Month: February 2025

This week, in two separate years, marked two landmark events in the Brontë story. It was a time for change in the Brontë family, and the coming days bring a major change for me as well, which I hope you won’t mind sharing with you. First, let’s look at two important Brontë events in 1815 and 1842.

We start by taking a journey back to February 8th 1815. It was a momentous month for European history, for in that month Napoleon left his exile on Elba, quickly assembled a large following and returned to France. It would spark a sequence of events which led to the Battle of Waterloo, 15 miles south of Brussels, just three months later.

In Haworth a very different event was taking place for it was on February 8th that the second Brontë child was born. She was named Elizabeth after her mother’s elder sister Elizabeth Branwell, a woman who herself would come to play a vital role in the Brontë story. Alas, Elizabeth’s life would never get to fulfil her destiny but, as I explained in an episode on my The House Of Brontë channel, I think it’s unfair that Elizabeth has become a forgotten Brontë.

Elizabeth was not, as a child, as gifted academically as her elder sister Maria nor her younger sisters, but that is not to say that she couldn’t have developed those skills, and she was praised by those who knew her for her kindness, pragmatism and common sense. Those would have been valuable assets within the Brontë family, and I have little doubt that she would have made a telling and positive contribution if she had been granted further years.

Certainly it seems to me that Emily Brontë never forgot her sister Elizabeth, never forgot the sister who led her on her first tentative trips onto those moors which radiate from Haworth on three sides.I believe that Emily’s chosen pen name of Ellis is a tribute to Elizabeth Brontë, and she may also be found in the character of Zillah the housekeeper in Wuthering Heights – after all, Elizabeth was being trained to be a housekeeper at Cowan Bridge school.

Let us wish Elizabeth Brontë a belated 210th birthday and hop forward to 1842. By this time her sisters and Cowan Bridge schoolmates Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë are setting out for another school – and their father Patrick is journeying with them.

On 8th February 1842 Charlotte and Emily Brontë began their journey from Haworth to Brussels, to enrol as adult pupils in the Pensionnat Heger school. Emily would be home a few months later, due to the death of the aforementioned Elizabeth ‘Aunt’ Branwell, but other than a brief return to Yorkshire Charlotte would remain in Belgium for two years.

They were two tumultuous years, full of triumphs and trauma. Charlotte excelled as a pupil to the extent that she became a teacher in her second year – but above all else, the Brussels experience was one of loneliness and frustration for her. Charlotte fell deeply into an unrequited love for Constantin Heger, husband of the school’s owner Clare Heger. It would leave her heart and mind indelibly scarred, but from these scars burst forth some of the greatest literature the world has ever seen. Heger is, after all, undoubtedly the prototype for both Rochester in Jane Eyre and Paul Emanuel in Villette.

Patrick travelled to Brussels with his daughters partly because he wanted to see them arrive safely, of course, but partly because he wanted to visit the site of the Waterloo battlefield. He had created for himself an English-French phrasebook for his journey, listing words in English, then French, and then as they were pronounced. Using this book, after taking leave of Charlotte and Emily, he travelled on to the Waterloo site – linking again the years 1842 and 1815.

February 8th was a time of change for the Brontë family then, and the effects of those changes can still be seen today in the brilliant novels the world loves so much. It is one week also to a major change for myself.

I hope you won’t mind me sharing my very special news that next Saturday, 15th February, I will be getting married to my beloved Yvette. At the age of 53 I have found the most exquisite happiness, and I can’t wait to see my beautiful bride walk down the aisle. I’m a very lucky man, and of course I will still continue to produce my weekly Brontë blog posts as always. Some of you who have already known of my upcoming happy event have asked if they can contribute a gift. We would not at all expect that of course, but anyone who wishes to do so can send a gift via the following page: https://withjoy.com/nick-and-yvette/registry

Life changed for the Brontës and life is changing for me, but my love of all things Brontë remains undiminished. I’ve been writing posts for this blog for over nine years now, and long may that continue – and as always, I will never have adverts on this site. I look forward to seeing you next Sunday, after my own big day, for another new Brontë blog post.

On this week in 1855 Haworth Parsonage was visited with joyous news after Dr William Macturk’s visit to a rather famous patient – Charlotte Brontë.

Charlotte was now styling herself Charlotte Brontë Nicholls after her marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls in the summer of  1854. It was a very happy marriage, but at the start of 1855 Arthur was worried about an illness which seemed to have gripped his wife. She was frequently sick in the mornings, and although Arthur may well have assumed its cause he called in two physicians to put his mind at rest.

The first to examine Charlotte was Amos Ingham of Haworth. He was the village surgeon, which meant he was called upon to deal with medical maladies and necessities of all kinds. He was far from a specialist, however, and so on 30th January 1855 Dr Macturk of Bradford also arrived at the parsonage. Macturk was a celebrated physician, and was also renowned for founding both a church and a grammar school in the Manningham area of Bradford. We get the details of his visit in a letter Patrick Brontë sent to Charlotte’s fan and friend Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth on 3rd February 1855:

“Owing to my Dear Daughter’s indisposition, she has desired me to answer your kind letter, by return of post. For several days past, she has been confin’d to her bed, where she still lies, oppressed with nausea, sickness, irritation and a slow feverous feeling, and a complete want of appetite and digestion. Our Village Surgeon visits her daily, and we have had a visit from Dr Macturk of Bradford who both think her sickness is symptomatic – and after a few weeks they hope her health will again return.”

Some may speculate whether this could have been symptomatic of that great Brontë family curse tuberculosis, but we have further evidence that they meant it was symptomatic of pregnancy. 

On 21st February, Charlotte wrote to best friend Ellen Nussey and asked: ‘Write and tell me about Mrs. Hewitt’s case, how long she was ill and in what way.’

Mary Hewitt was another close friend of Ellen, and, tellingly, Mary had suffered severe sickness during her pregancy in the previous year, before giving birth to a son in December 1854. It seems clear then that Charlotte’s friends knew that she was pregnant, as further shown by the baby bonnet knitted by Charlotte’s friend, and former teacher and employer, Margaret Wooler, one of the most moving exhibits of the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

The great writer Elizabeth Gaskell, friend and biographer of Charlotte Brontë, also clarified the situation, explaining:

‘She [Charlotte] yielded to Mr. Nicholls’ wish that a doctor should be sent for. He came, and assigned a natural cause for her miserable indisposition; a little patience, and all would go right… Martha [parsonage servant Martha Brown] tenderly waited on her mistress, and from time to time tried to cheer her with the thought of the baby that was coming.”

Let us leave this snapshot in this happy moment, not least because I personally am entering into a very special and happy month. More on that next week, when I hope you can join me for another new Brontë blog post.