words celia donoghue
There were two important men in Charlotte Brontë’s life – her father Patrick and her husband Arthur Bell Nicholls. Both were Irish, coming from poor families in rural Ireland but they each managed to rise in society through education and the Church. Patrick was passionate about the value of education and his extraordinarily talented children included writers Charlotte, Emily and Anne and painter and writer Branwell, his only son. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre was an immediate success, as was Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Patrick was born in County Down in 1777 (on St. Patrick’s Day!) to a Catholic mother and Anglican father, Hugh Brunty. When he won a scholarship to Cambridge, he changed his name to the now-famous Brontë, perhaps to conceal his deprived Irish background. Certainly, he made his life in England from then on and rarely corresponded with his family back in Ireland. In 1812, he married Maria Branwell from Penzance in Cornwall and they had six children. After a succession of positions, Patrick was appointed as the permanent rector for Haworth in Yorkshire in June 1819.
Patrick had a difficult relationship with Ireland and at turns embraced and distanced himself from his origins. His accent was strongly Irish and he often walked around the moors carrying a shillelagh stick. His offspring were all given English names and he held strict views against Catholic emancipation in Ireland, but yet he was drawn to his birth country in his writing. Some poems recalled his simple upbringing, and he wrote a novella, The Maid of Killarney (1818). This love story, interspersed with ‘Cursory Remarks on Religion and Politics’ was not great literature. It deplored conditions in Irish mud cabins but included praise for Killarney, which Charlotte would visit on her honeymoon.
After his wife died in 1821, her sister Elizabeth moved in to help rear the six youngsters. The girls were sent to Cowan Bridge boarding school but conditions were appalling there. Maria and Elizabeth died following an outbreak of typhoid, leaving behind Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, all under the age of ten. Their father, who comes across in some accounts as rough but caring, immediately took the girls from the school and educated them at home.
Life at the parsonage was isolated but busy – walks on the moor (later inspiring the wild setting of Wuthering Heights), painting, music and reading. From an early age, the siblings wrote poetry and plays about imaginary kingdoms, often in tiny books, even producing their own magazines. One of Charlotte’s juvenile stories was An Adventure in Ireland, set in Tipperary. As adults, they held various teaching and tutoring jobs, but always returned to Haworth. Branwell, Emily and Anne perished within a year of each other between September 1848 and May 1849, probably from tuberculosis, leaving Charlotte and her father alone.
When Patrick’s curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls, set his cap at Charlotte, Patrick was not pleased. Perhaps it was the lowly curate salary, or the fact that he was Irish, an unwelcome reminder of Patrick’s past. He accepted the match when Arthur agreed to live at the parsonage.
Charlotte’s short marriage was a happy one, but she passed away in March 1855, just nine months after the wedding. Ironically, it was his undervalued Irish son-in-law who looked after Patrick until his death six years later. Arthur then settled in Banagher in County Offaly and later married his cousin, Mary Bell, and lived as a farmer for another forty-five years.
Nicholls is also credited with preserving the Brontë family memorabilia. When he returned to Ireland, he brought with him cherished mementoes and belongings of Charlotte and her family. These included personal letters and manuscripts, furniture such as Charlotte’s writing desk, portraits, photographs, books and other personal items. Many of these eventually found their way back to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, ensuring that the Brontë legacy continues to be celebrated in the place where their famous works were created.
- ‘The Brontës’ Irish Heritage is published in Anthology Volume 23. Read more features from this volume or buy it now.
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