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Patrick Brontë

Irish Anglican clergyman and writer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Patrick Brontë
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This article is about the Irish clergyman and writer. For the English painter and author, see Branwell Brontë.

Patrick Brontë (/ˈbrɒnti/, commonly /-teɪ/;[1] born Patrick Brunty; 17 March 1777 – 7 June 1861) was an Irish Anglican priest and author who spent most of his adult life in England. He was the father of the writers Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, and of Branwell Brontë, his only son. Patrick outlived his wife, Maria Branwell, by forty years, by which time all of their six children had also died.

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Early life

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Ruins of the cottage in which Brontë was born in Imdel, County Down

Brontë was born at Imdel (or Emdale) in the parish of Drumballyroney, County Down,[2] the eldest of the ten children of Hugh Brunty, an Anglican, and Elinor Alice (née McClory), an Irish Catholic.[3][4] His father was a "farmhand, fence-fixer and road-builder".[5] The family was very poor, owning four books (including two copies of the Bible) and subsisting on a restricted diet of porridge, buttermilk, bread, and potatoes, to which Patrick attributed his lifelong digestive issues.[5]

He had several apprenticeships (to a blacksmith, aged twelve, then to a linen draper, and a weaver) until he was befriended by a local clergyman, who saw his potential and provided him with an education. In 1798 he became a teacher, and moved to England in 1802, having won a scholarship[6] to study theology as a sizar[7][8] at St John's College, Cambridge. He first registered his name as "Branty" or "Brunty", then as Brontë,[9][10][11] receiving his BA degree in 1806.

In adult life, Patrick Brunty formally changed the spelling of his name to the more gentrified Brontë;[12] while the reason for this change remains unclear, there are a number of prominent theories to explain it, including that it may have been in tribute to his hero, Lord Nelson, who had received the title of Duke of Bronte.[13][14]

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Curate

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Memorial plaque to Patrick Brontë at Dewsbury Minster in West Yorkshire

He was ordained deacon in the Church of England in 1806, and priest in 1807.[15]

Brontë's first post on ordination as deacon was as curate at St Mary Magdalene Church, Wethersfield, Essex where the vicar was Joseph Jowett, Regius Professor of Law at Cambridge. Here in 1807 he met and fell in love with Mary Burder, the 18-year-old niece of his landlady.[16] Mary's family were members of the dissenting or non-conformist Congregational Church, and objected to the connection.[16] After a disagreement with Burder's uncle, who was her legal guardian, Patrick ended the relationship. Mary was sent away, and Patrick decided it was best to take a new curacy.[17] Thus, in 1809, Patrick became assistant curate of Wellington, Shropshire, and in 1810 his first published poem, the 256-line Winter Evening Thoughts, appeared in a local newspaper. In 1811 he pubished a collection of moral verses, Cottage Poems. In her biography of Charlotte Brontë, Claire Harman recounts that one of the Cottage Poems had been written to Mary Burder, and praised her sparkling blue eyes. He later gave a copy of the book, with an annotated version of the poem, to another young lady, changing the line to “sparkling hazle eye”.[7]

In December 1809, Patrick Brontë moved to the West Riding of Yorkshire as curate at All Saints, Dewsbury (now Dewsbury Minster). The area was undergoing an evangelical revival under the incumbent vicar, John Buckworth. Brontë taught reading and writing at Dewsbury's Sunday School and was deputed by Buckworth to attend twice-weekly meetings of the Church Mission Society on his behalf. A memorial plaque to Brontë can be found in the south aisle of Dewsbury Minster.[18]

Buckworth appointed Brontë as perpetual curate of the Church of St Peter, Hartshead, a daughter church of Dewsbury, in 1811.[15][18] He served there until 1815.[15] In 1812 he was appointed school examiner at a Wesleyan academy, Woodhouse Grove School, near Guiseley. In 1815 he moved again to become perpetual curate of Thornton.[15]

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Family

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At Guiseley, Brontë met Maria Branwell (1783–1821), whom he married on 29 December 1812 in the Church of St. Oswald. They moved into a house on Halifax Road, Liversedge, where their first two children, Maria (1814–1825[19]) and Elizabeth (1815–1825), were born. Their other children, Charlotte (1816–1855), Patrick Branwell (1817–1848), Emily (1818–1848) and Anne (1820–1849), were born after they moved to Thornton.

Brontë was keenly aware of his immigrant status and of the prejudice it attracted. At the time, Irish people were often seen as feckless and lazy, and Patrick faced hostility and rumours that he was an alcoholic. Elizabeth Gaskell, in her biography of Charlotte Brontë, reported that Patrick had no Irish accent when she met him,[5] and claimed that he did not keep in touch with his family in Ireland, although this was untrue.[16]

Brontë was offered the perpetual curacy of St Michael and All Angels' Church, Haworth, in June 1819, and he took the family there in April 1820. His sister-in-law Elizabeth Branwell (1776–1842), who had lived with the family at Thornton in 1815, joined the household in 1821 to help to look after the children and to care for Maria Brontë, who was suffering from what may have been uterine cancer or ovarian cancer. Elizabeth decided to move permanently to Haworth to act as housekeeper.

At this point Patrick Brontë once more sought out Mary Burder, whom he had jilted fifteen years previously, asking for her hand in marriage and telling her that he was a widower with six small children. Burder declined.[17] Although the refusal had been decisive,[16] Patrick wrote to her again, saying:[20]

You may think and write as you please, but I have not the least doubt that if you had been mine you would have been happier than you now are, or can be as one in single life.

Other attempts to find a new spouse were unsuccessful, and Patrick came to terms with widowhood at the age of 47. He spent his time visiting the sick and the poor, giving sermons and communion,[21] leaving the three sisters Emily, Charlotte, Anne, and their brother Branwell with their aunt and a maid, Tabitha Aykroyd (Tabby), who tirelessly recounted local legends in her Yorkshire dialect while preparing the meals.[22]

As a father, Patrick encouraged his children to read and to take an interest in literature and politics, and arranged for tuition for them in music and painting. Elizabeth Gaskell suggests he was distant and idiosyncratic in his behaviour. She records the claims of a former servant that he had burnt some coloured shoes that had been given to the children and cut the backs from chairs because they were too ornate.[16]

Brontë was responsible for the building of a Sunday school in Haworth, which he opened in 1832. He remained active in local causes into his old age, and between 1849 and 1850 organised action to procure a clean water supply for the village, which was eventually achieved in 1856.

In August 1846 Brontë travelled to Manchester with Charlotte to undergo surgery on his eyes. On 28 August he was operated upon, without anaesthetic, to remove cataracts. Eye surgery was then in its infancy and surgeons did not understand how stitches could be used to hold together the necessary incision in the eye. Their solution was to have the patient undergo a long period of recuperation in a dark room. Charlotte used this interval of a month[16] to begin the writing of Jane Eyre.[23]

After Charlotte's death, Patrick Brontë co-operated with Elizabeth Gaskell on the biography of his daughter. He was also responsible for the posthumous publication of Charlotte's first novel, The Professor, in 1857. Charlotte's husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls (1819–1906), Brontë's curate, stayed in the household until after Patrick Brontë's death in 1861, at the age of 84. Brontë outlived not only his wife (by 40 years) but all six of his children.

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Publications

Portrayals

References

Further reading

External links

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