly corrected fair copy of an earlier MS.’
CHAPTER 12
SOURCES
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vols. I and II
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
In the Footsteps of the Brontës: E. H. Chadwick
Letters from Mrs MacLeary, granddaughter of James La Trobe
Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
Anne Brontë by Winifred Gêrin
Brontë Society Transactions. Part 64, Vol. 12
Robinson Deed Box
Scarborough newspapers
Luddenden Notebook of P. B. Brontë
Extract from And the Weary Are At Rest by P. B. Brontë
Poems of Charlotte Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
CHAPTER 13
SOURCES
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. II
Scarborough newspapers
Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Poems of Charlotte and Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
Robinson Deed Box
The Leyland Manuscripts
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
Poems of Emily Brontë
Sonnet, The Callousness Produced by Care by P. B. Brontë
Brontë Society Transactions. Part 67, Vol. 13
CHAPTER 14
SOURCES
The Leyland Manuscripts
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
Pictures of the Past: F. A. Grundy
Poems of Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. II
Extract from poem by Emily Brontë
The Wool Is Rising by P. B. Brontë
The Professor by Charlotte Brontë
The Leyland Family: Mary Leyland
The Life of Charlotte Brontë: E. C. Gaskell
CHAPTER 15
SOURCES
Robinson Deed Box
Scarborough and York newspapers
The Leyland Manuscripts
Pictures of the Past: F. A. Grundy
The Life of Charlotte Brontë E. C. Gaskell
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. II
Manual of Freemasonry: R. Carlile
Morley Hall, poem by P. B. Brontë
Poems of Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
CHAPTER 16
SOURCES
Modern Domestic Medicine: T. J. Graham
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
MS. Percy by P. B. Brontë
The Leyland Manuscripts
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. II
Robinson Deed Box
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
Poems by Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
Prayer of Leyland the Sculptor (by courtesy of Miss Mary Leyland)
The Professor. Charlotte Brontë’s The Professor did not find favour with her publishers during her lifetime. It was published posthumously in 1856. Comparison of the early chapters with Branwell Brontë’s The Wool Is Rising (written when he was seventeen) is fascinating. Even the names are identical. The two brothers, Edward and William, and the clerk, Steighton, figure in both stories.
Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. G. Elsie Harrison, in her Clue to the Brontës, puts forward the very intersting theory that both Emily’s and Anne’s books, as well as Branwell’s and Charlotte’s Angrian stories, were largely influenced by the tales which their father and aunt told them of early Methodist individuals, in particular Selina, Lady Huntingdon. She was the founder of a Calvinist sect, and was the daughter of the 2nd Earl Shirley Ferrers and cousin of the notorious 4th Earl Ferrers, who was tried for murder in 1760 and hanged at Tyburn. Selina married the 9th Earl Huntingdon, half-brother to the noted philanthropist, Lady Elizabeth Hastings. Note once more the coincidence of these names in Brontë unpublished and published works.
CHAPTER 17
SOURCES
The Life of Charlotte Brontë E. C. Gaskell
Shakespeare Head Brontë. Vol. II
The Brontë Family: F. A. Leyland
Poems of Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head)
Review from The Mirror of December 1847
Robinson Deed Box
The Leyland Manuscripts
York newspapers
George Searle Phillips, 1815–1889. Miscellaneous writer. Went to America and wrote for the New York World and Herald. Edited Leeds Times, 1845. Secretary of the People’s College, Huddersfield, 1846. Became insane in 1873, when in America, and died in an asylum in New Jersey. In his review of Jane Eyre he said that the author ‘knows how to overstep conventional usages—how, in fact, to trample upon customs respected by our forefathers… The clergyman in Jane Eyre is all that is mean, despicable, and uncharitable… On every occasion a blow is sought to be struck at true religion… The heroine herself is a specimen of the bold daring young ladies who delight in overstepping conventional rules… The foundation of the story is bad, the characters ill-drawn, and the feelings false and unnatural. If our readers be induced by our remarks to peruse the novel before us they are welcome to undertake the task, and much good it may do them.’