Mellaney Hayne: Charlotte Brontë's School Friend

Abstract

This paper addresses the history of Mellaney Hayne, the only identified friend of the Brontës' at the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge. It corrects the often-repeated misinformation concerning Mellaney's alleged West Indian origins and suggests the reason for that misapprehension. In addition to a brief history of Mellaney's life (necessarily patchy), her likely influence through her rather remarkable family connections on Charlotte and Emily Brontë's juvenilia is discussed, as well as the possibility that she may have been a source of information used by Charlotte Brontë in the writing of Jane Eyre.