Brontës (189 page)

55.
John Winterbotham,
LM
, 8Mar 1834 p.6[
LRPB
, 350]. Wintherbotham was equally vitriolic and personal in his attack on ‘the factory child's friend' Revd George Bull: see below, n.65.

56.
PB,
LM
, 22 Feb 1834 p.6[
LRPB
, 92].

57.
John Winterbotham,
LM
, 8Mar 1834 p.6[
LRPB
, 350].

58.
Three days after his reply to Winterbotham was published in
LM
, 22 Feb 1834 p.6[
LRPB
, 92–4] Patrick wrote again to the paper stating that ‘Having already taken my friendly leave of the Rev. John Winterbotham, and being willing to throw a mantle of charity over him, and all his motives and actions, I would farther observe, that unless forced by unexpected circumstances, I will not reply to any article bearing his signature, whether that article might, perchance, be the product of his own mind, or the result of a neighbourly co-operation of heads more learned than his own'. Renewing his attack on the severity of the criminal code, Patrick declared that a statesman who advocated such reform would, ‘like Howard and Wilberforce … erect for himself a monument more durable than brass, and more precious than gold':
LM
, 8Mar 1834 p.3[
LRPB
, 94–6].

59.
PB to Church Trustees, 1 Feb 1834: MS Heaton B143 p.5, WYAS, Bradford [
LRPB
, 88]; PB, deed between Incumbent and Church Trustees, 28 July 1834: MS BS 155, BPM. Patrick had complained of the
problems that gave rise to this agreement in his letters to the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty: see above, pp.165–6.

60.
PB to Earl of Harewood, 11 Aug 1834: MS in Box i, Lieutenancy Papers, WYAS, Leeds [
LRPB
, 96–7].

61.
PB to Henry Heap, 27 Nov 1834, for-warded to Earl of Harewood with Henry Heap to Earl of Harewood. 2 Dec 1834: MSS in Box i, Lieutenancy Papers, WYAS, Leeds [
LRPB
, 98–9]. Joesph Greenwood was sworn in at the Skipton Sessions on 28 June 1836: Justices' Qualification Oaths, 1819–37: MS in WYAS, Wakefield. I am grateful to Sarah Fermi for this last reference.

62.
PB to Henry Heap, 27 Nov 1834 (see n.61). Contraventions of the Act were dealt with as far away as Skipton: see, for example, Jonas Hird of Royd House, Haworth, caught by factory inspectors and fined at Skipton Assizes for employing children in excess of 12 hours daily and allowing his foreman to fabricate records of hours worked:
LM
, 13 Sept 1834 p.8. Hartley Merrall was similarly fined for working his Haworth mill children beyond the hours specified in the Factory Act:
LI
, 4 Apr 1835 p.3.

63.
George Bull,
LM
, 13 Sept 1834 p.5; John Winterbotham, ibid., 20 Sept 1834 p.6. Revd George Stringer Bill, vicar of Bierley, whom Winterbotham characteristically and unfairly dubbed ‘the pugnacious parson' was better known as ‘the factory child's friend'. Though a Tory by conviction, like Patrick, he was also a friend of the reformer Richard Oastler and the Radical and Chartist Abraham Wildman. He worked tirelessly with them for the Ten Hours Bill, writing to the press and addressing public meetings, like the one in Keighley on 3 Mar 1835 where all three spoke in favour of the bill:
LI
, 7 Mar 1835 p.3. Patrick was one of the signatories of a memorial to Bull praising his campaign:
BO
, 17 Sept 1840 p.2.

64.
Ibid., 20 Nov 1834 p.333;
LM
, 22 Nov 1834 p.7; Haworth Temperance Society membership cards no.77 (Jonas Gregson) and no.94 (Mary Binns), 26 Dec 1834; no.191 (Thomas Pickles), Mar 1835: MSS BS 146 (a-c), BPM. The average consumption of beer per head of population in Haworth was about a ninth of a pint daily (Babbage, 11–12) but Nancy Garrs complained that Aunt Branwell only allowed the parsonage servants half a pint a day which she considered ‘close': see above, p.1009 n.73. The parsonage must have brewed its own beer as ‘Brewing Utensils' were lot 32 in Catalogue of the Sale at Haworth Parsonage, 1 Oct 1861: MS BS, x, H, BPM.

65.
CB to EN, 19 June 1834: MS n.l. [
LCB
, i, 128].

66.
CB to EN, 4July 1834: MS HM 24408 pp.2–3, Huntington and CB to EN, 10 Nov 1834: MS MA 2696 R-V p.3, PM [
LCB
, i, 130, 133].

67.
CB to EN, 4July 1834: MS HM 24408 p.2 crossed, Huntington [
LCB
, i, 130].

68.
Charlotte's wide reading of Byron is reflected, for instance, in CB, High Life in Verdopolis, 20 Feb–20 Mar 1834: MS Add 34255, BL [CA, ii, pt ii, 3–81] where she quotes from both Shakespeare and Byron at the head of each chapter. The high value the Brontës attached to Byron is indicated by Branwell's spending some of his meagre savings on
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
(Paris, 1827) on a trip to Liverpool in May 1835: HAOBP:bb15, BPM.

69.
CB to EN, 4July 1834: MS HM 24408 p.3crossed, Huntington [
LCB
, i, 130–1].

70.
EJB/AB, Diary Paper, 24 Nov 1834: MS Bon 131, BPM [JB
BLL
, 53–4; JB
ST
no.11].

71.
CB to EN, 13 Mar 1835: MS n.l. [
LCB
, i, 136].

72.
LI
, 11 Apr 1835 p.3.

73.
John Foster,
LM
, 18 Apr 1835 p.8.

74.
CB to EN, 8 [May] 1835: MS Bon 160, BPM [
LCB
, i, 138].

75.
‘O.P.Q.',
LM
, 23 May 1835 p.7.

76.
PB,
The Signs of the Times; or a Familiar Treatise on Some Political Indications in the Year 1835
(Keighley, R. Aked, 1835), price 6d. [
Brontëana
, 220–32].

77.
Patrick was not purely self-interested in his defence of the church establishment: his own salary was not dependent on tithes or church rates so their abolition would not affect his personal finances. He defended the ‘fair commutation' of tithes, rather than their abolition, on the grounds that clergy-men had ‘as fair a claim on their dues, as any landed proprietor can have on his rents': ibid., 12 [
Brontëana
, 226]. Branwell reflected his father's views in making Zamorna, disguised as Colonel Hartford, defend the Established Church of the Glasstown Union: ‘I am a Member of the Church of Africa because I think it the best church in the Universe but poor is the best compared with the loftiness of the truth. And though I think that to seperate from my church because many of its Doctrines and much of its government is and are eronous would be to do more injury to religion than to uphold even its faults yet I will
never cease to advocate the Doctrines I have founded and too endeavour to spread them as wide as my name may extend': PBB, [Angria and the Angrians I(d)], [
c
.Dec 1834–Jan 1835: MS p.9, Brotherton [Neufeldt, ii, 294].

78.
PB,
The Signs of the Times
, 16, 19 [
Brontëana
, 229, 231].

79.
Northangerland's attacks on the ministry by letter and in Parliament are contained in PBB, [Angria and the Angrians I(b)], 12 Sept 1834]: MS pp.1–2, Brotherton and [Angria and the Angrians I(c)], [Oct 1834]: MS pp.4–8, Brotherton [Neufeldt, ii, 242–9, 259–71].

80.
PBB, [Angria and the Angrians I(d)], 15 June–25 July 1835: MS p.4, Rutgers [Neufeldt, ii, 390–1].

81.
Ibid., p.8 [Neufeldt, ii, 409–10].

82.
CB to EN, 2 July 1835: MS HM 24410 pp.1–2, Huntington [
LCB
, i, 139–40].

CHAPTER NINE: THE INFERNAL WORLD

Title: Referring to Angria, from CB ‘All this day I have been in a dream [RHJ]', 11 Aug–14 Oct 1836: MS Bon 98(8) p.1, BPM [Glen, 452].

1.
CB to EN, 2July 1835: MS HM 24410 p.3, Huntington [
LCB
, i, 140].

2.
PBB, draft letter to the Secretary for the Royal Academy, [Summer 1835]: MS in 3 fragments, MS Bon 147 pp.1v, 2v, 3v, BPM [
LCB
, i, 140 n.1].

3.
The story was first aired in 1914 by Chadwick, 114. ‘That he went to London is certain, though Mrs Gaskell did not know this; but he soon got through all the money his father had allowed him, giving useless excuses, such as that he had been robbed by a fellow-traveller. The old Vicar saw that Branwell was not to be trusted in London, and he was brought back'. Chadwick offers no authority or source for her information, but this tale, which WG
PBB
, 111 confidently attributed to ‘Haworth folk who still remembered that deplorable return', is the basis for Gérin's long and elaborate account of Branwell's supposedly disastrous trip to London: ibid., 97–111. Gérin also states categorically ‘That he went there, his friends Leyland, Grundy and Searle Phillips and many others later heard directly from him-self' (ibid., 95) but the evidence of Leyland, Grundy and Searle Phillips is, as we shall see, at best second-hand and amounts to no more than that Branwell spent a few days in London. Far from there being ‘many others' who later heard the story from Branwell himself, no one else at all ever corroborated this version of events. Nevertheless, Gérin's account has been accepted unquestioningly by all subsequent biographers.

4.
PBB, draft letter to the Secretary for the Royal Academy, [Summer 1835]: MS in 3fragments, MS Bon 147 pp.1v, 2v, 3v, BPM [
LCB
, i, 140 n.1]. I am grateful to Helen Valentine, Curatorial Assistant of the Royal Academy, for checking its records on my behalf.

5.
CB to EN, 2July 1835: MS HM 24410 p.3, Huntington [
LCB
, i, 139–40]; PB to Mrs Franks, 6 July 1835: MS BS 184 p.1, BPM [
LRPB
, 100]; EN to ECG, 22 Oct 1856: MS n.l. [Shorter,
Charlotte Brontë and her Circle
, 15].

6.
PB to William Robinson, 7Sept 1835: MS BS 185 p.2, BPM [
LRPB
, 102].

7.
PBB and PB to William Robinson, 16 Nov 1835: MS BS 185.5, BPM [JB
BLL
, 33–4].

8.
Leyland, i, 142–3.

9.
Grundy, 80. The heavily annotated Brontë copy of
A Description of London
(London, 1824) is HAOBP: bb35, BPM. An engraving of Westminster Abbey appears between pp.12–13.

10.
January Searle [George Searle Phillips], ‘Branwell Brontë',
The Mirror
, 28 Dec 1872 p.278. Far from being confirmation of Branwell's supposedly disastrous trip to London as WG
PBB
, 95 asserts, this account explicitly makes clear that the visit never happened.

11.
[H?] Woolven to F. A. Leyland, 8Sept 1875: MS E.2008.3, pp.1–2, BPM. Leyland, i, 144–5, 202 cites this letter and Grundy as sources for his account of Branwell's visit to London. Woolven's letter disproves Du Maurier, 51, 119, 121, 132 which identifies Woolven as Branwell's subordinate and a ticket-collector.

12.
BM
, v-xii (1819–22). WG
PBB
, 107 says that
Bell's Sporting Life
was taken by Thomas Sugden at the Black Bull but gives no source for her information. This is contradicted by Binns, who was sent by Branwell to collect it from the Shake Hands public house between Haworth and Oakworth every Sunday: [Benjamin Binns],
BO
, 17 Feb 1894 p.6. Egan began the journal in 1824 under another title and in 1859 it was incorporated into
Sporting Life
. See also Pierce Egan,
Book of Sports
(London, 1832) for accounts of the Castle Tavern and its customers.

13.
PBB to the Editor of
Blackwood's Magazine
, pm 8Dec 1835 and 8April 1836:
MSS 4040 and 4042 p.1, NLS [
L&L
, i, 133–4, 135].

14.
Neufeldt, ii, 424, 443, 454, 479, 495, 496.

15.
Feather,
A Centenary History of the Three Graces Lodge
, 43; MS Masonic Records, in private hands. See below p.285.

16.
PBB, [Angria and the Angrians II (g)], 28 May 1836: MSS in Brotherton [Neufeldt, ii, 533–43, esp. 538]. Du Maurier, 51–2, WG
PBB
, 98–106 and Fraser, 101 all cite the story as autobiography.

17.
Wentworth appears only in the second volume of Branwell's great history of Angria which is dismembered and scattered over numerous locations: PBB, [Angria and the Angrians II], 7 Jan–22 June 1836 [Neufeldt, ii, 454–560, esp.533–60]. It is a measure of the lack of importance Branwell attached to Wentworth that he did not attribute a single poem to him, though he did to less likely figures such as the pragmatic Warner Howard Warner.

18.
PBB, [Angria and the Angrians II (g)], [May 1836]: MS p.1, Brotherton [Neufeldt, ii, 533].

19.
Ibid., pp.1–2[Neufeldt, ii, 538]. Branwell took ‘a half year's farewell of old friend Whisky' and drank ‘whisky-toddy as hot as hell' at Kirkby Lonsdale: PBB to John Brown, [13 Mar 1840]: MS n.l. but see below, p.1052 n.6 [
L&L
, i, 198–9]; two years later he ‘can now speak cheerfully and enjoy the company of another without the stimulus of six glasses of whisky': PBB to Francis Grundy, 22 May 1842: MS n.l. [
L&L
, i, 263]. In what is presumed to be his last letter before his death, Branwell asked Brown to get him 5d. worth of gin: PBB to John Brown, [1848]: MS in Brotherton [
L&L
, i, 124].

20.
PBB, [Angria and the Angrians IV (g)], [Aug 1837]: MS Ashley 187 pp.4r–4v, BL [Neufeldt, iii, 138–9].

21.
PBB, [Angria and the Angrians II (g)], 28 May 1836: MS p.2, Brotherton [Neufeldt, ii, 540ff].

22.
Hastings belonged to the ‘Devil's Own', the 19th Infantry Regiment of Angria; though a loyal supporter of Zamorna in the summer of 1837 he joined Northangerland and the Revolutionists, earning himself proscription as a rebel: PBB, [Angria and the Angrians IV(g)], [Aug]–20 Oct 1837: MSS Ashley 187 pp.5r–5v, BL and MS Bon 149(1) p.2, BPM [Neufeldt, iii, 132ff].

23.
The events after the battle of Loanga are described in a continuous section of ms which is divided among numerous locations: see VN
Bib
, 8–9; Neufeldt, ii, 411–43].