Brontës (89 page)

In Haworth, the parsonage household was being capably run by Emily. Though she had nominal assistance from Tabby Aykroyd, who had returned in Charlotte's absence, the bulk of the work fell on her shoulders. Tabby was too old and lame to be of much practical use, but she was company for Emily while Patrick was busy.
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And busy he certainly was. Since William Weightman's death he had been without a curate, giving added piquancy to the fact that he had to deliver the annual sermon in aid of the Church Pastoral Aid Society himself. A few days later, however, the Reverend James William Smith, MA, arrived in Haworth, taking up his first duties on 12 March 1843.
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Smith was an Irishman who shared the fiery temper and illiberal sentiments of his predecessor, William Hodgson, but added to them an avaricious and unscrupulous temperament. Patrick, though undoubtedly grateful for any assistance, soon found that he had little in common with his new curate and that Mr Smith would be no replacement for William Weightman.

On 14 March Mr Smith was undoubtedly among the many neighbouring clergy who attended the consecration of St John's Church in Keighley, a ceremony performed by the Bishop of Ripon.
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The Reverend William Busfeild had raised £2,000 for the building of this new church, aided by grants from various societies, as part of his aggressive campaign against the Dissenters in his parish. Patrick, meanwhile, put his own declared principles into action by collecting a voluntary subscription towards the upkeep of his church from his congregation, instead of imposing a church rate on the chapelry.
⁵⁸

He was also actively campaigning on wider issues. On 20 May he wrote an anguished letter to the
Leeds Intelligencer
, deploring the attempts to raise rebellion in Ireland and attributing this to the Established Church's loss of precedence there. Famine, poverty and nationalism were combining to produce a potent and explosive situation, culminating in a movement to repeal the 1801 Act of Union. ‘I am no bigot', wrote Patrick,

I am a friend to liberty of conscience and political liberty; but I am an open and avowed enemy to hypocrisy, false zeal, revolutionary principles, and all those
motives and movements which can have for their end only what is doubtful, or extremely exceptionable and bad.
⁵⁹

A month later he expanded his views in a letter ‘on the ominous and dangerous vagaries of the times' to the
Halifax Guardian
, apparently in response to a personal request from the editor.

The insane, but fearful project of the repeal of the Union, in the Emerald Isle, the sensitive, senseless and serious secession from the Kirk of Scotia, the selfish corn-law agitation in Albion, and the Rebecca movement in Wales, are all of the same family, where the father is the prince of the power of the air, and the different members, his willing agents …

Notwithstanding the nineteenth century's advances in science, true religion and sound principles were in decline. All the present agitation, he declared, was the result of ‘a restless disposition for change, an untoward ambition, a recklessness of consequences, and a struggle for power and predominance'. In these dangerous times, he urged, it was the duty of Christians ‘of every denomination' to ‘agree to differ' and work together.
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Patrick's fears about the political instability of the realm, particularly in Ireland, intensified as the year progressed. By November he was convinced that civil war was imminent in his homeland and wrote for the first time in many years to his brother, Hugh Brontë, at Ballinaskeagh. The letter reveals just how seriously he regarded the Catholic threat, even to the point of considering that forceful resistance would be legitimate.

Dear Brother,

I wish to know, how you are all doing, in these turbulent times, As I learn from the Newspapers, Ireland, is at present, in a very precarious situation, and circumstances there must, I should think – lead to civil war – Which, in its consequences, is the worst of all wars – I hope, that the Protestants, of all denominations, are, by arming themselves, and laying down, proper plans, of orginazation, duly, on their guard –. Otherwise, they may be taken by surprize, and murder'd by their insidious, and malignant enemies – As the Army cannot be every where. All the protestants in Ireland, ought to remember, what a few determined men, did at the seige of Derry – But, whatever, in these cases, be done, should be in strict accordance with the Laws – If all the Protestants in Ireland, were rightly armed and organized, they need not – owing to their good
cause, and their superior intellects, and wealth, fear their opponents – Should the Romanists gain their ends, they will destroy, and utterly exterminate, both
Churchmen
,
and
Dissenters
– and, I hope, that both Dissenters, and Churchmen, see this, and will act, accordingly. I like not war, but Christ has said, in reference to a case of necessity, like this, ‘let him who has no sword, sell his Garments and buy one.' –

Yet, whilst I say these things, I would admonish you, and all my Brothers, and Friends, not to be rash, and neither to break the Laws of God, or Man – And I would say, let prudence, and justice, be joined to courage – and due precaution –
⁶¹

One can understand Charlotte's insistence that Emily should not tell Patrick of her ‘freak' Catholic confession in Brussels.

Other subjects also preoccupied Patrick during the summer months. On the morning of 1 July 1843, Colonel David Fawcett was shot dead by Lieutenant Alexander Munro in a duel at Camden Town. The sheer waste of life in pursuit of‘Honour, [which] understood in this sense, is a mere ignis fatuis', prompted Patrick to write to the
Leeds Mercury
. In his denunciation of duelling on both scriptural and practical grounds, Patrick revealed his own interest in the subject.

I remember, that once when in London, and at another time when in Brussels, I heard professed duellists speak on the subject, in which their hands were stained with blood. From what I could gather, I should say that their minds were ill at ease, and that some of them would have given up all pretensions to their false notions of honour, in order to have restored the dead to life.
⁶²

In this letter and another on the same subject to the
Leeds Intelligencer
a couple of months later, Patrick recommended that an Act of Parliament should be passed which would make it an offence punishable by transportation for life to give or accept a challenge.
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Another subject close to his heart was national education. He was swift to condemn the Dissenters whose opposition to and defeat of a parliamentary bill had deprived the manufacturing districts of a centralized and standardized education system. Their arguments, he complained to the
Leeds Intelligencer
, were all

utterly inconclusive, and … dictated by party spirit, or sectarian prejudice.
Divested of all the rhetorical flourishes and sophistry … the naked truth only amounted to this, – the Church of England must be thwarted
⁶⁴

Even if national education could not be achieved, Patrick fought hard to improve schooling in his locality. He was a founder member of the Bradford Church Institution which was set up in July 1843 to encourage the building of Anglican schools.
⁶⁵
On 4 August, he wrote an impassioned letter to the National Society, seeking a grant towards a new school in Haworth and painting a grim picture of the state of education in the township.

I have resided in Yorkshire, above 30 years, and have preached, and visited in different parishes – I have also been in Lancashire, and from my reading, personal observation, and experience, I do not hesitate to say, that the populace in general, are either ignorant or wicked, and in most cases, where they have a little learning, it is either of a skismatical, vainly philosophical, or treacherously political nature. Some exceptions, no doubt, there are, but they are few, and far between. – I live in the midst of these delusions, and though Mr Smith, my able and faithful Clerical Coadjutor, in Godly zeal, and the genuine spirit of Christianity heartily joins with me, in all our Apostolical labours of love, we have more, far more, than enough to do.
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Patrick also enlisted the support of the vicar of Bradford in his campaign. Towards the end of October, Dr Scoresby, himself an enthusiastic promoter of education, visited Haworth to view potential sites for building as speedily ‘as possible' a new church day schoolroom and schoolhouse.
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On 2 January 1844, a new National School was officially opened in Haworth under the auspices of the church. The master was Ebenezer Rand, who had been trained at the National Society's Central School in London; the problem of providing a mistress for the girls was later solved by the appointment of his wife. For a nominal fee of two pence per week, irrespective of age or proficiency, the pupils were taught everything from the three ‘Rs' to singing and had their books, slates and pencils provided free of charge. Special evening classes were also held for the factory children who could not attend school during the day. The benefits of the scheme were recognized immediately and, within a month of opening, the school already had 170 pupils.
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Its continued success was not assured, however, as the National Society only donated fifty pounds towards the first year's salary of Mr Rand and the fees were not enough to cover the shortfall. At the end of January Patrick was compelled
to write round to all the principal inhabitants of Haworth, urging them to make a liberal donation to ensure the school's survival.
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Later in the year he was able to report with satisfaction to the National Society that the school had brought immediate benefits to the local children.

The little creatures also find that the way to wisdom, is the road to pleasure, and go on in their work for the acquisition of knowledge, with alacrity and delight. This is, I conceive, as it ought to be, for ‘wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace'.
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The establishing of the National School obviously owed at least something to the vicar of Bradford's interest in education and his earlier visit to Haworth. His intervention on another educational matter caused Patrick some personal anguish and great controversy in the township. For more than six years, the Free Grammar School near Oxenhope had been run by a Mr Ramsbottom, a local Wesleyan Methodist preacher, though the seventeenth-century foundation required that the master should be a graduate of Oxford or Cambridge – a condition which effectively excluded all Dissenters. On 4 January, Dr Scoresby wrote to Patrick pointing out this irregularity and suggesting that he should call a meeting of the trustees to dismiss Ramsbottom and appoint ‘a proper master' with his assistance. The letter was offensively phrased, implying that Patrick, as the supervising clergyman, and the trustees had been culpably negligent in their duties, lecturing them on ‘the course which is plainly their duty to pursue' and threatening them with an application to the Lord Chancellor if they failed to carry out his ‘suggestions'. The trustees had little option but to give the present master notice to quit at midsummer,
⁷¹
but the Dissenters responded by attacking Patrick. The
Bradford Observer
carried a sarcastic little report that Patrick had announced in his sermon that he would no longer perform the burial service over anyone not baptized into the Church of England. This was a malicious distortion of the truth, as Patrick was quick to point out in a letter the following week. His refusal to bury the unbaptized was not aimed at Dissenters but at his own parishioners who fulfilled their secular duty in registering their children's births with the district registrar but failed in their divine duty to have the religious rite performed.
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As if he had not enough to do, Patrick also wrote to the papers on a matter which had always been a personal obsession of his – the dangers of fire. Prompted by the recent condemnation of the Hindu practice of suttee,
or widow-burning, he wrote to point out that parental negligence frequently led to children being burnt to death. In particular, he drew attention to the fact that linen and cotton clothing was especially inflammable and recommended that children and women (who, with their long skirts, were also vulnerable) should be encouraged to wear silk or woollen clothing. As a graphic illustration of his argument he explained that in his twenty years at Haworth he had buried between ninety and a hundred children who were burnt to death after their clothes caught fire.
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Charlotte was shocked on her return to Haworth at the beginning of 1844 to discover that, despite his activity, her father's health had deteriorated rapidly in her absence. He was now sixty-six years of age: his eyesight was failing rapidly and he had to face the prospect that he might soon go blind. Various schemes to reduce his duties to a more manageable level by dividing his chapelry into two or even three separate districts had all come to nothing and he was increasingly obliged to rely on his curate, James Smith, and old friends, such as Thomas Brooksbank Charnock and Thomas Crowther, for assistance.
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Ill-natured gossip in the village did nothing to improve his plight: the lotion he was using on his eyes seems to have been alcohol-based, giving rise to more rumours that the parson had taken to drink. Patrick was so distressed by the slander that he even considered prosecuting those responsible.
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The fact that Charlotte had been unaware of her father's difficulties was an additional burden of guilt to shoulder with those of her raw emotions concerning Monsieur Heger and her sense of failure. Writing at the end of January to Ellen Nussey, who was on a visit to her brother Henry at Earnley, she was full of gloom.