Haworth Parsonage Research Articles

Serving in the Household and the Imagination: The Brontës, Alcott, and the Interconnected Roles of a Neglected “Transatlantic” Female Figure

Tabitha Aykroyd, Martha Brown, Nancy and Sarah Garrs were just a few of the very many girls and women working as domestic servants in early Victorian Britain. The main purpose of this article is to analyze the precise context and conditions in which they were employed in Haworth Parsonage, where the Brontë sisters lived for most of their lives (1820–1855), and the influence that they had on the well-being of this famous family and on the imagination and literary activity of the sisters. Aspects connected with the following will be explored and problematized: the value and respect that the Brontës attributed to or showed these domestic laborers and their work, including sharing in their tasks and duties; brief but useful connections of these figures with the sisters’ own professional activities as middle-class women (namely, when serving as teachers and governesses themselves); and also comparison with some relevant literary representations of the figure and role of the “female servant” in the Brontës’ novels. A complementary purpose is of a more transatlantic nature: to compare their earlier British domestic context with Louisa May Alcott’s later American one, and their literary representations of the female servant with Alcott’s own extensive treatment of that neglected figure in some of her fictional works. The justification for this comparison does not lie so much in the known influence that the works written by the Brontës, in particular Charlotte’s, had on Alcott, but more in their sharing of very similar concerns as regards this topic, in spite of very specific (transatlantic) differences that can be revealing of their respective attitude towards servitude.

Walking in the Brontë Dining-room as Literary Influence

This essay analyses the Brontë sisters’ shared writing and walking practices in the Haworth parsonage dining-room in order to explore how communal indoor walking may have influenced the composition and content of the novels that were written there: Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, The Professor, Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Shirley, and Villette. Employing the materialist theories of Thomas Rickert, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, and Karen Barad, the essay explores how the complex web of the sisters’ everyday lived experiences could constitute literary influence. While indoor walking provides only one of many possible routes for such a materialist analysis of influence, the Brontës’ daily evening walks of approximately two hours in length are well documented and can act as a focal point for an investigation of how such experiences intersect with the novels’ composition. Scenes of indoor walking in the Brontë novels foreground affective connections between a subject moved to walk by an intense emotional state and an observer who witnesses and interprets the walk and who may act in response. Communal indoor walking in the novels thus provides a model through which to read materialist influence as, in Barad’s terms, ‘intra-active’ and ‘entangled’.

Charlotte Brontë and the ‘Horrors of Homeless Destitution’: How Brontë’s Relationship to Haworth Illuminates the Importance of Permanent Shelter in Jane Eyre and Villette

Charlotte Brontë is closely associated today with Haworth Parsonage. Our identification of Brontë with Haworth, however, obscures the precarity of her hold on the Parsonage. Brontë’s occupancy was predicated upon her father’s employment as the perpetual curate of Haworth, and Brontë knew she would be forced to leave upon his death. This article argues that Brontë’s precarity as clergyman’s daughter whose shelter was contingent upon his employment explains the prominence she gives in Jane Eyre (1847) and Villette (1853) to women who lack secure homes and their quests for permanent shelter. Attention to her preoccupation with permanent shelter reveals the difficulty of separating the emotional, familial and physical components of ‘home’ and allows readers to view her as writer more attuned to structural problems than scholarship emphasising her novels’ seemingly individual or class-complicit solutions sometimes recognizes.

‘Gross flattery’: The Search for the Worth of Words in Branwell Brontë’s 1837 Letter to William Wordsworth

In 1837, shortly after Charlotte Brontë wrote to the Poet Laureate Robert Southey, Branwell Brontë sent a letter and sample of his poetry to William Wordsworth. The siblings were seeking patronage and approval for their poetry, as well as a readership beyond the confines of Haworth Parsonage. Although Southey replied to Charlotte, Branwell’s letter met with no response and Southey reported that Wordsworth was ‘disgusted’ by it. This essay analyses Branwell’s letter and the poem, in particular examining the influences that shaped the younger poet’s writing and which would have been clearly legible to Wordsworth. In particular, it focuses on the influence of James Hogg, a great literary hero of Branwell. Taking into consideration Wordsworth’s largely negative assessments of Hogg’s poetry, and also of his coarseness, it seeks to explore why Branwell’s writing provoked such a strong reaction.

4. Dr Charles Longley, Bishop of Ripon

Dr Charles Longley, Bishop of Ripon, stayed at the Haworth Parsonage in 1853. A recently discovered letter in from the Bishop to his wife in the Lambeth Palace Archives gives an account of his stay and of his favourable impression of Charlotte. Also included is a poignant letter from Patrick Brontë written after the death of Charlotte two years after.

CORDONS OF PROTECTION: THE STAGE OF SPECTATORSHIP IN CHARLOTTE BRONTË'SVILLETTE

In the years following the publicationofJane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë's social circle expanded rapidly, extending far beyond the narrow circumference of Haworth Parsonage. The later letters attest to personal acquaintance with many prominent literary contemporaries, including Elizabeth Gaskell, Harriet Martineau, George Henry Lewes, and William Thackeray. Yet, second perhaps only to Thackeray, the writer that Brontë credits as most influential to her thinking about art and narrative is one that she never did meet: John Ruskin. Brontë's initial exposure to Ruskin's work came through the channel of their shared publisher, George Smith, who in 1848 sent her a copy of the first two volumes ofModern Painters.

'That Peculiar Voice': Jane Eyre and Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, an Early Wesleyan Female Preacher

References to the plain appearance of Charlotte Brontë's heroine in her first published novel, Jane Eyre, link the character to Wesleyanism, a movement which extended the priesthood of all believers to women and granted them access to the pulpit during the late eighteenth century. The Brontë sisters came under the influence of this movement in their childhood, through the Wesleyan theology of their father's Haworth parsonage. As the autobiographical writings of one Wesleyan preaching figure, Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, make clear, this tradition that shaped Charlotte Brontë and her views about gender linked women's choice of plain dress to John Wesley's expectation that all Wesleyans publicly voice their spiritual experience. This essay explores the relationship between the life and theological concerns of Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, an acquaintance of Charlotte Brontë's father, in order to expose an important clue to the source of Jane's 'peculiar voice', which, as Rochester claims, 'renews hope' and 'sounds so truthful' (JE, p. 432).

The Church Census and the Brontës

On 30 March 1851, a census was meant to be held in every place of worship in England and Wales in order to establish the number of people going to church or chapel.1 Some parishes refused to cooperate, but there was no backsliding in Haworth and thanks to the labours of Robin Greenwood the figures for Haworth can be given in the Appendix. Total figures supplied in Chadwick’s History of the Victorian Church (1966) indicate that the Church of England had 5,292,551 adherents, the Roman Catholic Church 383,630 and the main Protestant dissenting churches (Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregational and Baptist) 4,536,264. The national picture took over two years to calculate, and Chadwick explains the difficulty of the compiler, Horace Mann, in trying to work out what proportion of the population went to church. Some people went to church more than once, some were too old or too young to attend. It was generally thought that Dissenters were more likely to attend more than once. In Haworth, people might travel in from outlying places like Stanbury and Oxenhope, although in 1851 both villages had their own Anglican church. The total population of Haworth was 2,800, the total population of England 18,000,000, and it is immediately obvious that in Haworth the Methodists and Baptists had very large congregations both in comparison with the Church of England and in comparison with the total population, although the latter proportion is hard to calculate. It is now generally accepted that the Church of England lost ground in the Industrial Revolution both to the Free Churches and to total neglect of any form of worship. In Leeds and Bradford we find Dissenters outnumbering Anglicans by two to one with only four in ten going to either church or chapel. The great strength of the Church of England lay in the South. Nevertheless I find Greenwood’s figures surprising. Somehow when we climb up the hill to Haworth Church and Parsonage, set in the centre of the village and in the centre of our minds, we expect the Church of England to have been at the centre of Haworth’s religious life, and clearly it was not. I suppose it is some consolation that the preponderance of Dissenters over Anglicans was more the result of the former’s success than the latter’s failure. It is also a kind of consolation to know that the proportion of people attending church or chapel in 1851 is very different from what it is now. In Shipston on Stour, where I live, about 100 people attend the three services in the Church of England,

John Martin: Visionary Artist

Engravings and mezzotints of John Martin's biblical and apocalyptic paintings were a familiar sight in many Victorian parlours. Haworth Parsonage was no exception. This is a short biography of an artist whose style of epic landscape painting became a major influence on the early works of the Brontë children, in particular Branwell, who remained an admirer of the art of John Martin throughout his life.

Brontës Inspire Education at Haworth Parsonage

Brontës Inspire Education at Haworth Parsonage

Sir James Roberts, Bt, LLD: The Haworth Weaver's Lad Who Bought The Parsonage … and Saltaire!

From a lecture given at the Haworth Parsonage Museum on 1 June 2001. An account of the life of Sir James Roberts, mill owner and philanthropist, who bought the Haworth Parsonage for the Brontë Society.

SHIRLEY: REFLECTIONS ON MARRYING MOORES

“‘The Omnipresent,’ said a Rabbi, ‘is occupied in making marriages.’ The levity of the saying lies in the ear of him who hears it, for by making marriages the speaker meant all the wondrous combinations of the universe whose issue makes our good and evil.” 1— George Eliot, Daniel Deronda“Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon . . . Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes best — making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius, and fetters the dead to the living. . . . All that surrounds him hastens to decay. . . . Your god is a masked Death.”2— Charlotte Brontë, ShirleyCHARLOTTE BRONTË’S FIRST NOVEL found no publisher: her second one brought her editors and readers, money and success, society and scrutiny. With this muchness the subtlest theologian of Haworth Parsonage turned, all shy and fierce and willing, to grapple. Not for nothing is her third novel set in “the Hollows”: not for nothing are the avatars and objects of its quests named “Mo(o)re.” The Work Question, the Woman Question, the Church Question, the Fiction Question — all of these go to the making of Shirley in its plenitude, but at its heart is a metaphysical question, the fusion, the confusion, of “hollow” with “more.”3

The Parsonage Children: An Analysis of the Creative Early Years of the Brontës at Haworth

This paper analyzes the evolving creative development of the young Brontes at Haworth Parsonage in England during the first half of the nineteenth century. The author concludes that by closely examining the early years of eminent individuals we are better able to analyze those qualities, behaviors, and events that describe the process of talent development. In the case of the Brontës, one is able to study a family of exceptional talent and to reflect on the significance of the role of parents, collaborative siblings, and the natural environment in the nourishing and sustaining of that talent. This paper focuses on the education of the Brontës and on the "little books" that they started to produce in abundance when they were young and continued to write into adolescence.

Book Magic: Aesthetic Conflicts in Charlotte Brontë's Juvenilia

f',I K E most forms of youthful play, the Bronte juvenilia served an important heuristic function for its players. The vast imaginary world which the Bronte children created out of the cramped reality of Haworth Parsonage was at once a playground and a workshop, a land where the aspiring young artists could begin to work through problems, at once psychological and vocational, which would concern them for the rest of their lives. In writings which focussed so often on chaos-from war and political rebellion to the disintegration of families-we can trace a constant preoccupation with the idea of literary form, with the structural conflicts involved in the process of writing itself.' Melodie Monahan, in her edition of Charlotte The Poetaster, points out that in this miniature Jonsonian play, Bront6's emphasis is ... on esthetics, on defining great lit-

The Sale at Haworth Parsonage: on October 1st and 2nd, 1861

The Sale at Haworth Parsonage: on October 1st and 2nd, 1861

From a Museum into a Home

This year will be remembered in the annals of the Brontë Society as that in which extesive alterations were completed to the Parsonage Museum at Haworth. Reference to these was made by the President, Mr. Donald Hopewell, in his address to the annual meeting (see page 367), but we feel that a place should also be found for the following broadcast talk by Dr. Phyllis Bentley, given on the B.B.C. Woman's Hour on May 22nd, 1959: A Transformation scene has just taken place in the Haworth Parsonage Museum.

Charlotte Brontë's Translation

AbstractOn August 11th, 1830, Charlotte Brornte completed “a translation into English Verse of the First Book of Voltaire's Henriade from the French.” Her only schooling at that date had been the disastrous ten months at Cowan Bridge, which she left at the age of nine, for she did not go to Roe Head till January, 1831. It is natural to ask how, in the seclusion of Haworth parsonage, she managed to acquire enough French to translate, at the age of fourteen, a far from simple text.

A Brontë T.V. Programme

AbstractAbstractTo Celebrate the centenary of the publication of Mrs. Gaskell's “Life of Charlotte Brontë,” B.B.C. Television on March 25th, 1957, devoted half of Women's Hour to a programme on Haworth Parsonage, and in Dr. Phyllis Bentley, a member of the Council, they had a storyteller who could not have been excelled.Before the television cameras she had an easy, natural manner and her remarkable knowledge of the Brontës was plain from the way in which she told her story, rolled the dates off her tongue and communicated to the viewers her own enthusiasm.

Plan to Improve Brontë Museum

AbstractAbstractThe Council of the Brontë Society have given earnest consideration to, and have adopted in principle, a plan for substantial improvements at the Haworth Parsonage Museum.The scheme, which is, of course, subject to approval by the Planning Authority and to the acquisition of land adjacent to the Parsonage, provides for extensions to the Museum; new accommodation for the Curator; research facilities for students; the safer keeping of the Society's treasures, and a system of through circulation of visitors to the Museum which will be of special advantage at holiday times.A particularly pleasing feature of the architects' plans, which have been prepared by Messrs.

The Centenary of Emily Brontë's Death

Abstract As December 19th, 1948, approached, office-bearers of the Bronte Society and editors of our serious newspapers were often reminded that that day would mark a hundred years since Emily Bronte died on a small black sofa at Haworth Parsonage. Some members of the public hoped for a commemorative service and a broadcast, if possible both by the B. B. C. and American broadcasting systems. A Bronte Society pilgrimage to Haworth was duly considered. December, it was felt, would be a too uncertain time for such a journey.