Brontës (181 page)

38.
Towlson,
Woodhouse Grove School, 1812–1962
, 19, 23; Slugg, 77, 183; Firth, 1812–13.

39.
CB,
Jane Eyre
, 46, 51–2.

40.
ECG, Note to Third Edition of
Life
[CB,
Jane Eyre
, Clarendon Edn, 620]; ‘Clericus' to ABN, July 1857: MS p.3in private hands.

41.
Ibid., p.2. When Nicholls quoted this letter in ABN,
HG
, 8July 1857 p.3, another former pupil, Sarah Baldwin, replied identifying the sisters as daughters of the vicar of
Olney and quoted one of them, ‘E', as authority for the fact that after this unfor-tunate incident Wilson allowed her bread and milk for breakfast:
HG
, 1 Aug 1857 p.6. From the CDSAR it is possible to identify them as Elizabeth and Maria, daughters of the Revd Henry Gauntlett, a former curate of Wellington, Shropshire and, since 1814, vicar of Olney. They were admitted to the school on 4 February 1826, aged 15 and 13 respectively, and both left on 21 June 1830. Elizabeth, the ‘E' of Baldwin's letter, became a private governess and Maria, the wife of ‘Clericus', a teacher in a Manchester school: CDSAR nos. 81 and 82.

42.
‘A.H.',
Littell's Living Age
, 15 Sept 1855 [
BST
:16:83:210]. Though ‘A.H.' is frequently mistaken for Miss Evans, she was in fact Miss Andrews, a teacher who was temporarily superintendent until the appointment of Miss Evans. Nicholls and Gaskell identified her as the ‘Miss Scatcherd' of
Jane Eyre
. She later married a Mr Hill and emigrated to the US. Though she does not appear to have recognized her own portrait in
Jane Eyre
, her son did and was furious. Miss Evans who, like her fictional character Miss Temple, left the school in 1826 to marry the Revd J. Connor of Melton Mowbray, died just before the publication of ECG,
Life
: Brett Harrison, ‘The Real “Miss Temple”‘,
BST
:16:85:361–4; Tom Winnifrith, ‘Miss Scatcherd's Identity':
BST
:16:85:364; ECG to GS, [mid Aug 1857] [C&P, 465].

43.
ABN,
LI
, 23 May 1857 p.7.

44.
‘CMR' to ABN, 26 May 1857: MS pp.1–3 in private hands. These sections of this letter were quoted, with her permission, in Nicholls's letter of 29 May 1857, which was published in
LM
, 2 June 1857 p.1;
LI
, 6 June 1857 p.10 and
HG
, 6June 1857 p.7. The boys at Woodhouse Grove refused to eat for 3days after their cook was seen using the porridge ladle in the swill tub: Towlson,
Woodhouse Grove School, 1812–1962
, 23–5.

45.
‘A.H.',
Littell's Living Age
, 15 Sept 1855 [
BST
:16:83:210].

46.
Slugg, 160. This was still better than the Bowes school where the boys had meat 3times a week, with cakes made of water, meal and potatoes the other days; for tea on Sundays they got ‘the skimming of the pot' which was usually full of maggots:
LI
, 6Nov 1823 p.3.

47.
Sarah Bicker died at school on 29 September 1826: CDSAR no.3. Her 11 contemporaries who left in ill-health, 6to die shortly afterwards, were (with date of departure and any marginal comment): no.2Hannah Bicker, 24 June 1827 (died 1828 ‘of a consumption'); no.8 Mary Chester, 18 Feb 1825 (left in ill-health, died 26 Apr 1825); no.17 Maria Bronté, 14 Feb 1825 (left in ill-health, died 8May 1825 ‘Decline'); no.18 Elizabeth Bronté, 31 May 1825 (left in ill-health, died 15 June 1825 ‘in decline'); no.19 Elizabeth Robinson, 1Mar 1825 (left in ill-health, died 29 Apr 1825 ‘in a decline'); no.22 Isabella Whaley, 2Apr 1825 (left ‘in good health', died 23 Apr 1825 ‘Typhus Fever'); no.32 Jane Lowry, 3Sept 1825 (left in ill-health); no.39 Ann Dockeray, 8June 1825 (left ‘with bad legs'); no.45 Mary Eleanor Lowther, 27 Jan 1825 (left in ill-health ‘which incapacitated her for study'); no.50 Charlotte Banks, 19 May 1825 (left ‘in a spinal case'); no.53 Jane Allanson, 30 May 1825 (‘went home ill'). The 20 who left Jan–Sept 1825 were, in order of their departure: no.45 Mary Lowther, 27 Jan (ill-health); no.17 Maria Bronté, 14 Feb (ill-health; died 8May); no.8Mary Chester, 18 Feb (ill-health; died 26 Apr); no.19 Elizabeth Robinson, 1Mar (ill-health; died 29 Apr); no. 21 Ann Whaley, 2Apr; no.22 Isabella Whaley, 2Apr (died of typhus 23 Apr); [no.23 Phebe Whaley, [2Apr]: see below]; no.50 Charlotte Banks, 19 May (ill-health); no.46 Clara Parker, 30 May; no.53 Jane Allanson, 30 May (ill-health); no.18 Elizabeth Bronté, 31 May (ill-health; died 15 June); no.30 Charlotte Bronté, 1June; no.44 Emily Bronté, 1June; no.24 Jane Abbot, 8June; no.39 Ann Dockeray, 8June (ill-health); no.34 Eliza Grover, 13 June; no.35 Harriet Grover, 13 June; no.31 Eliza Goodacre, 14 June; no.32 Jane Lowry, 3Sept (ill-health); no.33 Mary Lowry, 3Sept. The Whaley sisters appar-ently left school on 2April, though in both Ann and Isabella's cases this has been crudely altered from 22 April, the confusion arising perhaps from the fact that Isabella died on 23 April. Though no date at all is given for Phebe's removal I have assumed she left on the same day as her sisters.

48.
According to the register, 2girls died at the school: CDSAR no.79 Mary Tate, 14 Aug 1829 (‘Died of the Typhus Fever') and no.177 Emma Tinsley, 6June 1831 (‘in a sure and certain hope of a better resurrection complaint consumption'). Another girl, no.83 Mary Anna Clarke, died of ‘a consumption' on 11 June 1829 and as there is no note of her being sent home, she may also have died at school. Her sister, no.84 Anne,
was
sent home the day before Mary died.
The names of the 15 others who left in ill-health are: no.94 Frances Iron, 15 Nov 1826; no.92 Anne King, 27 Dec 1826; no.103 Harriet Iron, 1827; no.114 Martha Meadowcroft, 18 June 1828; no.131 Mary Allen, 17 Jan 1829; no.130 Maria Forshaw, 26 Sept 1829 (died 10 Oct); no.110 Thomasin Adin, 5 June 1830 (died 24 June ‘consumption'); no.135 Mary Anne Hannaford, 8 June 1830 (died 26 June); [no.121 Rebecca Kenney, 22 June 1830 (‘Home since dead')]; [no.124 Mary Anne Kenney, 22 June 1830 (‘Home since dead')]; no.238 Maria Overend, July 1830 (died 27 July); no.134 Jane Mason, 16 Oct 1830; no.146 Harriet Williams, 10 May 1831; no.176 Margaret Jones, 10 May 1831 (‘Went home very ill and died'); no.99 Mary Hitch, 19 Nov 1831 (died in Dec ‘consumption'). The two Kenney sisters are not noted as having been sent home in ill-health so their subsequent deaths may have been unrelated to the school, particularly as no date of death is recorded. Incidentally, the register's evidence suggests that W.W.C. Wilson was casuistical, at the very least, in his claim that ‘For the whole 35 years the school has been in existence there have been but two attacks of fever, which carried off but six pupils': W.W.C. Wilson,
HG
, 18 July 1857 p.3.

49.
Pritchard,
The Story of Woodhouse Grove School
, 118, 123; Geoffrey Sale,
The History of Casterton School
(Kirkby Lonsdale, 1983), 18, 30.

50.
ECG,
Life
, 147–8says that the Brontës were later grateful to Aunt Branwell for enforcing habits of order, method and neatness upon them in childhood which eventually became second nature: ‘with their impulsive natures it was positive repose to have learnt implicit obedience to external laws.'

51.
CDSAR nos. 17 and 18; ‘A.H.',
Littell's Living Age
, 15 Sept 1855 [
BST
:16:83:209]. Andrews said that they had both recently recovered from whooping cough and measles but CDSAR only noted that they had both had whooping cough and scarlet fever. All the children had scarlet fever when their mother was dying: see above, p.119.

52.
CDSAR, nos. 17 and 18.

53.
See, for example, those for daughters of two of Patrick's friends: Margaret Plummer, aged 14, ‘Reads very badly – Writes badly – Ciphers very little – Works pretty well – Knows nothing of Grammar, Geography, History, French, Music or Drawing'; her sister, Mary, who entered the school in 1828 aged 15 ‘Reads, spells, & writes very badly – works badly – Knows nothing else'; similarly, 10–year-old Harriet Jenkins ‘Reads badly – Writes none – Ciphers none – Works but little – Knows nothing of Grammar, Geography, History or Accomplishments': ibid., nos. 9, 14 and 132.

54.
‘A.H.',
Littell's Living Age
, 15 Sept 1855 [
BST
:16:83:209]; CDSAR, nos 17 and 18; Ledger of the Clergy Daughters' School, 26 Jan 1825: MS WDS/38/1 p.13, CRO, Kendal; PB to ECG, 20 June 1855: MS EL B121 p.4, Rylands [
LRPB
, 234].

55.
CDSAR no. 9 and 14. Thomas Plummer had officiated at baptisms and burials in May 1819 after Charnock's death and as recently as 23 May 1824 had baptized 3 chil-dren for Patrick: Baptisms, Haworth; Burials, Haworth; he is listed as headmaster of the Free Grammar School in Keighley in Pigot & Co.'s
National Commercial Directory
(1828–9), 989. Maria gave a ‘small needlework' to ‘my cousin Margaret' when they were both at ‘Casterton' (the later name of the Clergy Daughters' School), according to Miss Dixon to Mr Butler Wood, 21 Oct 1895: MS DB 28/23, WYAS, Bradford. Margaret Plummer is the only pupil with that forename in CDSAR. The present is described as a needlecase in F.C. Galloway,
A Descriptive Catalogue of Objects in the Museum of the Brontë Society at Haworth
(Bradford, 1896), 27.

56.
CDSAR no. 30; ‘A.H.',
Littell's Living Age
, 15 Sept 1855 [
BST
:16:83:209]; ‘My father and mother called to see them at school at
Casterton
[see above n.55] on their wedding tour Sept 1824 and in my mother's account book at that time is entered 3Miss Brontes 2/6 [2s. 6d.] each': Elizabeth Franks note, n.d.: MS 58 C.i, University of Sheffield.

57.
[Report of the] School for Clergymen's Daughters
, 5. Five weeks in the summer was standard for boarding schools as parents could not afford to bring their children long distances home more than once a year: even then, as at Cowan Bridge, some had to be left at school throughout the annual holiday, for which they were charged a guinea: Ibid., 5; Slugg, 125. The overlooking of the quarterly letter home was also standard practice: ibid., 168.

58.
CDSAR, no.30.

59.
CB to WSW, 5Nov 1849: MS n.l. [
LCB
, ii, 279]; ‘A.H.',
Littell's Living Age
, 15 Sept 1855 [
BST
:16:83:210].

60.
Ibid., 209. Andrews had, of course, the benefit of hindsight and a desire to clear the school of any suggestion of mistreatment of its most famous pupil.

61.
LM
, 4 Sept 1824 p.3.

62.
PB,
A Sermon Preached in the Church of Haworth
…
in Reference to an Earthquake
(Bradford, T. Inkersley, 1824), 5–6[
Brontëana
, 211–12].

63.
Mrs H. Rhodes to J.A. Erskine Stuart, [1887]: MS BS xi, 49 pp.1–2, BPM.

64.
LM
, 11 Sept 1824 p.3.

65.
PB,
A Sermon Preached in the Church of Haworth
…
in Reference to an Earthquake
, 11 [
Brontëana
, 215].

66.
LI
, 9 Sept 1824 p.2 and
LM
, 11 Sept 1824 p.3, both quoting letters received from Patrick.

67.
Ibid.

68.
Ibid.;
LI
, 22 Sept 1824 p.3 more conservatively, and probably more accurately, says that 200 horses passed through the Stanbury toll-bar on their way to Crow Hill on 12 September.

69.
PB,
LM
, 18 Sept 1824 p.4. Patrick also wrote on 13 September to the
Leeds Intelligencer
on the same lines but suggesting that the land at Crow Hill was continuing to sink and the cavity was now nearly a mile across: PB,
LI
, 16 Sept 1824 p.3[
LRPB
, 52–4].
LRPB
omits Patrick's other published letters on this subject.

70.
PB,
A Sermon Preached in the Church of Haworth
…
in Reference to an Earthquake
, 5, 15 [
Brontëana
, 211, 218].

71.
‘JPJ',
Liverpool Mercury
, reprinted in the
Westmoreland Advertiser & Kendal Chronicle
, 25 Sept 1824 p.4. The latter had also reprinted on 11 Sept 1824 Patrick's original account from
LI
, 9Sept 1824 p.2. As it was the local paper for Cowan Bridge, one wonders whether Wilson saw it and used it as an ‘improving example' to the girls in the school.

72.
Inkersley had printed Patrick's
The Cottage in the Wood
and
The Maid of Killarney
, Buckworth's
Cottage Magazine
, Morgan's
Pastoral Visitor
and Fennell's
A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of the Rev. John Crosse
. A story that the young Charlotte accompanied Patrick to Inkersley's and corrected his proofs while he talked politics with the printer is apocryphal as she was then away at school: Scruton, 66–7.

73.
PB,
The Phenomenon, or, An Account in Verse, of the Extraordinary Disruption of a Bog
(Bradford, T. Inkersley, 1824), 12 [
Brontëana
, 208]. Patrick's benevolent view of divine judgement contrasts sharply with Wilson's terrible and terrifying doctrine: both were writing for children yet the difference in emphasis is almost irreconcilable. See below, p.158 for one of Wilson's stories.

74.
EJB, ‘High waving heather, 'neath stormy blasts bending', MS Bon 127 p.18, BPM [JB
SP
, 42, 120–1].

75.
PB to Mr Mariner, 10 Nov 1824: MS n.l. [
LRPB
, 54].

76.
[Nancy Garrs],
IllustratedWeeklyTelegraph
, 10 Jan 1885 p.1.

77.
Herbert, ‘Charlotte Brontë: Pleasant Interview with the Old French Governess of This Famous Author': special correspondence to ‘The Post': typescript of original cutting from scrapbook of Mary Stull, a descendant of Sarah Garrs. BPM; the locks of hair, mounted on a board, are HAOBP:J81, BPM. Mrs Brontë's is dark brown with a tinge of auburn, Branwell's distinctly ginger and Patrick's, added in 1861, is white.