Once upon a time a man called Patrick married a woman called Maria. She was six years younger than him. Eighteen months after the wedding, their first daughter was born. She was named Maria after her mother. Little over a year later, the couple welcomed a second daughter who they called Elizabeth.
Four more children followed in quick succession. The third child, another daughter, was called Charlotte. Next came a son who was christened Branwell for that was his mother's maiden name. A year later Emily arrived and eighteen months after her came another daughter - christened Anne.
They were the Brontë family and in the first half of the nineteenth century they lived together in the Pennine village of Haworth, here in Yorkshire. Patrick Brontë was the local vicar. Mum and Dad with five daughters and a son - how happy and fruitful they should have been.
But then the deaths began to happen. Maria, the mother, was the first to go in 1821 at the age of just thirty eight. Then Maria, the daughter, died at the age of eleven in the late spring of 1825 followed six weeks later by Elizabeth (aged 10).
Twenty three years passed before the family was struck by another tragedy. Branwell died at the age of 31 in September 1848 and later that same year Emily died at the age of thirty.
The very next year Anne died in Scarborough at the age of twenty nine and on the last day of March in 1855, Charlotte died at the age of thirty eight. The final member of the Brontë family to die was The Reverend Patrick Brontë himself who breathed his last breath at the age of eighty four in 1861.
None of the Brontë children had children of their own though Charlotte was pregnant at the time of her passing. Mostly, the Brontës succumbed to diseases such as typhus and tuberculosis though Branwell's alcoholism played a part in his early departure.
Charlotte, Emily and Anne were brilliant young women as the writings they left behind demonstrate. With good health and more decades of life they would have undoubtedly left an even richer literary legacy behind them.
I am currently reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and enjoying it very much. I've only tried two Austens (Persuason and Northanger Abbey) and prefer the Brontës. A blogging friend in Liverpool is going to visit their home soon and provide a post with photos to accompany my review of the book. Perhaps I'll link to this post, too, if you don't object.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting Kelly and no - I don't object at all.
DeleteThe good old days, when people died from unclean water and curable diseases. That poor family. Thanks for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they weren't the good old days after all.
DeleteOdd that the father outlived his entire family, and to such a ripe old age.
ReplyDeleteHe must have been a tough old fellow but sanitation improved massively in Haworth in the middle of the nineteenth century.
DeleteA sad family history, all too common in those days for people to die far too soon.
ReplyDeleteNowadays we do not expect our children to die before us.
DeleteIs it some anniversary or other related with the Brontes? There has been more Bronte-related content on blogs over the past two weeks or so than what I can remember over the past two years.
ReplyDeleteMy sister is something of a Bronte-ist. (I have just made that word up; "fan" would sound too silly.) She gave me the book and DVD about the siblings that I reviewed here:
https://librarianwithsecrets.blogspot.com/2020/06/read-in-2020-13-dark-quartet.html
It is odd that everyone but Patrick caught the common diseases of the time. He must have done something right in outliving his entire family, but his can't have been a happy life, having to bury first his wife and then all of his children, one after the other.
On your trips to Yorkshire have you been to Haworth? I guess that it is a fairly difficult place to get to by public transport from Ripon but still possible... for your sister's special interest and yours too.
DeleteNo, we've not yet been. I could of course ask my sister-in-law or friends who drive if they'd take us there on a day out.
DeleteIt is 38 miles from Ripon to Haworth by car and it should take you one hour and twenty minutes. Your sister-in-law might enjoy the trip over there herself. A good long walk from the village is Top Withins - the presumed site of the old farm in "Wuthering Heights". I think your sister would love this excursion but only in good weather. Mid-week would probably be best.
DeleteThank you for this useful information. I shall put it on our "things to do when we're in Yorkshire" list.
DeleteI don't recall ever reading anything written by the Brontes nor Jane Austen either. I might have tried once and found them too detailed, too stuffy or too long-winded. Any of those would make me put aside a book in favour of something else.
ReplyDeleteYou could read "Jane Eyre". It is an easy, accessible novel and you could read it like an archaeologist who has stumbled across a two hundred year old novel. Not of our time but still very human.
DeleteI feel the same way about Austin vs the Brontës. Austin has always seemed tedious to me.
ReplyDeleteAusten's work has merit for different reasons but yes, in all honesty, somewhat "tedious" - I agree.
DeleteOne of the problems was sanitation in Haworth, there were 69 toilets for two and a half thousand villagers, and the 'runoff' of decomposing bodies from the cemetery polluted the drinking water. Patrick Bronte persistently wrote to the government to do something about it and eventually a man called Babbage came down, wrote a report and a new reservoir was built and also toilets.
ReplyDeleteHere is a link. https://www.annebronte.org/2017/03/22/haworth-sanitation-and-the-babbage-report/
I will visit that link later today. Thank you Thelma.
DeleteSome good things have come from Yorkshire, the Bronte sisters, Australian gardeners Peter Cundall and Edna Walling, Boud, and Thelma? Hmmm, have I missed anyone. I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteGeoff Boycott?
DeletePatrick Bronte was originally called Patrick Brunty and came from Ireland.
ReplyDeleteThe family name was originally Ó Pronntaigh.
DeleteHow sad that everyone in the family, apart from the father, died so young. Apart from lack of contraception, I guess that is why people had large families in those days as death was commonplace. (Kay found this when she worked in a hospital for 10 weeks in Tanzania. Babies dying was commonplace and so women had lots of children to compensate.) What a talented family though.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of the deaths of babies in Africa today, I wonder why the American pro-life and anti-abortion bigots aren't very interested in those kind of babies.
DeleteThank you for teaching me about the Brontë family. I knew nothing of the family's story. Quite a sad one actually.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad - rather tragic actually but not unusual in those times Michael.
DeleteAnd they are remembered for the writings they created.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, "Wuthering Heights" is a fantastic novel. I would have loved to meet Emily Bronte on those windswept moors. I would have brought her back with me to 2025 so that she could live a healthy, long life supported by modern medicine if necessary.
DeleteInteresting
ReplyDeleteIndeed Dr Watson.
DeleteHow did people bear all that sorrow and grief?
ReplyDeleteYes, the "good old days" weren't so good after all. I did not know the story of the tragedies in the Bronte family.
ReplyDeleteThe Bronte's history is both interesting and sad, but death was such a part of everyday back then.I can never understand why people say they would love to have lived in the past. I wonder if in the distant future people will sigh and say "How I wish I could have lived in the 2120's". That's assuming there's anyone left of course!
ReplyDelete