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

zondag 24 november 2013

Churches and other places of believe in the time of the bronte family in Haworth I

brontesremembered

St Michael and All Angels

In 1742 William Grimshaw, who was a close friend of John Wesley, became curate at Haworth. He was an enthusiastic and hard working curate, preaching as many as 30 times a week. He was also not averse to leaving his services and driving men out of the many public houses at the top of Haworth to listen to his long sermons. Haworth legend says that he even used a whip in order to encourage people out of the pubs into the church. Grimshaw attracted huge congregations with up to 500 communicants and in 1755 the church was enlarged to accommodate the many people who wanted to attend.

In 1820 Patrick Bronte accepted to living of Haworth and moved to the Parsonage with his family. He was a conscientious parish priest who walked many miles a day to tend to his large flock in the neighbouring villages as at the time many people would have come to the services in Haworth from the nearby villages. He baptised an average of 290 people per year, but due to the high mortality rate and the fact that the average life expectancy was just 22 years of age with 40% of children dying before the age of 6, Bronte also performed over 100 funerals per year. There are estimated to be 42,000 burials in the graveyard, many of the graves from the time of the Bronte family hold entire families including a number of infants.
In 1845 Arthur Bell Nicholls, who would later marry Charlotte Bronte, arrived in Haworth. He was appointed as a curate, and due to Patrick’s failing eyesight he soon took over the bulk of the official church duties. Patrick Bronte died in 1861 at the age of 84, having outlived his entire family and having served the Parish of Haworth for 41 years. He is still the longest serving incumbent of Haworth Parish Church. Read more: haworthchurch

Hall Green Baptist Church

The village of Haworth was a major centre of the 18th Century Evangelical Methodist Revival. The Wesley Brothers, Henry Venn and John Newton came to Haworth to preach along with the local Anglican minister, William Grimshaw.
The impact of the revival saw thousands of people from Haworth and the surrounding areas being transformed by the message that they heard. Among those affected by the Gospel ministry in the village were a group of Baptists who initially met some 10 miles away in the village of Sutton-in-Craven. Encouraged by Grimshaw, the Baptists began to meet in Haworth in 1752 at West Lane.
By 1785 some of the Baptists had begun to meet in the barn at the bottom of Brow Road in Haworth. In doing so they began to become established as an integral part of the village community.
The barn was convenient in that it was adjacent to the premises of local mill owner and Baptist John Greenwood as well as being near to Bridgehouse Beck, which was most likely used by the Baptists for the total immersion baptism of believers. hallgreenchapel

The Masonic Lodge of the Three Graces


Haworth itself is composed of the Main Street, plus cobbled roads lined with 18th and 19th century stone cottages.


“Lodge Street, leading off Main Street, takes its name from the fact that meetings of the Masonic Lodge of the Three Graces, to which Branwell was initiated in 1836, took place here,” writes Dinsdale in regards to the photo above. “The house facing was the home of William Wood, joiner and cabinet maker. The blocked-up doorway formerly led to his workshop on the second floor.”
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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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