System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Anne Brontė, Writer
January 17, 1820 - May 28, 1849
Anne Brontė was born on January 17th, 1820, at Thornton, Yorkshire. Anne was the youngest of the six children of Patrick and his wife Maria Branwell Brontė. Her siblings, by age, were Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Branwell, and Emily Jane. Patrick Brontė was the curate of Thornton. Given the size of the family, Patrick actively sought a better clerical appointment. After much difficulty, he was appointed to the perpetual curacy of Haworth. The Brontė family moved to the parsonage there in April, 1820.
Anne was barely a year old when her mother became ill of what is believed to have been uterine cancer. The children were looked after by their nursemaid, Sarah and her sister Nancy Gars. Patrick Brontė dedicated himself to nursing his beloved wife, while still fulfilling his clerical duties in the new parish. It was a grueling load, one that became nearly unbearable when all six children caught scarlet fever, itself potentially fatal. The children recovered, and help arrived in the form of Maria's sister, Elizabeth Branwell. After months of physical agony and distress over the future of Patrick and their children, Maria Branwell Brontė died on September 15th, 1821. She was buried September 22nd in Haworth Church.
Patrick was deeply concerned for his family and felt that his children needed a mother. During the next two years, Patrick made several rather desperate attempts to find a second wife. Failing, he began looking for a good school, which would offer his children a good education and a chance to become independent. Crofton Hall, and later the Clergy Daughter's School, seemed good choices. Between July 21st, 1824, and November 25th, Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily were sent to school.
In May, 1825, both Maria and Elizabeth died; Charlotte and Emily were immediately brought home. Faced with this disastrous outcome, Patrick could not face sending them away again, and Elizabeth Branwell agreed to stay. Thus, she was a surrogate mother to Anne throughout her childhood. Anne slept with Aunt Branwell, not with Charlotte and Emily. She and her aunt were particularly close, and this loving adult role model may have strongly influenced Anne's personality and religious beliefs. The tragic deaths that had such an impact on the other children had less effect on Anne, who was too young to remember her mother, or much about her two eldest sisters.
The four remaining children banded together; as elders Charlotte and Branwell joined forces and tended to somewhat ignore "the babies" Emily and Anne. In the upstairs of the parsonage, were two bedrooms and a third room, scarcely bigger than a closet, in which the sisters played their games. The front door opened almost directly on to the churchyard. Inspired by a box of 12 wooden soldiers, the children wove tales and legends associated with remote Africa. With these tales the children broke the monotonous daily routines, like they later poured their joys and disappointment in their novels. Emily and Anne created their own Gondal saga, and Charlotte and Branwell recorded their stories in minute notebooks. The closeness of Emily and Annes relationship was reinforced by Charlotte's departure for Roe Head School, in January 1831. When Charlotte's friend Ellen Nussey visited Haworth in 1833, she reported that Emily and Anne were "like twins", "inseparable companions".
Anne's studies at home included music, which she always enjoyed, and drawing. Later, she began more formal studies at Roe Head School. Charlotte returned there on July 29th, 1835 as a teacher. Emily accompanied her as a pupil; her tuition largely financed by Charlotte's teaching. Emily was unable to adapt to life at school, and by October, was physically ill from homesickness. Anne returned to Roe Head in Emily's place. At fifteen, it was Anne's first time away from home. Her later poems express a deep attachment to her home, and she made few friends at Roe Head, so there is no reason to suppose that she was less homesick there than her sisters. However, her response to the same environment was totally different. She was quiet and hard-working, and more importantly, determined to stay and get the education that would allow her to support herself. Anne was certainly aware that Charlotte and others were making sacrifices to give her the opportunity to do so. She stayed for two years, winning a good-conduct medal in December 1836, and returning home only during Christmas and the summer holidays.
In 1839 Anne worked for a short period as a governess to the Inghams at Blake Hall and later in same position to the Robinsons at Thorpe Green Hall near York from 1840 to 1845. Her brother Branwell joined her there as a tutor to Edmund, the only boy in the family, in 1843. He fell unfortunately in love for Mrs Robinson - or some other reason annoyed their employers - and Anne had to leave the work. Thorpe Green appeared later as Horton Lodge in her novel Agnes Grey. This sacking was a heavy blow to Anne's ambitions. She had enjoyed her life outside Haworth and she had a good reason to feel disappointed and bitter. Branwell drank himself into physical decline and died suddenly in September 1848 - in the same year also appeared Anne's novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, in which one of the central characters, Arthur Huntingdon, is an alcoholic.
In 1846 Anne Brontė published with her sisters a collection of poems, POEMS BY CURRER, ELLIS AND ACTON BELL. Her first novel, Agnes Grey, a story about the life of a governess, appeared in 1847. It was based on Anne's recollections of her experience with the children of the Ingham family and the Robinson family. The novel did not gain similar success as Emily's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte's Jane Eyre. Her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was published in 1848 in three volumes and sold well.
Anne Brontė fell ill with tuberculosis after the appearance of the book. She died on May 28, 1849 at Scarborough, where she was buried. The other sisters were buried at Haworth. On the headstone of Anne's grave the age shown is incorrect - she wasn't 28 when she died but 29.
