Elizabeth Brontë
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Elizabeth Brontë (, commonly ; 8 February 1815 – 15 June 1825) was the second-eldest child of
Patrick Brontë Patrick Brontë (, commonly ; born Patrick Brunty; 17 March 1777 – 7 June 1861) was an Irish Anglican minister and author who spent most of his adult life in England. He was the father of the writers Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte, Emily Bront ...
and Maria Brontë, née Branwell. A member of the literary
Brontë family The Brontës () were a 19th century literary family, born in the village of Thornton, West Yorkshire, Thornton and later associated with the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte Brontë, Charlott ...
, Elizabeth was the younger sister of Maria Brontë as well as the elder sister of writers Charlotte, Emily and
Anne Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), Annie a ...
, and poet and artist Branwell. Less is known about Elizabeth than any of the other members of her family.


Early life

Elizabeth Brontë was born on 8 February in 1815 and was named after her maternal aunt, as was customary at the time. She was only a few months old when she and her family, along with her aunt and namesake
Elizabeth Branwell Elizabeth Branwell (1776 – 25 October 1842) was the aunt of the literary sisters Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë. Called 'Aunt Branwell', she helped raise the Brontë children after her sister, Maria Branwell, died in 1821 ...
, moved from Hartshead to Thornton, where her
baptism Baptism (from ) is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by aspersion, sprinkling or affusion, pouring water on the head, or by immersion baptism, immersing in water eit ...
took place. Elizabeth was baptised on 26 August 1815 by J. Fennell, an officiating Minister at the ''Parish of Thornton and Chapelry of Thornton''. Elizabeth's godmother was chosen to be Elizabeth Firth, one of the Brontës' new friends in Thornton. By 1820, Patrick and Maria Brontë had had four more children during their years in Thornton and they decided to move to
Haworth Haworth ( , , ) is a village in West Yorkshire, England, in the Pennines south-west of Keighley, 8 miles (13 km) north of Halifax, west of Bradford and east of Colne in Lancashire. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhop ...
where Patrick would become a pastor at the Church of St Michael and All Angels and would live with his family at the adjoining parsonage. However, in 1821, Mrs. Brontë passed away – this led her sister, Elizabeth Branwell, to move into the Parsonage to look after the children. A servant of the Brontë family, Nancy Garrs, recalled how the young Elizabeth would lead her younger sisters by their hands on their walks across the
Yorkshire moors The North York Moors is an upland area in north-eastern Yorkshire, England. It contains one of the largest expanses of heather moorland in the United Kingdom. The area was designated as a National Park in 1952, through the National Parks and A ...
, stating that she was ‘very thoughtful’ in her treatment of them. When Patrick Brontë asked Elizabeth what the best mode of education was for a woman, she responded “that which would make her rule the house well”.


Education

In 1823, Elizabeth and her elder sister Maria were sent to Crofton Hall, a fashionable
boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...
in
Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
. However, the school's fees soon proved to be too high for Patrick, who also wished his three younger daughters to receive a formal education. Therefore, Maria and Elizabeth joined
Cowan Bridge School The Cowan Bridge School was a Clergy Daughters' School, founded in 1824, at Cowan Bridge in the English county of Lancashire. It was mainly for the daughters of middle class clergy and attended by the Brontë sisters. In the 1830s it moved t ...
, a newly opened boarding school for daughters of the
clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
in Lancashire in July 1824 which was funded by, among others,
William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780 ...
. The school would later be immortalised in fiction as Lowood School in ''
Jane Eyre ''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The firs ...
''. The director and founder of Cowan Bridge, Reverend
William Carus Wilson William Carus Wilson (7 July 1791 – 30 December 1859) was an English churchman and the founder and editor of the long-lived monthly ''The Children's Friend (British magazine), The Children's Friend''. He was the inspiration for Mr Brocklehurst, ...
, was a clergyman who was said to have been looked up to by Patrick Brontë. Maria and Elizabeth were followed by Charlotte and Emily two months later. There was a distinct lack of sanitation in the school:Plaintext
/ref> the food provided by the school was often poorly cooked and unhealthy, and the cook was reported as being "careless, dirty, and wasteful". Both Maria and Elizabeth had recently recovered from
measles Measles (probably from Middle Dutch or Middle High German ''masel(e)'', meaning "blemish, blood blister") is a highly contagious, Vaccine-preventable diseases, vaccine-preventable infectious disease caused by Measles morbillivirus, measles v ...
and
whooping cough Whooping cough ( or ), also known as pertussis or the 100-day cough, is a highly contagious, Vaccine-preventable diseases, vaccine-preventable Pathogenic bacteria, bacterial disease. Initial symptoms are usually similar to those of the common c ...
, and they often could not eat despite the fact that they were hungry. Elizabeth was not generally described as academic and instead was described as a practical girl with 'sound common sense' by her father; while school records showed that Maria, Charlotte and Emily were to be trained to be governesses, Elizabeth's future occupation was listed as a ' housekeeper'. Perhaps owing to this, Patrick did not pay an extra £3 a year so that Elizabeth might learn French,
music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
and
drawing Drawing is a Visual arts, visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface, or a digital representation of such. Traditionally, the instruments used to make a drawing include pencils, crayons, and ink pens, some ...
, as he did with his other three daughters.


Illness and death

In February 1825, Maria was diagnosed with
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
and was transported back home. Possibly encouraged by bad conditions, in the early spring of that same year there was an
outbreak In epidemiology, an outbreak is a sudden increase in occurrences of a disease when cases are in excess of normal expectancy for the location or season. It may affect a small and localized group or impact upon thousands of people across an entire ...
of
typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposu ...
in the school.Edward Chitham, ''A Life of Emily Brontë'', Basil Blackwell, 1987, p. 46 There is a possibility that this may have covered up
symptoms Signs and symptoms are diagnostic indications of an illness, injury, or condition. Signs are objective and externally observable; symptoms are a person's reported subjective experiences. A sign for example may be a higher or lower temperature ...
of tuberculosis in Elizabeth. Over the following six months one girl was to die at school and 20 more were withdrawn ill with six dying soon afterwards. Elizabeth was sent home ill on 31 May, by which time Maria had already died. A few days later, Charlotte and Emily were brought home in good health and none of the family were ever to return to Cowan Bridge School. Elizabeth died of her illness on 15 June in 1825, with her school record stating she died of consumption. Her loss affected her family deeply and her other sisters and brother were to follow, leaving her father without any grandchildren. Elizabeth was buried in the Brontë vault at the Church of St Michael and All Angels. On her tombstone is enscribed the following message taken from Matthew 18:3:


See also

* Brontë Parsonage Museum, parsonage previously owned by the Brontës which has been converted into a museum presenting their lives * Arthur Bell Nicholls, husband of Charlotte Brontë *
Elizabeth Gaskell Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Her novels offer detailed studies of Victorian era, Victoria ...
, good friend of Charlotte Brontë


References


Works cited

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brontë, Elizabeth 1815 births 1825 deaths Brontë family Child deaths