Anne Brontë

Anne Brontë (, commonly ; 17 January 1820 – 28 May 1849) was an English novelist and poet. A member of the Brontë literary family, she was the younger sister of Charlotte, Emily, and Branwell. Anne is known for her 1847 novel Agnes Grey and for her 1848 novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is considered to be one of the first feminist novels.

Anne was the last of six children born to Patrick Brontë, an Irish clergyman, and Maria Brontë (née Branwell), the daughter of a Cornish merchant. Her mother died when Anne was one year old, and her two eldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died when she was four. She lived most of her life with her father and three surviving siblings in Haworth, Yorkshire, where her father served as perpetual curate, leaving to attend boarding school in Mirfield between 1836 and 1837 and to work as a governess for a number of families between 1839 and 1845. In 1846, she and her sisters, Charlotte and Emily, published a book of poetry, writing under the pseudonyms Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell. Anne's first novel, Agnes Grey, was published as one of a three-volume set which also included Wuthering Heights by her sister Emily. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was published a year later.

Anne died aged 29, most likely of pulmonary tuberculosis. After her death, her sister Charlotte wrote a preface and explanatory notice to the new edition of Agnes Grey, but prevented republication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, believing it to be "a mistake." This decision harmed Anne's popularity as a writer. Nonetheless, both of her novels are now considered classics of English literature.

Anne's father was Patrick Brontë, the oldest of ten children born to Hugh Brunty and Eleanor McCrory, who were poor Irish peasant farmers. Patrick, an ambitious young man, attended St John's College, Cambridge, and took orders within the Church of England. Anne's mother was Maria Branwell, the daughter of Anne Carne and Thomas Branwell, a successful and property-owning grocer and tea merchant in Penzance.

Patrick and Maria were married in 1812 in Guiseley, in Yorkshire, and went to live in nearby Hartshead, where Patrick had been appointed incumbent. Their first child, Maria (1814–1825), was born there in 1814. In 1815, Patrick was appointed curate of the chapel in Market Street Thornton, near Bradford. A second daughter, Elizabeth (1815–1825), was born shortly after. Four more children followed: Charlotte (1816–1855), Patrick Branwell (1817–1848), Emily (1818–1848), and Anne (1820–1849).

Anne was born on 17 January 1820 at the parsonage in Market Street, Thornton, on the outskirts of Bradford, where her father, Patrick, was curate. She was baptised in Thornton on 25 March 1820, and soon after, Patrick was appointed to the perpetual curacy in Haworth, seven miles (11 km) away. In April 1820, the family moved into the five-roomed Haworth Parsonage.

When Anne was barely a year old, her mother, Maria, fell ill, and died on 15 September 1821, of what may have been uterine cancer. Patrick tried to remarry, without success. Maria's sister, Elizabeth Branwell, had moved to the parsonage initially to care for Maria, but stayed on to help with the children, and remained there until her death. She was stern and expected respect, not love. There was little affection between her and the older children, although according to Ellen Nussey, a family friend, Anne was her aunt's favourite. Like her siblings, Anne was precocious: in Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte, Patrick remembered that when Anne was four years old he had asked her what a child most wanted and she had replied: "age and experience".

Midway through 1824 Patrick sent Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Emily to school at Crofton Hall in Crofton, West Yorkshire, and subsequently to the Clergy Daughter's School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire. Conditions at Cowan Bridge were harsh, with poor food and frequent outbreaks of disease, all of which may have contributed to the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth Brontë. Maria and Elizabeth had been sent home from school ill following an outbreak of typhus, and they died soon afterwards, probably of tuberculosis. The deaths of the two eldest girls distressed the family so much that Patrick could not face sending his surviving daughters away again. Charlotte and Emily were removed from Cowan Bridge, and they and their siblings were educated at home for the next five years, largely by their aunt Elizabeth and by Patrick himself.

The children made little attempt to mix with others outside the parsonage and relied on each other for company. The moors surrounding Haworth became their playground. Anne shared a room with her aunt, which may have influenced Anne's personality and religious beliefs. Anne was very close to all her siblings, but remained closest to Emily; Ellen Nussey described them as being "like twins."

Anne's studies at home included music and drawing. The Keighley church organist gave piano lessons to Anne, Emily, and Branwell, and John Bradley of Keighley gave them art lessons. Their aunt tried to teach the girls how to run a household, but they inclined more to the study of literature, and read widely from their father's well-stocked library. Their reading included the Bible, Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Scott, articles from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and Fraser's Magazine and The Edinburgh Review, as well as books of history, geography and biography.

In June 1826, their father gave Branwell a set of toy soldiers, which he shared with his sisters. The siblings gave names to the soldiers, also known as "The Young Men" or the "Twelves", and developed their characters. This led to the creation of an imaginary kingdom: Angria, a series of fictional islands off the coast of West Africa, which they illustrated with maps and watercolour renderings. The children played games and wrote stories, poems and plays about the inhabitants of Angria and its capital city, "Glass Town", also referred to as Verreopolis or Verdopolis. These stories, which sometimes included details taken from real-world sources, often took the shape of tiny books, hand-stitched and made from pieces of scrap paper.

Around 1831, when Anne was eleven, she and Emily broke away from the Angrian world, which had become dominated by Charlotte and Branwell, to create and develop their own fantasy world, Gondal, which would continue to influence them into adulthood. Anne and Emily had always been particularly close, and this close relationship continued after Charlotte left for Roe Head School in January 1831. Charlotte's school friend Ellen Nussey, visiting Haworth in 1833, reported that Emily and Anne were "inseparable companions". She described Anne thus:

Anne, dear gentle Anne was quite different in appearance from the others, and she was her aunt's favourite. Her hair was a very pretty light brown and fell on her neck in graceful curls. She had lovely violet-blue eyes; fine pencilled eyebrows and a clear almost transparent complexion.

In 1832, Charlotte finished her schooling at Roe Head, returning to the parsonage to tutor her siblings. She then returned to Roe Head as a teacher in July 1835, accompanied by Emily, who was a pupil. Emily's tuition was largely financed by Charlotte's teaching. However, Emily was unable to adapt to life at school and suffered from severe homesickness. She was withdrawn from the school in October, and Anne took her place there.

At this point, Anne was fifteen. It was her first time away from home, and she remained at Roe Head for two years, returning home only during the Christmas and summer holidays. She made few friends at Roe Head, and made little impression on her teachers, although she did win a good-conduct prize in 1836. She was quiet, hardworking, and although she missed the parsonage, she was determined to stay to acquire the education that she would need to support herself.

In December 1837, Anne fell seriously ill with gastritis. A Moravian minister was called to see her several times during her illness, suggesting that her distress was caused, in part, by a crisis of faith triggered by the staunch Calvinism of the school. Concerned for her sister's health, Charlotte wrote to their father, and he arranged for Anne to be sent home.

On leaving Roe Head, Anne sought employment as a governess, one of the few options available to a woman of her background. In April 1839, Anne, now aged nineteen, took up a post with the Ingham family at Blake Hall, near Mirfield.

The Inghams were wealthy, with five young children, the eldest of whom was six years old. In a letter to Charlotte, Anne describes the children as "little dunces" and "excessively indulged." Anne had great difficulty controlling them and little success in educating them. She was not allowed to punish them, and when she complained about their behaviour, she received no support and was criticised for being incapable. The Inghams were dissatisfied with their children's progress, and after nine months, Anne was dismissed. She returned home in December 1839 to join Charlotte and Emily, who had also left their positions. Anne's unhappy time at Blake Hall is believed to have been the principal inspiration for her novel Agnes Grey.

When Anne returned to Haworth, she formed a friendship with William Weightman, her father's new curate, who had started work in the parish in August 1839. Weightman was 25 and had obtained a two-year licentiate in theology from the University of Durham. He was handsome, popular with the family, and became a frequent visitor to the parsonage until his sudden death from cholera in 1842. He had an outgoing and flirtatious personality, and, on learning that none of the Brontë sisters had ever received a Valentine's card, wrote cards and poems to all three of them, as well as to Ellen Nussey, who was staying with them at the time. It has been suggested that Anne may have been in love with him, although there is little real evidence to confirm this, aside from a poem written by Anne after his death, I will not mourn thee, lovely one, which seems to express the affection that the whole family felt for the young curate.

From 1840 to 1845, Anne worked at Thorp Green Hall, a comfortable country house near York. Here she worked as a governess to the children of the Reverend Edmund Robinson and his wife, Lydia. The house appears as Horton Lodge in Agnes Grey. It was at the Long Plantation at Thorp Green in 1842 that Anne wrote her three-verse poem Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day, which was published in 1846 under the name Acton Bell.

The Robinsons had five children: Lydia (15), Elizabeth (13), Mary (12), Edmund (8), and a baby, Georgina, aged eighteen months, who died the year Anne arrived. She initially had problems similar to those she had encountered at Blake Hall: she missed her home and family, and her quiet and gentle disposition made it a challenge for her to settle into the household. In a diary paper in 1841, Anne wrote that she did not like her situation and wished to leave it; but she was determined to make a success of her position, and became well-liked by her employers. Her charges, the Robinson girls, became lifelong friends.

Anne spent only five or six weeks a year with her own family, during holidays at Christmas and in June. The rest of her time was spent with the Robinsons. She accompanied the family on annual holidays to Scarborough, a place which became very dear to her. Between 1840 and 1844, Anne spent each summer at the coastal town, several locations of which feature in her novels. She had opportunities to collect semi-precious stones, developing an interest in geology, depicting it in her novels as an interest equally suitable for men and women.

Anne and her sisters considered setting up a school while she was still working for the Robinsons. Various locations were considered, including the parsonage, but because of a lack of suitable pupils, the project never materialised. In early November 1842, Anne came home following the death of her aunt while her sisters were in Brussels. Elizabeth Branwell left a legacy of just under £300 for each of her nieces.

In January 1843, Anne returned to Thorp Green and secured a position for Branwell as tutor to Edmund, who was growing too old to be in Anne's care. Branwell did not live in the house as Anne did, and his tutorship was unsuccessful. He was eventually sent home in disgrace after developing an infatuation with Mrs Robinson, the mother of his charge. Anne's writings reflect her inner turmoil and her efforts to remain calm at this time. All three Brontë sisters worked as governesses or teachers, and all experienced problems controlling their charges, gaining support from their employers, and coping with homesickness, but Anne was the only one who persevered and made a success of her work.