At Haworth, Maria Branwell Brontë grew steadily weaker from an illness caused by rapid childbearing she was said to have cancer, but more recently gynaecologists have suggested chronic pelvic sepsis together with increasing anaemia as more likely ( Transactions of the Brontë Society, 16, 1972, 2.102). Her strongest loyalty throughout life was to her father, although she grew to disagree with some of his religious and political views.Ĭharlotte regretted that she knew so little of her mother, the small sprightly woman who had called her future husband ' my dear saucy Pat' ( Wise and Symington, 1.20), and who had not only delighted in the romantic tales of the Lady's Magazine but had also written an essay for publication entitled 'The advantages of poverty in religious concerns'. His liberal Wordsworthian attitude towards education, his enlightened toryism, his passion for politics and military campaigns, his enthusiasm for the duke of Wellington, and love of poetry and the classics are all reflected in Charlotte's juvenilia. He encouraged his children to explore the moors and to take an interest in natural history, habits which provided them with a deep love of nature and a sense of personal freedom. An eccentric and something of a hypochondriac, Patrick Brontë was not the irascible, neglectful father of Brontë legend. Intent on upward mobility, Charlotte's father had evinced remarkable cleverness and determination in educating himself, studying for a degree at St John's College, Cambridge, and patiently making a career as an evangelical Anglican. On 20 April 1820 the Brontë family moved to the bleak moorland village of Haworth, where Patrick Brontë was appointed perpetual curate, a rapid rise for a man who had been born in an Irish crofter's cottage.

Charlotte bronte 1849