I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.
Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights

zaterdag 23 juli 2011

Branwell Bronte's masonic background

 
Masonic Lodge

I was searching on the internet about Branwell Bronte's masonic background and found interesting information on the weblog of  justine-picardie.

John Brown was the Worshipful Master of the Three Graces Masonic Lodge in Haworth where he introduced Branwell Bronte to the lodge and accepted in February 1836 at the age of 19. Later he became secretary of the lodge. Meetings were originally held at the Black Bull but then moved to Lodge Street.

donderdag 21 juli 2011

Brontë Parsonage Blog: Summer fun

Brontë Parsonage Blog: Summer fun: "News release from the Parsonage: There’s a packed programme of activities for visitors to the Parsonage this summer holiday. Throughout Aug..."

"Train up a Child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it."


In 1820 Patrick Brontë was appointed perpetual curate of St Michael and All Angels, Haworth and the Brontë family moved into the Parsonage, which was to be their home for the rest of their lives. Patrick valued education and strove throughout his life to provide education for the poor, and in particular, poor children.
This led to his campaign for the establishment of a National Sunday School in Haworth.

In 1831 he obtained a grant of £80 from the National School Society towards building a Sunday school in Haworth, the Church Lands Trust having given the land on the north side of Church Street (then Parsonage Lane) for the purpose. The remaining funds required were raised by public subscription.These funds provided the money needed for the construction of what is now the oldest part of the building.

It was in 1844 that the new day school was opened with Ebenezer Rand the first master. The pupils at the day school paid 2d a week and were provided with slates and pencils. That the school was a success there is no doubt, with 160 pupils per week registered on its books. When Ebenezer Rand married, his wife took charge of the female pupils and classes were also made available in the evenings so that children working in the factories could attend. It is known that Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell all taught at the school.

When Arthur Bell Nicholls became Patrick Brontë’s curate in 1845 he took over responsibility for the school, a role he undertook with great vigour until 1853. During this time funds were raised for the first of two gabled extensions at the westerly end of the building, completed in 1851. In 1853 the building hosted Nicholl’s presentation and later following his marriage to Charlotte Brontë, a celebratory afternoon tea for 500 local guests. http://www.haworthchurch.co.uk/old-school-room


The only building in Haworth designed and built by Patrick Brontë may be sold as a development project.

The only building in Haworth designed and built by Patrick Brontë may be sold as a development project. The single-storey building is in need of a major restoration but the owner, Haworth Parish Church, says it does not have the cash or expertise. It is estimated that just short of £1 million will be needed – not only to repair the roof, which has dry rot, but to complete the refurbishment. The Old School Room, which is next to the parish church and the Haworth Parsonage where the family lived, was built as a ‘national’ style school by Mr Bronte in 1832, then extended in 1850 and 1871. The building housed a school where Charlotte, Emily and Anne, together with their brother Branwell, worked as teachers.

The church committee charged with maintaining the premises is called the Brontë Spirit. Chairman Averil Kenyon said: “We had high hopes of gaining funding several years ago but were unable to take the project past the development stage for many reasons. “Haworth Parish Church has its hands full seeking funding to undertake its own restoration and, while they are making progress, there is simply not enough cash or people to help us advance the Old School Room project. “Now the roof needs at least £12,000 spending on it to keep the building even reasonably water tight through next winter. “On top of that thieves have again raided the lead from the roof and we’ve suffered some water damage as a result.” Mrs Kenyon said: “If no solution is found in the next three or four months, the building will suffer more serious damage and become even more expensive to restore. “We have to find a solution and one of the options we and the church’s council are considering is whether the Old School Room could be sold as a housing or development project. “That would be heart-breaking but we’re running out of answers, money, people and time. The telegraph and argus news.Bronte_School_Room_at_Haworth_could_be_sold/

maandag 18 juli 2011

He comes with western winds



In this room
in the evening
Emily Bronte
was looking to the stars
 and wrote poems like this

“He comes with western winds, with evening’s wandering airs,
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars.
Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels:
Its wings are almost free—its home, its harbour found,
Measuring the gulph, it stoops and dares the final bound,

“Oh I dreadful is the check—intense the agony—
When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;
When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again;
The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.

Haworth from Brow

Haworth from Brow

Famous Bronte spots

The Parlour

The Parlour

Parsonage

Parsonage

Charlotte Bronte

Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Miss Bronte, who shook hands with us, and then went to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old dog, and looked at a picture of Miss Bronte, by Richmond, the solitary ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bare walls, and at the books on the little shelves, most of them evidently the gift of the authors since Miss Bronte's celebrity. Presently she came in, and welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet, and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously clean and neat. When we went into the parlour again, we began talking very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Bronte looked in; seeing his daughter there, I suppose he thought it was all right, and he retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage; presently emerging again to bring W---- a country newspaper. This was his last appearance till we went. Miss Bronte spoke with the greatest warmth of Miss Martineau, and of the good she had gained from her. Well! we talked about various things; the character of the people, - about her solitude, etc., till she left the room to help about dinner, I suppose, for she did not return for an age. The old dog had vanished; a fat curly-haired dog honoured us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable; and we had some very pleasant conversation, in the midst of which time passed quicker than we supposed, for at last W---- found that it was half-past three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us. So we hurried off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring... ------------------- "She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way she weakened her eyesight was this: When she was sixteen or seventeen, she wanted much to draw; and she copied nimini-pimini copper-plate engravings out of annuals, ('stippling,' don't the artists call it?) every little point put in, till at the end of six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to draw stories, and not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing; but in so small a hand, that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time.

I asked her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description given of its effects in Villette was so exactly like what I had experienced, - vivid and exaggerated presence of objects, of which the outlines were indistinct, or lost in golden mist, etc. She replied, that she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of it in any shape, but that she had followed the process she always adopted when she had to describe anything which had not fallen within her own experience; she had thought intently on it for many and many a night before falling to sleep, - wondering what it was like, or how it would be, - till at length, sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one point for weeks, she wakened up in the morning with all clear before her, as if she had in reality gone through the experience, and then could describe it, word for word, as it had happened. I cannot account for this psychologically; I only am sure that it was so, because she said it. ----------------------She thought much of her duty, and had loftier and clearer notions of it than most people, and held fast to them with more success. It was done, it seems to me, with much more difficulty than people have of stronger nerves, and better fortunes. All her life was but labour and pain; and she never threw down the burden for the sake of present pleasure. I don't know what use you can make of all I have said. I have written it with the strong desire to obtain appreciation for her. Yet, what does it matter? She herself appealed to the world's judgement for her use of some of the faculties she had, - not the best, - but still the only ones she could turn to strangers' benefit. They heartily, greedily enjoyed the fruits of her labours, and then found out she was much to be blamed for possessing such faculties. Why ask for a judgement on her from such a world?" elizabeth gaskell/charlotte bronte



Poem: No coward soul is mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the worlds storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heavens glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.


O God within my breast.
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life -- that in me has rest,
As I -- Undying Life -- have power in Thee!


Vain are the thousand creeds
That move mens hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,


To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast Rock of immortality.


With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.


Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.


There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou -- Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.


--
Emily Bronte

Family tree

The Bronte Family

Grandparents - paternal
Hugh Brunty was born 1755 and died circa 1808. He married Eleanor McClory, known as Alice in 1776.

Grandparents - maternal
Thomas Branwell (born 1746 died 5th April 1808) was married in 1768 to Anne Carne (baptised 27th April 1744 and died 19th December 1809).

Parents
Father was Patrick Bronte, the eldest of 10 children born to Hugh Brunty and Eleanor (Alice) McClory. He was born 17th March 1777 and died on 7th June 1861. Mother was Maria Branwell, who was born on 15th April 1783 and died on 15th September 1821.

Maria had a sister, Elizabeth who was known as Aunt Branwell. She was born in 1776 and died on 29th October 1842.

Patrick Bronte married Maria Branwell on 29th December 1812.

The Bronte Children
Patrick and Maria Bronte had six children.
The first child was Maria, who was born in 1814 and died on 6th June 1825.
The second daughter, Elizabeth was born on 8th February 1815 and died shortly after Maria on 15th June 1825. Charlotte was the third daughter, born on 21st April 1816.

Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls (born 1818) on 29th June 1854. Charlotte died on 31st March 1855. Arthur lived until 2nd December 1906.

The first and only son born to Patrick and Maria was Patrick Branwell, who was born on 26th June 1817 and died on 24th September 1848.

Emily Jane, the fourth daughter was born on 30th July 1818 and died on 19th December 1848.

The sixth and last child was Anne, born on 17th January 1820 who died on 28th May 1849.

Top Withens in the snow.

Top Withens in the snow.

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