The Brontë Parsonage Museum is a writer's house museum maintained by the Brontë Society in honour of the Brontë sisters – 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 ...

. The museum is in the former Brontë family home, the

parsonage A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, pa ...

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 ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

, England, where the sisters spent most of their lives and wrote their famous

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

s. The Brontë Society, one of the oldest literary societies in the English speaking world, is a registered charity. Its members support the preservation of the museum and library collections. The parsonage is listed Grade I on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

Background

The parsonage was built between 1778 and 1779. In 1820,

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 ...

was appointed incumbent of St Michael and All Angels' Church, Haworth, and arrived at the parsonage with his wife Maria and six children. It was the family home for the rest of their lives, and its moorland setting had a profound influence on the writing of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. Patrick Brontë was a published author of poetry and fiction and his children grew up accustomed to the sight of books carrying their family name on the parsonage shelves. On 15 September 1821, Maria Brontë died of cancer, and her unmarried sister,

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 ...

, came to run the household, exchanging her home in

Penzance Penzance ( ; ) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is the westernmost major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated in the ...

for the harsh climate of a bleak northern township. In 1824 the four oldest sisters left Haworth, to attend the

Clergy Daughters' 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 to ...

Cowan Bridge Cowan Bridge is a village in the English county of Lancashire. It is south-east of the town of Kirkby Lonsdale where the main A65 road crosses the Leck Beck. It forms part of the civil parish of Burrow-with-Burrow. Clergy Daughters' School C ...

, near Kirkby Lonsdale. The eldest daughter, Maria, was sent home ill and died at the parsonage in May 1825, aged eleven. Ten-year-old Elizabeth was returned home shortly after and died on 15 June. In 1846 Charlotte, Emily and Anne used part of their Aunt Branwell's legacy to finance the publication of their poems, concealing their true identities under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. ''

Poems Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

'' was published by Aylott and Jones, but only two copies were sold. Charlotte's first attempt at writing a novel for publication, '' The Professor'', was rejected by several publishing houses, before Smith, Elder & Co. declined to accept it but were encouraging enough for Charlotte to send them her next work, ''

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 ...

''. It was accepted and published on 19 October 1847. ''

Wuthering Heights ''Wuthering Heights'' is the only novel by the English author Emily Brontë, initially published in 1847 under her pen name "Ellis Bell". It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the ...

'' and ''

Agnes Grey ''Agnes Grey, A Novel'' is the Debut novel, first novel by English author Anne Brontë (writing under the pen name of "Acton Bell"), first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a g ...

'' had been accepted by the London publisher, Thomas Cautley Newby and appeared as a three-volume set in December 1847. After Anne's second novel, '' The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'', Charlotte and Anne were forced to reveal their true identities. Their brother, Branwell, who had become dependent on alcohol and opium for solace, had developed tuberculosis and died suddenly on Sunday 24 September 1848, aged 31. Emily was also dying from the disease, and never left the house after Branwell's funeral. She died aged 30 on 19 December 1848. Anne too had tuberculosis and was taken to

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, sub ...

to try a sea cure but died four days after arriving on 28 May 1849, aged 29 years (Anne's gravestone mistakenly marks her age as 28 when she died). Charlotte finished the novel '' Shirley'', begun before Branwell's death. It was published in October 1849. Her last novel, '' Villette'', was published in 1853. She married her father's curate Arthur Bell Nicholls in Haworth Church on 29 June 1854. She died on 31 March 1855, in the early stages of pregnancy, at age 38. Patrick Brontë lived at the parsonage for six more years, cared for by his son-in-law, and died there on 7 June 1861, at the age of 84.

Brontë Society

After Patrick Brontë's death in 1861 the contents of the parsonage were auctioned. Friends and servants sold keepsakes and letters. In 1893 the chief librarian of Bradford Library held a meeting suggesting that relics, letters and documents relating to the Brontës should be collected and preserved for posterity. The Brontë Society was founded at a public meeting and a collection of Brontëana was started. By 1895 it was large enough to be displayed in a museum above the Yorkshire Penny Bank in Haworth. The society attracted 260 members, and about 10,000 visitors visited the museum in its first year. Sir James Roberts bought Haworth Parsonage in 1928 for £3,000 (). He equipped it as a museum and gave it to the Brontë Society. Henry Bonnell of Philadelphia bequeathed his collection to the society in 1926 and it was transferred to the parsonage when it opened, making it accessible to Brontë scholars. The collection has grown and been supplemented by loan materials. The society has about 2,000 members. The mahogany desk at which Charlotte wrote her novels, which had been in private collections for more than a century, was donated to the museum in 2011 by a donor who purchased it anonymously for £20,000 in 2009.

In popular culture

The parsonage was used as a location in the 1970 film ''

The Railway Children ''The Railway Children'' is a children's book by E. Nesbit, Edith Nesbit, originally serialised in ''The London Magazine'' during 1905 and published in book form in the same year. It has been adapted for the screen several times, of which the ...

'', where it featured as the home of Dr Forrest. The opening of the museum in 1928 is central to

Frances Brody Frances McNeil, also writing as Frances Brody, is an English novelist and playwright, and has written extensively for radio. Early life McNeil was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, where she now lives. She studied at Ruskin College, Oxford and ha ...

's 2018 novel ''A Snapshot of Murder'' (Piatkus, ). The parsonage is one of several locations visited in the 2019 debut novel ''The Paper & Hearts Society'', by Brontë Society chair Lucy Powrie, when the five main characters stop there on the literary road trip.

References

Sources

External links