Aunt Branwell and the Brontë Legacy

by Aunt Branwell

  Elizabeth Branwell’s sister Jane died the year after this letter was sent, 1855, but the cross-Atlantic correspondence between Eliza and Joseph continued. From these letters we learn that Eliza Kingston knew of the literary success of her cousins, and co-legatees of their aunt’s will, the Brontës, and had read their books:

  ‘A cousin of mine who was known in the literary world by the name of Currer Bell, the author of “Jane Eyre” has written three or four very interesting and original works. Did you see them13?’

  In another letter, however, Eliza was rather less complimentary about her cousin Emily’s only novel:

  ‘I wish my cousin had never written “Wuthering Heights,” although it is considered clever by some14.’

  This letter from Eliza to Joseph, dating from March 1860, also reveals that there continued to be correspondence between Haworth and Penzance. Patrick Brontë, by then aged 82 and having lost all his family members, had sent his niece Eliza a letter:

  ‘I had a letter from my Uncle Brontë last June. He says he was in his 83rd year, but, though feeble, was still able to preach once on Sunday, and sometimes to take occasional duty; his son-in-law, Mr. Nicholls will continue with him. He says strangers still continue to call, but he converses little with them, but keeps himself as quiet as he can. I understand the Brontës were beloved in their own neighbourhood15.’

  It is thanks to Eliza Kingston that we get this final glimpse into the life of the man who died in June 1861, the last of the Brontës. Evidently his love of Maria Branwell and his fond memories of Elizabeth Branwell made it a pleasure for him to continue a correspondence with their relative in Cornwall.

  Eliza invested the money she received from her mother’s will, saved from Jane’s £50 a year annuity, and the money she had left from her Aunt Elizabeth’s will, in shares in Cornish tin and copper mines. They prospered well initially, but soon the market collapsed with devastating effect and through her letters to Joseph we see her following the same path as her father and siblings: a descent into poverty.

  By 1871, she was no longer running the guest house, but was instead a ‘librarian and tea dealer’ living in South Parade, Penzance16. These endeavours too foundered, and she writes of how she can no longer afford to attend the choral society or theatre, as she had once loved to do. Finally, she writes of having to sell her final mining share for £10 that she had once bought for £105, and is later reduced to writing begging letters to charities and wealthy individuals:

  ‘I thought some time since that there are institutions for the help of those in reduced circumstances, I would try to ascertain their rules. One, the National Benevolent Institution, does not help those under 60. I am not yet 58. I was advised to write Miss Burdett Coutts who is said to be the richest commoner in the United Kingdom. I did it on the 1st of this month… but received no reply, the case twice before to others17.’

  There is one further, terrible yet touching, letter from Eliza that lays bare with characteristic frankness the degradation she had now reached:

  ‘I feel very weak at times, if I over-exert myself or do not take sufficient nourishment; I require (if I could have it) animal food every day … I cannot live so low as I used to. I was informed that it was a case of nervous debility which I knew before … there is often a cobweb (or something like it) floating before my left eye … I live in constant dread of the future … I have no prospect of a home or rooms or indeed any money to pay rent … God only knows how it will end … I sometimes feel as if my heart would break18.’

  Eliza valued greatly her correspondence with Joseph; he had become her only friend, but was too far away to help. Although in one reply he offered her a chance to live with him and his family in America, she could not bear the thought of travelling to the country of her birth. Eventually, no longer able to afford stamps, the flow of letters from Eliza was brought to a halt. She now endured a fate eerily similar to the father she had never known. Eliza’s complete destitution brought on a physical and mental collapse, and she died in a ward for the mentally ill at the Union Hospital in Madron in 187819.

  Fourteen years after Eliza’s death, Amelia Josephina Branwell, daughter of Benjamin and Mary, died aged 76, the last of the Brontës’ Cornish cousins. This was not, however, the end of the Branwell line started by Thomas and his wife Anne. Joseph Burgster’s wife Anne, originally Anne Kingston and the daughter of John and Jane Kingston, nee Branwell, died aged 32, but she left a daughter Maria Louisa Burgster and a son Joseph Kingston Burgster. Maria married Jacob Horning and Joseph married Hattie Goodell. Joseph’s line ended in the following generation, but it’s a different story for the children of Maria and Jacob. Unlike the Branwells of Penzance these Branwell descendants in America prospered, and their line continues to this day.

  As I write this, there are at least eight such people across America, in Texas, California and Missouri. They have remarkable tales of their own, including among them a Vietnam war veteran and a leading pathologist, but as their ancestor Emily Brontë craved, their anonymity will be preserved. Nevertheless, these first cousins of the Brontës several times removed are the closest living relatives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë in the world today.

  The Branwell family that gave us Elizabeth and Maria, and through her the Brontë siblings, was and is a fascinating one, but there is one further interesting point raised by a woman who remembered Eliza Kingston, a Mrs Breffitt who was the daughter of one of Elizabeth Branwell’s cousins:

  ‘I think my mother asked Miss [Eliza] Kingston about Charlotte Brontë on more than one occasion. They talked about her together, and Miss Kingston spoke a good deal about what Charlotte Brontë had brought out in her works, and how she depicted characters. I have a vivid recollection of wonder that our poor cousin Eliza Jane could say such beautiful things and see so much in books, and yet look so plain and prosper so badly. Is there any record of the book she wrote, or was it only a part? Perhaps she destroyed it. She said no one would publish it20.’

  We now see that all four of the nieces that Elizabeth Branwell supported equally in her will, Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Eliza, used the freedom the legacy gave them to write books; there, sadly, the similarity ended.

  Chapter 18

  A Mother’s Care

  ‘Our children, Edward, Agnes, and little Mary, promise well; their education, for the time being, is chiefly committed to me; and they shall want for no good thing that a mother’s care can give. Our modest income is amply sufficient for our requirements: and by practising the economy we learnt in harder times, and never attempting to imitate our richer neighbours, we manage not only to enjoy comfort and contentment ourselves, but to have every year something to lay by for our children, and something to give to those who need it. And now I think I have said sufficient.’

  Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey

  It is more than 175 years since the death of Elizabeth Branwell, and only now are people realising the contribution she made to the lives of the Brontës and the magnificent works they produced, and only now are people looking beyond the misconceptions that some have held of her.

  Early biographers of the Brontë sisters created a perverse distortion of Elizabeth’s role, blaming her for the gloom that often descended upon the lives of the siblings within Haworth Parsonage. This is far from the truth, and is based mainly upon the testimony of the servant Martha Wright and the opinions of Charlotte Brontë.

  Charlotte was never her aunt’s favourite, and for that reason Elizabeth was never a favourite of hers. Charlotte Brontë was a woman who always spoke her mind and could, at times, be scathing even of those she loved, as when she wrote to Ellen Nussey that she had confronted Margaret Wooler and:

  ‘I told her one or two rather plain truths - which set her a crying … I should have respected her far more if she had turned me out of doors instead of crying for two days and two nights together – I was in a regular passion my “warm temper” quite got the better of me – Of which I don’t boast for it was a w
eakness – nor am I ashamed of it1.’

  Miss Wooler became one of Charlotte’s best friends, so we can see from this that she wasn’t averse to giving a sharp opinion of someone when she thought they deserved it. It may be such forthright opinions that led Elizabeth Gaskell to write that:

  ‘The children respected her [Elizabeth Branwell], and had that sort of affection which is generated by esteem; but I do not think they ever freely loved her2.’

  The two Elizabeths, Gaskell and Branwell, never met, and so the opinion given above is based primarily upon Charlotte’s recollections; while this respect, but not love, may well reflect her feelings, it is certainly not true of others who came to know her, such as Anne and Branwell Brontë.

  Another accusation still, on occasion, levelled against Elizabeth Branwell is that she was a severe Methodist who looked down upon fun and trivialities in general. This view of Elizabeth comes from Martha Wright and from Mary Taylor, who as we have seen took umbrage at being scolded for using the word ‘spitting.’ Martha Wright had other axes to grind after being summarily dismissed from service at the parsonage not long after Elizabeth’s arrival. It may be that Martha had taken too much of a liking to the ale that was kept in the parsonage cellar, for Elizabeth insisted on having the cellar key and carefully rationed how much ale each servant was allowed to have on a daily basis. This was a sensible economy, and it should be noted that Elizabeth did not ban the consumption of alcohol altogether despite her Wesleyan beliefs.

  Tabitha Brown was also less-than-enamoured of Elizabeth, reporting that:

  ‘You know Miss Branwell was a real, old tyke. She made the girls work at their sewing, and what with their father’s strictness over their lessons, and the hours they devoted to needlework, they had little time for themselves until after nine o’clock at night, and that was when they got time for their writing3.’

  Tabitha was the sister of Martha Brown, who didn’t enter service at the parsonage until December 1839, when the Brontë girls were aged between 19 and 23 and no longer in the habit of taking lessons or sewing instruction. Her second-hand testimony of a strict childhood regime is also contradicted by Emily and Anne’s diary paper of 1834, when we see the teenage girls ‘pitter-pottering’ in the middle of the day, not yet having done their homework.

  Even Charlotte rides to the defence of her aunt’s reputation, as her letters show how much she loved the parsonage home that Elizabeth had control over, and whilst she never once states that her aunt was stern or unkind, in 1841 she wrote that: ‘Aunt is in high good humour4.’

  One further accusation against Elizabeth is that she tried to have Tabby Ayckroyd removed from the parsonage at a time that she needed the Brontës’ support. Tabby broke her leg in the winter of 1836, after slipping on ice; it was a bad injury, and left her unable to do the household duties she was employed to carry out. Elizabeth did suggest that it would be better for Tabby to leave their employ, but her reasons for this have not been examined. Undoubtedly Elizabeth had one eye on the ever-precarious finances of the parsonage, but she may also have thought Tabby would receive better care being looked after by her sister Susannah. The children, who loved Tabby dearly, were having none of it and threatened to go on hunger strike unless it was agreed that she could stay. Elizabeth then consented to Tabby remaining at the parsonage5, which in itself is testimony to her flexibility and her compassion.

  Perhaps the most unfair of all the accusations against Elizabeth Branwell is that she was a religious zealot whose hellfire version of Christianity depressed her niece Anne so much that it led to her breakdown at Roe Head and blighted the lives of all the siblings. This is far removed from the truth. Elizabeth’s views differed greatly from those of the Calvinists; as a Wesleyan she believed in a loving God and a fairer society. We also know that neither she nor her family were overly rigid when it came to Wesleyan doctrine, as we hear of Elizabeth taking snuff and enjoying music and dances, whilst her family went as far as owning inns and breweries.

  Elizabeth taught her nephew and nieces to study the Bible as part of their education, and she was undoubtedly a religious woman herself, but she did not force her beliefs upon others, as we can see from her continued support of, and love for, Emily and Branwell even after they stopped attending church. It was Calvinist preaching that oppressed Anne, especially in her youth, but this was far removed from the teaching and beliefs of her aunt.

  Branwell’s praise of his aunt after her death is the most powerful defence of all. She was much more than simply a woman who had come from Cornwall to run the household and keep her sister’s children in check; she was as a mother to him. Even more than this, she was not a woman who stopped them having fun, or that simply looked on as they had fun, she was the instigator of the fun, the woman who was at the centre of all his happy childhood days.

  Let us draw back the dark curtains that some have enveloped her in, and see Elizabeth Branwell for what she really was: an immensely kind woman, a clever and educated woman, a loving woman who was fulsome in both her emotional and financial support, and a woman who always put her family before herself up to her very last day.

  Aunt Branwell created not a four-walled prison at the parsonage, but an environment in which individuality was indulged and creativity allowed to flourish. From the mittens she knitted for Ellen Nussey, to the books she bought for the Brontë children, she could be relied upon to know what would be truly useful, and to supply it. Above all else, Elizabeth was a woman who could be relied upon and to children who had lost their mother at such tender ages, there was nothing more important.

  Even in death the money she had accumulated by going without the things she loved herself, made a huge and positive difference to the lives of the four nieces she left it to. The years 2016 to 2020 mark a four-year period encompassing the 200th anniversaries of the births of Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne Brontë; dates that are rightly being celebrated at the Brontë Parsonage Museum and across the world. It would be fitting if similar celebrations were held in 2026 to mark the 250th birthday of Elizabeth Branwell; after all, not only was she a fine human being who gave up all she knew and loved to help her sister and then her children, but it is certain that without her there would be none of the Brontë books that we treasure today. It’s time to give Elizabeth Branwell the central place within the Brontë story that her actions deserve.

  Notes

  Preface

  1. Letter from Branwell Brontë to Francis Grundy, 29 October 1842.

  Chapter 1

  1.Gaskell, Elizabeth, The Life Of Charlotte Brontë, p. 96

  2.Thornhill, Richard, Wuthering Heights and the Fairy Cave, Northern Earth 90, p. 17

  3.Brontë, Emily, Wuthering Heights, p. 161

  4.du Maurier, Daphne, Vanishing Cornwall, p. 13

  5.Drew, Samuel and Hitchens, Fortescue, The History of Cornwall from the Earliest Records & Traditions, to the Present Time, Volume I, p. 98

  6.‘The Philosopher’ by Emily Brontë, ms. Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth

  7.Sagar-Fenton, Mike, Penzance: The Biography, p. 17

  Chapter 2

  1.Orel, Harold [Ed.], The Brontës: Interviews And Recollections, p. 25

  2.Hardie-Budden, Melissa, Penzance 2000, p. 18

  3.Carter, Clive, The Port of Penzance – A History, pp. 6-7

  4.Carpenter, Stanley D.M., The English Civil War, p. 493

  5.Besley, Henry, The Route Book of Cornwall, p. 111

  6.Defoe, Daniel, A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, by a Gentleman, p. 350

  7.Rowe, J. Hambley, ‘The Maternal Relatives of the Brontës’, Brontë Society Transactions 1923, Volume 6, Issue 33, p. 135

  8.Will of Thomas Branwell, Merchant of Penzance, Cornwall, Proved in the Court of Exeter, now at National Archives, Kew, London

  9.Barker, Juliet, The Brontës, p. 49

  Chapter 3

  1. Some of James Tonkin’s work can be seen at Penlee House, the stately Penzance home built in 1865 fo
r John Richards Branwell and now a museum and art gallery.

  2.Edgerley, C. Mabel, ‘Elizabeth Branwell – The “Small, Antiquated Lady”’, Brontë Society Transactions 1937, Volume 9, Issue 2, p. 104

  3.Will of Thomas Branwell, Merchant of Penzance, Cornwall, Proved in the Court of Exeter, now at National Archives, Kew, London

  4.Brontë, Anne, Agnes Grey, p. 3

  5.Newbold, Margaret, ‘The Branwell Saga’, Brontë Studies 2002, Volume 27, Issue 1, p. 19

  6.Dickinson, H.T. [ed.], A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain, p. 190

  7.As revealed in the 1850 General Board of Health inspection undertaken by Benjamin Herschel Babbage.

  8.Schwartz, Maurice [ed.], Encyclopedia of Coastal Science, p. 1018

  9.Leeds Mercury, 11th September 1824

  10. du Maurier, Daphne, Vanishing Cornwall, p. 53

  Chapter 4

  1.Leifchild, J.R., Cornwall, Its Mines and Miners, p. 36

  2.Barker, Juliet, The Brontës, p. 49

  3.Carter, Clive, The Port of Penzance – A History, p. 8

  4.Lloyd, Frederick, An Accurate and Impartial Life of the Late Lord Viscount Nelson, pp. 149-50

  5.Daily Mail, 27 February 2008

  6.Edgerley, C. Mabel, ‘Elizabeth Branwell – The “Small, Antiquated Lady”’, Brontë Society Transactions 1937, Volume 9, Issue 2, p. 104

  7.Green, Dudley, Patrick Brontë – Father of Genius, p. 111

  8.Holgate, Ivy, ‘The Branwells at Penzance’, Brontë Studies 1960, Volume 5, p. 431

  9.Brontë, Charlotte, Shirley, p. 296

  10.Newbold, Margaret, ‘The Branwell Saga’, Brontë Studies 2002, Volume 27, Issue 1, p. 19

  11.Ibid.

  12.Austen, Jane, Northanger Abbey, p. 23

  13.Hardie-Budden, Melissa, ‘Maternal Forebears of the Brontë Archive: ‘Nothing Comes from Nothing’; or Stories from Another Canon’, Brontë Studies 2015, Volume 40, Issue 4, p. 271