Brontë Sisters: The Tragic Lives Of The Literary Icons | Walking Through History | Absolute History

my walks take me to every corner of Britain as I seek out history embedded in the landscape in this country you're never very far from mysterious ruins or the shadow of unwelcome visitors so from romantic Moors to Majestic Peaks I'm really enjoying some serious walking each of my walks leads me through a different time and a stunning location to find the stories you can only really appreciate on foot this time I'm walking through the West Yorkshire Moors to discover how they inspired England's greatest literary family and two of the finest novels ever written classic Moorland became the backdrop both for Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights why because it was the real life home of their creators the tragic but brilliant Bronte sisters foreign foreign this is the worth Valley in West Yorkshire just 10 miles from Bradford and Halifax it's known to millions of people as Bronte country in the early 19th century the countryside here was home to three exceptionally talented novelists Charlotte Emily and Anne Bronte were born into a world of Mills and Moors where nearby Bradford was becoming the world capital of the world today the city's wool exchange is a Bookshop where the Victorian past lives on in print [Music] The Prompt is right about love and hardship in this really intense and passionate way that still feels Roar 150 years later although I must admit there's a part of it that does find whole chunks of the books really hard going I reckon I'm in the minority though because there are Legions of Bronte fans who simply can't put them down and after all these years they still fly off the shelves the most famous Bronte novels are Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights they've been translated into almost every language on Earth and turned into over a hundred films plays and dramas but the lives of the three sisters and their Wayward brother branwell read like one of their books so I've put together a four-day circular walk to uncover their story [Music] from their birthplace in Thornton I'll venture out into the countryside where they set so many of their stories and in my first day at the family home in Howarth a Victorian Village with a killer secret on day two I'll step onto the Moors and visit a crumbling ruin immortalized in Jane Eyre day three sees me explore the empty Wilderness that inspired Wuthering Heights before moving down into the Calder Valley Ludden is the first stop on my final day before it's over the Moors once more to the tragic final chapter in the Bronte Saga back at Howarth I'm starting my walk in Thornton which is four miles from Bradford City Center in 1815 this was a small Country Village where a new curat the Reverend Patrick Bronte had just arrived to set up home with his wife Mariah they already had two young daughters two-year-old Mariah and baby Elizabeth and they would have four more children over the next five years yeah well this is where the Bronte story started 77 Market Street Thornton they don't shout about it do they there's no big ticket office or advertising hoardings it's just this little plaque in this house were born the following members of the Bronte Family Charlotte 1816 Patrick branwell 1817 Emily Jane 1818 and 1820. number 77 has now become a coffee shop I love a cappuccino the current owner Mark DeLuca is more Barista than Bronte he's created a literary Cafe inside this simple terraced house Patrick Bronte complained that it was ill-constructed and inconvenient but it was a happy home for his growing family discover the past with exclusive history documentaries from history hit and uncover the secrets of some of the most famous people and events in history history hit gives you access to a growing range of documentaries presented by and featuring historians at the Forefront of research and debate whether you are looking to find out more about charismatic leaders like Cleopatra or to discover the story behind the industrial revolution history hit will have something for you we also aim to bring you the stories and legends that shaped our world through our award-winning podcast Network sign up now for a free trial and absolute history fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use the code absolute history at checkout it's a bit kind of weird that you come up these little steps so close to the front yeah well the this was extended in the 1900s when it was love it's The Butchers so this is the authentic Bird yeah this is the kitchen this is where the brontes were born in front of the fireplace the real thing the real thing okay it's uh it's been returned for all these years so yeah it's a great piece Patrick Bronte wanted to give his children the best start in life he could he'd been born in a poor Farm Workers Cottage in Ireland but he'd fought his way to Cambridge and believed that education was the key to escaping poverty in 1820 just four months after Anne was born Patrick started a new job in a larger Parish so like the brontes I'm making the journey to their new home in the village of Howarth it wasn't a long journey for them just seven miles on miles and erodes in their two flat wagons my route is more exposed my first taste of the Moors and a path once used by pack horses you can see why they still call this place Blackmore the thick carpet of Heather and rough grass means only Hardy Souls like North Country cheviots are found up here but whether you take the high road or the low road you're still rewarded with a fantastic view of your destination Palace [Music] that's not bad is it actually it only took me about 40 minutes to cross Black Moor but you can imagine the kids going are we nearly there yet Papa are we nearly there [Music] how Earth is every bit the classic Yorkshire Village by 1820 this Parish of scattered sheep farms had found a new source of wealth the water that drains off the Moors 1800s brand new machines powered by water and steam were transforming the cloth making industry in places like Haworth when the brunt is arrived Howarth was no longer a small village it was an expanding Township with 18 textile mills spread out across the valley employing four and a half thousand men women and children this population squeezed into narrow Sandstone houses built into the hillside top was Patrick's Parish Church accompanied by its rather Grand parsonage not a bad step up from a Terrace in Thornton the new Bronte home overlooked the graveyard where I'm meeting the current vicar Peter Mayo Smith when Patrick got this job do you reckon he felt he'd landed on his feet it's so gorgeous here well it's gorgeous now I'm not sure it would have been when he arrived imagine this place without trees no buildings behind a church that was actually falling down when he arrived very cold and a working-class village very mill-oriented with children working in the Mills and things like that the graveyard well I was going to say it looks very beautiful it looks very packed it is packed estimates between 20 to 60 000 bodies twenty to sixty thousand yes that's a tiny place yes and now Patrick's predecessor one of his predecessors William Grimshaw it's reputed did a thousand baptisms a year and never saw the population increase that gives you an idea of what's going on so that's indicative of a lot of disease that kills unfortunately yes Howarth was one of the unhealthiest places to live in Victorian England tuberculosis flourished and decaying matter from the graveyard seeped down into the stream which people used for drinking water 40 percent of Children Here didn't reach their fifth birthday the average life expectancy was just 25 years let's show you this Tony which I think illustrates the problem very well if we have a look at it we've got Elizabeth she dies in 1857 at the time Patrick Bronte she's only six years old and then we've got Mary another daughter who dies when she's two yes then Sarah another daughter 24 yep Emma a daughter 21. and Joshua their son 24th that gives you a good picture of what's going on yeah yeah it's really very sad [Music] a year after they moved into the parsonage Patrick's own wife Mariah died from uterine cancer aged 38. the two oldest daughters died next from tuberculosis which they caught at a nearby boarding school a devastated Patrick decided for the time being to bring up Charlotte branwell Emily and Anne at home it created a bond between the four children which would last their entire lives Charles and branwell was suddenly the eldest and they used their imaginations to escape the Grim reality of Life in howeth one day all the kids are around and their dad comes in with this box of soldiers for his little boy Bramble but before Bramwell had even had a chance to lay them all out Charlotte who was by far the bossiest grabbed one of them and said that is the Duke of Wellington and then one of the other kids said that one of them was somebody else and another kid that's somebody else that's somebody else was the start of the fantasy worlds and Adventures and Landscapes that the four kids created together over the next few years Charlotte and branwell decided that their new Heroes ruled an imaginary Kingdom called the glass town they chronicled it in obsessive detail I've been allowed to handle these tiny magazines which it suggested the Bronte children published for their little soldiers to read the stuff that I like best and it actually completely blew me away when I first read this they've got tiny little adverts here which are quite bizarre to be sold a hundred horses by Gerald Dreadful to be lent the unprecedented sum of six months by a private Candlestick who dwells between the gates of the wall of Jericho and the Wall of China Grand proposal by Sergeant Shuffle which if carried into effect will enable men to go to prison for nothing it's Monty Python it's the Goon show the booklets imitated real life journals in their father's Library like blackwood's magazine but they also included poems which are so much more than just childish parodies listen to this poetry I think it's quite extraordinary it is Pleasant on some evening Fair after a summer's day when still the breeze and calm the air and sea waves gently play to view the bay or who's still breast white sails do softly Glide it's so effortless so gentle she Charlotte was 12 or 13 when she wrote that just staggering children had discovered a passion for storytelling and writing which perhaps helped fill the void left behind by the deaths of their mother and sisters but eventually the children's imaginations would take them beyond the confines of the parsonage you can imagine them currently appearing out of the windows of the wildness of the Moors Beyond and that is where I'm heading tomorrow [Music] I'm on a walk through West Yorkshire and the countryside that inspired the brontes England's greatest literary family [Music] hey cover how their storytelling evolved from innocent childhood fantasies to Charlotte's passionate breakthrough novel Jane Eyre my route this morning takes me over peniston Hill and on to Howarth Moore where as children the brontees let their imaginations run wild then after lunch I'm following the Bronte way as far as waikolar ruin in Lancashire which is said to have inspired Jane eyre's Final Chapter the brontes were very close as children they'd all been deeply affected by the death of their mother and two Elder sisters they found solace in writing but it would be wrong to imagine them as unhappy there's a wonderful description of their earliest Adventures on the Moor by their nursemaid Sarah garz she says their afternoon walks as they sallied forth each neatly and comfortably clad were a joy they're fun new no bounds it never was expressed wildly bright and often dry but deep it occasioned many a merry burst of laughter they then enjoyed a game of romps and played with zest [Music] the Bronte children filing out across peniston Hill like a Yorkshire version of the Von traps the children became more obsessed by the imaginary world that they'd created with each passing year branwell Drew maps of a land they now called angria while Charlotte dreamed up romantic Heroes like the imperious Duke of Zamora but the language and atmosphere were pure Yorkshire the fictional capital of angria was surrounded by dark Moors it was a romanticized version of grimy industrial Howarth with its cloth working Mills and these sandstone quarries pretty chunky isn't there apparently a lot of this stuff was used to pave the Streets of London which is quite an interesting fact well I think so anyway oh well we're only about a mile outside of house but already it's quite spectacular isn't it that's how I there but then if you swing over to the north this is the Pennine way going over in that direction so what with all the Bronte fans and the long distance walkers these tracks are pretty well throttled [Music] the path from peniston leads into a well-hidden valley where local Legends says the sisters used to stop and compose their stories this is the Bronte chair there's no evidence whatsoever that the brunt is ever sat on it but obviously a few hundred thousand people have over the years see how the erosion has made it all nice and smooth it is pretty plausible isn't it that the branches would have satellite I mean if you were a kid and you were coming this way and you saw this you'd sit on it but the other thing is it gives you a fantastic view of that these are the Bronte Falls although the name is just a bit of early 20th century marketing but we do know that Charlotte came here at least once because she wrote about them in a letter she said that she came here in winter when they were in full raging flow and described them as white and beautiful which probably isn't the greatest bit of Bronte descriptive writing ever but you can imagine after a bit of rain it would be fairly accurate [Music] the Bronte sisters had an unusual upbringing their father Patrick was unlike other Victorian Parents he treated his daughters as the intellectual equals of his son I want to find out how this made them different from other children their age so I'm meeting up with Ann Dinsdale all they actually like watch people outside the family they seem very quiet and subdued but in their own company they were quite Lively and quite boisterous if you and I had seen them would we have thought that they were a little bit weird probably they didn't have a lot of contact with children in the village they spent a lot of time together in their own company they were quite highly educated and I think it's true so they had quite an unusual education because um that the girls were allowed to sit in on bromwell's lessons with their father so they had knowledge of the classics and Latin and also Patrick didn't censor their readings so they were allowed to read The Works of Lord Byron which were considered wasn't it yeah yeah being out here you really get the feeling that their environment must have had an enormous impact on them yeah I think it did it's very harsh and Powerful like their books and I think it's that combination you know they they were themselves out here it offered Liberty um this wild sweeping landscape but in 1824 branwell Emily and Anne discovered just how Wild these Moors could be they were out walking near a peat bog which had dried up after a long hot summer a sudden thunderstorm turned the peat into a rapidly expanding Quagmire creating what's known as a bog burst Patrick Bronte described it as an earthquake but it was more like a landslide where torrents of mud Boulders everything in its way was carried down the valley imagine it would be a bit scary if all of this started to move towards you yeah the bog burst made the local news and the children were lucky to escape with their lives all the accounts mentioned some children who were lost out of the Moors and who took refuge in a local Farmhouse and we think that was the royalties we think that was the brontes and we think this is why they took Refuge Condon Hall London Hall the children knew Pond and Hall Farm well it's thought some of angriest characters were modeled on the Heaton family who lived here these formative Years Around Howarth had a lasting impact on the Bronte children and they never forgot their imaginary worlds but as I head towards the Lancashire border I want to find out how leaving home helped turn them into the world famous novelists we know today Patrick simply couldn't afford to keep on maintaining his children and in 1838 branwell went off to Bradford to try his hand as a Portrait Painter while the three girls Emily Charlotte and Anne were sent away to be governesses for a while it was a deeply unhappy time for them all a Victorian governess led a lonely existence being neither domestic servant nor part of the family and Charlotte considered herself intellectually equal to her employers but one job changed her life she journeyed to Brussels to work as a teacher where she fell in love with Constantine hedger the Headmaster unfortunately he was married and made it clear that he could never share her feelings so Charlotte came home where she poured out all her frustrations she picked up her pen and using the male sounding name Cara Bell she created her novel Jane Eyre one of the most passionate love stories of English literature with its brooding hero Mr Rochester there's a terrific description of Mr Rochester his horse has just slipped and Jane goes out to help him and it says his figure was enveloped in a rising cloak fur collared and steel clasped its details weren't apparent but I traced the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest he had a dark face with Stern features and a heavy brow his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ironful and thwarted just now Jane Eyre is a classic love story The Tale of a lowly governess Who falls for her aristocratic employer Mr Rochester whom she doesn't know is married Charlotte dared to show that women could be as passionate as men she also Drew on personal experience for her characters and locations Rochester is an amalgam of her childhood creation the Duke of Zamora and Constantin hedger his very grand house thornfield Hall was probably based on Mansion Charlotte new but I'm visiting waikola Hall the inspiration for Fern Dean Manor where the two lovers finally come together at the end of the novel the manor house of ferndean was a building of considerable Antiquity moderate size and no architectural pretensions deep buried in a wood even when within a very short distance of the manor house you could see nothing of it so thick and dark through the timber of the gloomy wood about it well that just about fits the bill doesn't it why color hole was a two-story Elizabethan manor house which in Charlotte's day was already starting to crumble Jane Eyre is a good old-fashioned fantasy but it's also a very modern story of Desire across the social divide theater director Polly teal has adapted the book for the stage and she thinks that the novel's bittersweet ending was something Charlotte could only dream about what I find so moving about the end of the story and about funding the place where we are now um is that she's attempting to imagine something that was almost impossible I think for her as a Victorian woman which is a marriage of equals of course when she first meets Rochester he's Lord of The Manor you know he's this Rich rather imperious very charismatic fascinating man and James his servant and at the end of the novel she comes here and Rochester's being scarred he's lost his sight his hand and she's inherited money and it allows them to come together as equals and to know each other in a different way it's only by him shedding a load of stuff and her acquiring a load of stuff that they can become equals I think that's absolutely right I know that originally a lot of people said janeir is Charlotte Bronte and then later people said no no it's you know it's much more objective she's a novelist but in a way they were kind of first time around weren't they I mean I think that's one of the reasons the novel's so brilliant that she put all of herself into it the novel's full of this kind of um conflict between this wildness and a kind of constraint and I think that's very much Charlotte herself you know that on the one hand she felt she had to be the dutiful daughter of the the vicar and on the other hand she was this passionate creature with a huge imagination intensely frustrated by her life and the fact that as a Victorian woman there was so little available to her so she was full of rage and longing fans of Jane Eyre included Queen Victoria although I'm not sure her majesty would have approved if she'd known a woman had written such racy material [Music] despite all the odds Charlotte had opened the door for her sisters to follow spurred on by Charlotte's success Emily and Anne published their first novels a few months later also under male pen names Ellis and Acton Bell I'm off to get my head down for the night because tomorrow I'm heading up onto the Moors that were the setting for one of those books the most passionate and controversial Bronte novel of all foreign [Music] Moors in West Yorkshire known as Bronte country and today I want to explore the setting for Emily bronte's classic novel Wuthering Heights so I've left why collar and I'm picking up the Pennine way up to the more top ruin at top rhythms I'll soak up the atmosphere at the nearby Al Condon stones before dropping down to Hardcastle Crags where I won't find out what the talented branwell Bronte was up to before ending my day in gentrified Hampton Bridge it's a hearty 15 mile hike [Music] Emily is the most enigmatic of the four Bronte siblings Wuthering Heights is her only novel like chain air it's become a classic love story but it's a much darker tale and said almost entirely on the Moors it's a Savage Supernatural Saga of a doomed and Tangled romance between a girl called Kathy her foster brother Heathcliff and Kathy's husband Edgar and it's not to everyone's taste for some people Wuthering Heights is the best book that's ever been written no question but I must admit I feel a bit more ambivalent than that sure there's some really good stuff in it there's lots of romance and revenge and all that kind of thing there's that great character Heathcliff who's not really like the Lawrence Olivia heathcliffe at all he's more of a monster than a romantic anti-hero so all that's pretty good but the plot is really over raw and complex and goes around their houses and there's this one character leading character who dies out of the blue halfway through which is really irritating actually I should have put in a spoiler alert there shouldn't it of course there are plenty of readers who'd say that's the best bit Tony the book gets its name from an isolated farmhouse on the Moors where Heathcliff descends into madness the house watering Heights is of course fictional but that hasn't stopped Legions of fans from around the world trying to find it I love this look it doesn't just tell us where to go it helps our friends from Japan too ahead of me lies the Bronte fans Shangri-La a lonely ruin called top Withers Emily described Wuthering Heights house as a gentrified mansion whereas until 1920 this was just a small working farm one of three on this part of the Moor the fans of the book The exposed setting of top Withers is unmistakably familiar local historian Steve Wood is going to show me around it's a bit of a trek isn't there it is do we know who the people were who would have owned this place when Emily was around it was a family called Sunderland who were here for most of the 19th century yeah in the year the Wuthering Heights was published 1847. there was an old man Jonas Sunderland it would have been a bleak life up here wouldn't it terribly especially in Winter dragging a living out of just 20 acres up here with what maybe four or half a dozen cows the sunderlands lived on an island of poor quality grass in the sea of Heather selling milk to the locals and existing on a bland diet they lived off oats they had porridge for breakfast they made oat cakes hung to dry on a rack but the reason why so many people are convinced that Emily had top Withers in mind for her novel is because this picture Illustrated the 1872 Edition it shows the three farms and near Withers and middle rhythms depicted much as they actually were but in this position they put a much bigger house than what is actually here to fit the description of the house in the novel that's quite plausible isn't it it's what any writer would do you would choose an environment but then you could stick any house you wanted to in it yes of course thanks for your help see ya I'm taking a step off the well-beaten path to the highest point on my walk it's crowned by a mysterious group of rocks made from Millstone Grit the alconden stones they're only half a mile from Top Withers but few tourists ever come here oh wow isn't there something it never cease this to amaze me that even in today's world you can find somewhere like this not just a few farms and a couple of tiny wind turbines apart from that no evidence of the modern world at all the more in Emily's novel isn't just Untamed it's a mythical Realm and local Legend says that ancient Druids use these Stones as sacrificial altars I can really imagine an intense young Emily looking somewhere like this away in her mind the stones remind me of Heathcliff Kathy and Edgar's final resting place on the Moor at the end of the novel a sought and soon discovered the three headstones on the slope next the more I lingered around them under the benign sky watch the moths fluttering among the heath and hair bells listen to the Soft Wind breathing through the grass and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet Slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet Earth by the end of 1847 all three Bronte sisters were in print Under the surname Bell the youngest Anne had her debut novel Agnes gray published in December that year I now want to find out what had happened in the meantime to the missing Bronte their brother branwell [Music] so the next section of my walk takes me four miles south off the Moor and into the shade of Hardcastle Crags branwell's an elusive character he was social and outgoing the complete opposite of his sisters he'd left home in 1838 to try his hand at being a painter he lacked focus and wasn't quite the artist he hoped to be when he was just 17 he created this famous family portrait only to paint himself out [Music] by the start of the 1840s he was living here in the Calder Valley near Halifax calderdale was up and coming Gibson Mill was one of the first built during the Industrial Revolution and in 1839 the valley also got a shiny new Railway I'm meeting up with Bronte biographer Juliet Barker who says that branwall was drawn by the opportunities here that a man would provide for the rest of his family and everybody expected that Bramwell would provide for his sisters and he tried to be an artist and he failed at that he tried to be a tutor and he'd failed at that so he came here and Charlotte was very sarcastic about it and said he was going to be a great night errant on the Leeds and Manchester Railways what job did he do here he worked as a clerk on the railway which was a boring job it has to be admitted um he sat there noting down which trains passed by what cargo they were carrying and which trains came back again and what they were carrying that way but it was very well paid and the thing was that he started off as an assistant clerk at sorby Bridge station and then they built the line a bit further down so he got to London Fort and he was made the clerk in charge there which was a promotion so he went up from 105 pounds a year to 130 pounds a year job allowed him to carry on writing poetry it also put him on the doorstep of Halifax which in Victorian England was renowned as a center of art and culture people like for instance list and Mendelssohn and Paganini all came and did concerts here in Halifax but also there were a lot of poets and sculptors like JB Leyland who exhibited regularly in London and so he was mixing in these artistic literary circles and they were all encouraging him because they recognized his genius and they thought too that he was going to be a great poet or a great writer so a big social life a huge social life and he's often written off as spending his entire life in the pub but the reason he spent so much time in the pubs was that these were the places where they read their work to each other and it was at this point in his life that Bramwell started to get published long before his sister's got a thing in print Bramwell Bronte got his poems published in the Halifax Guardian the Leeds Mercury and in the Bradford Observer as well literary efforts might not rival Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights but the local papers here had a very high reputation for the poems they printed [Music] and following the stream down to hebden bridge which today is filled with the sort of artistic types branwell might have got on well with this former Mill Town was once voted the fourth funkiest place to live in the UK in the 1970s and 80s musicians artists and new agers helped revive a town hit by industrial decline it's also the ideal spot for a weary Walker to spend the night [Music] I'm making my way back to Howarth to find out how the fortunes of the Bronte family changed this part of the world forever I'm setting out from hebden bridge in West Yorkshire on the final leg of my walk through Bronte country today I want to visit the pretty Village of Luddington before heading north across my final stretch of Moorland near the end of my journey I can take a short train ride from oxenhope back to the bronte's home and the end of their story in Howard but first I want to finish the tale of branwell Bronte who was living here in the 1840s I must admit I didn't know much about Bramwell before I started out on my journey but the more I find out about him the more intriguing he becomes the traditional view of branwell one that he'd like to encourage is that he was a drunken Hellraiser who neglected his job as a railway Clerk friend said that he used to leave his station Porter in charge and certainly he enjoyed a few drinks in pubs like the Lord Nelson in London [Music] but his bravado covered up a distressing episode in 1842 he found himself in hot water when Auditors checked his station's books The Story Goes the 11 pounds one shilling in Sixpence which was a heck of a lot of money in those days had gone missing so did the porter steal it who knows but Bramwell got the sack branwald was devastated by his dismissal his sister Anne got him another post as a tutor working alongside her for a family at Thorpe green but from here things went really wrong for him branwell fell in love with his employer's wife an older woman appropriately named Mrs Robinson and she led him on and then she dumped him and he got the sack and all this set him off on the road to self-destruction a broken branwell returned to hallith to live with his elderly Father Patrick and his three sisters he spiraled into a pit of self-dispear suffering from shaking fits brought on by excessive drinking some say he was an opium addict my own Journey back to howeth takes me past some of the modern mall and sites wind turbines the golf course and several huge reservoirs the Moors around here are littered with reservoirs but in the late 1840s none of them existed and before a supply of constant clean water arrived the local towns were filthy overcrowded and disease-ridden in these conditions branwell's alcoholism soon masked the killer symptoms of Tuberculosis in 1848 he died aged just 31. in the arms of his father who'd had such high hopes for his only son Victorian England didn't really understand why so many young people were dying here Patrick Bronte thought that the stink from open sewers was to blame so in 1849 he kick-started a campaign to clean up his Parish that would eventually lead to today's reservoirs being built which was about that that's leaving Reservoir house just hidden from view I'm meeting up with engineer Simon Firth from Yorkshire water so what kind of diseases had an impact down there are the men waterborne diseases would have been cholera and typhoid but of course tuberculosis was a big killer in the town and Patrick's energy was very Central in transforming this place into somewhere where people could actually live yes it was his letter writing to the general Board of Health that got the whole thing off the ground he had to write three times before they finally sent an inspector out to look at the conditions in Haworth and what did the inspector say well the Babbage report indicated that the possibly the worst aspect of the town's conditions was the lack of clean water and he put together a lot of recommendations for for collecting what other Hills and piping it down to the town so did that do the magic trick eventually but it did take a lot more effort from Patrick Bronte to finally get it off the ground he had to prod the general Board of Health and remind them it's funny isn't it most people know about the three Bronte sisters and some people know about the brother but very few people know about Patrick and yet he transformed things around here certainly did yeah but Patrick's campaign to clean up house came too late for his own family within 10 months of branwell's death tuberculosis had killed Emily aged 30. and then Anne at just 29. by 1849 Charlotte was the only one of his children still alive [Music] thank you I've arrived in oxenhope where there's the chance to journey in style back to Howarth on the Keithley and worth Valley Railway singlet Charlotte could never have realized at the time but her presence was laying the foundations for the Valley's tourist industry I'm meeting Dr lucaster Miller to find out how Charlotte helped create the Bronte Legend after her sisters died [Music] China must have been devastated that so soon after the whole business with branwell Emily and Anne died I know it's almost impossible to try and imagine what it must have felt like um Emily's death was far more disturbing and devastating for Charlotte she wouldn't admit she was Ill she wouldn't try any of the medicines that Charlotte tried to get for her she wouldn't see a doctor and Charlotte was utterly frustrated that she couldn't get through to her she finally agrees to see the doctor but it's far too late and she dies that day and as Charlotte describes it she was torn panting out of a happy life whereas Anne's death was less traumatic and was very committed Christian and very sort of Brave and a much quieter personality the three sisters had always sworn to keep their true identities secret from the public but now she was sole survivor Charlotte was persuaded to break her promise in 1848 her Publishers invited her to London to mix among the capitals literary Elite what is a massive shock when it was revealed that these three male authors were actually three young sisters it was frightful exciting to all the people down in London in the sort of literary coteries the first reviews of Jane Eyre were pretty positive by the time reviewers started to suspect that in fact it was by a woman there was a complete sort of turnaround I mean we now think of Jane Eyre as a classic but it was a sort of scandalous book a naughty book as the critic G.H Lewis put it to Charlotte completely embarrassing her at the dinner table by sort of nudging her and saying oh you and I both written naughty books especially when you find out that his naughty book has a character in it who's a woman writer who ends up as a prostitute on Piccadilly Circus Charlotte had let the genie out of the bottle and feared that life would never be the same again so she decided to create a modest persona for her sisters to protect their memory in 1850 she wrote a brief biographical notice of her sisters that was published with a reissue of weathering hives it's sort of a PR exercise these women have got the reputation for writing immoral scandalous even anti-christian books and Charlotte thinks that one way to get the public sympathy is to say oh they were these sort of uneducated country girls who just didn't know what they were doing when they wrote their shocking novels unlike her late sisters Charlotte had found Fame while still alive and she didn't like it in the 1850s the first two Bronte tourists arrived in Howarth and were sent away from the parsonage with a flea in their ear today they're welcomed with open arms and they come from all over the world to visit the home where the sisters lived most of their lives I've really enjoyed my walk through Bronte country but as for the family Saga there's still one chapter left in 1854 Charlotte aged 38 married her father's assistant curate and became pregnant but this happiness wasn't to last [Music] ill with extreme morning sickness and died at home from dehydration and exhaustion this is the place where Charlotte was buried along with Emily and the rest of her family and it's a point of pilgrimage for Bronte fans today the pretty tourist Village we see today is far removed from Grimm Victorian house it's the legacy of four talented children who never really left Charlotte Emily Anne and branwell Bronte

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 198,606

Keywords: British Culture, British History, Bronte Family, Charlotte Bronte, Early Deaths, Inspirational Women, Literary Icons, Literary Legends, Literature Appreciation, Tragic Lives, Writing Prowess, captivating stories, early deaths, gothic literature, historical locations, immersive experience, lasting imprint, literary legends, tragic lives, women's literature

Id: qW7MpqXnz2c

Length: 47min 3sec (2823 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 02 2023