2 (p. 53) certain sum was raised annually in subscription: Subscribers to the school included such prominent Evangelicals as moralist Hannah More and abolitionist William Wilberforce.
3 (p. 59) Miss Temple, the superintendent: Miss Ann Evans (1792-1856) was superintendent of the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. Evans died before the publication of the Life, but her husband and a Miss Andrews, who was the model for Miss Scatcherd in Jane Eyre (1847), came to the defense of William Carus Wilson, who ran the school (see note 1, above).
4 (p. 59) after Maria’s and Elizabeth’s deaths: Charlotte and Emily in fact did not return to the school after their sisters’ deaths. According to school records, they withdrew on June 1, 1825.
CHAPTER V
1 (p. 64) Tabby: Tabitha Aykroyd (the name had various spellings) served the Brontës from her mid-fifties until her death in 1855. For Gaskell, and perhaps for Brontë as well, she embodied England’s folkloric past and Yorkshire superstition. Bessie in Jane Eyre and Martha in Shirley share some of Tabby’s qualities. Aykroyd was a Methodist and a class leader at her chapel.
2 (p. 69) “We then chose who should be chief men in our islands”: The Brontë children’s choice of heroes evidences their Toryism and the degree to which the periodicals their father received informed their worldview. Branwell selects the fictional John Bull, Englishness personified, and the poet Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). Emily chooses literary men: novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), and John Gibson Lockhart (1794—1854), contributor to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and later editor of the Quarterly Review. Charlotte picks the Duke of Wellington (see note 3, below), and Christopher North, the fictional persona adopted by John Wilson, editor of Blackwood’s. Anne chooses Lord William Bentinck, the governor-general of Bengal who abolished suttee (self-cremation of a Hindu widow on the funeral pyre of her husband as a mark of her devotion to him). With the exception of Emily, they each choose an eminent physician as well.
3 (p. 69) “Wellington and two sons”: Charlotte’s lifelong hero was Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), the Irish-born career soldier and Tory politician who was made duke of Wellington for his victories over Napoleon, which included the decisive Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Wellington later served as prime minister (1828-1830). The Marquis of Douro and Lord Charles Wellesley (Brontë’s favored persona in her younger years) were Wellington’s two sons.
4 (p. 70) Blackwood’s Magazine: The Leeds Intelligencer (founded 1754) and the Leeds Mercury (founded 1718) were regional newspapers. The character John Bull appeared in a series of satirical Tory pamphlets (1712). Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (founded 1817) was a monthly magazine with a Tory bent that covered literary and political issues.
5 (p. 71) “Friendship’s Offering for 1829”: The reference is to an annual miscellany of poetry, prose, and engravings published by Smith, Elder and Company, later to be Brontë’s publisher.
6 (p. 72) ”the great Catholic question”: The Catholic Emancipation Act (1829), the culmination of a series of laws passed beginning in the eighteenth century, lifted most civil restrictions imposed on Catholics and allowed them to stand for Parliament.
CHAPTER VI
1 (p. 78) Miss Woolers, who lived at Roe Head: The four Wooler sisters ran the school Charlotte Brontë and her sisters attended at Roe Head. Charlotte was subsequently employed as a teacher there. The school relocated to Dewsbury Moor in 1837. Margaret Wooler became a lasting friend of Charlotte’s.
2 (p. 81) E.’s home was five miles away: Ellen Nussey (1817-1897), Brontë’s closest friend, lived at Brookroyd House, Birstall, Yorkshire. Some suggest that the Brontë—Nussey correspondence, which forms the basis for much of the Life, results in a one-dimensional portrait of Brontë, who notably did not discuss her literary affairs with Nussey. See the Introduction for a more detailed account of their relationship.
3 (p. 81) (The Rose and Jessie Yorke of “Shirley”): Mary (1817-1893) and Martha (1819-1842) Taylor. The Taylors lived in Gomersal and later at Hunsworth, both in Yorkshire. Brontë met them at Roe Head; they later attended school at the same time in Brussels, where Martha died. Mary was independent and outspoken, and she championed women’s rights. Dismayed by the employment opportunities available to women in England, Mary emigrated to New Zealand in 1845. She destroyed all of Brontë’s letters but the one describing her first visit to the offices of Smith, Elder and Company.
4 (p. 83) “She knew the names of the two ministries... the Reform Bill”: The Reform Bill of 1832 extended enfranchisement by lowering property qualifications for voters and redistributing parliamentary seats from rural areas (known as “rotten” or “pocket” boroughs) controlled by the gentry, to heavily populated urban areas that had previously been underrepresented.
5 (p. 84) ‘Frazer’s Magazine’: A Tory periodical founded in 1830, Fraser’s Magazine was a rival to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.
6 (p. 88) burning of Cartwright’s Milclass="underline" In April 1812 more than one hundred Luddites attacked William Cartwright’s mill in Huddersfield, not far from Haworth. Cartwright defended his property with the aid of a few soldiers. Two Luddites were killed. Several weeks later the Luddites murdered local mill owner William Horsfall. Brontë dramatized this incident in Shirley.
7 (p. 89) Mr. Roberson, of Heald’s Halclass="underline" Reverend Hammond Roberson (1757-1841) functions almost as a foil for Patrick Brontë, who, though a Tory, was far more tolerant and less doctrinaire in his allegiances than Roberson was. Although Brontë supported the mill owners in the conflict with the Luddites, in other disputes he supported the workers.
CHAPTER VII
1 (pp. 96-97) “J‘arrivait d Haworth... elles auront ce plaisir”: “I arrived at Haworth in perfect safety without the slightest accident or misfortune. My little sisters ran out of the house to meet me as soon as the carriage could be seen, and they embraced me with as much eagerness and pleasure as if I had been away for more than a year. My Papa, my aunt, and the gentleman of whom my brother had spoken, were all assembled in the parlor, and in a little while I went in as well. It is often Heaven’s order that when one loses a pleasure there is another ready to take its place. Just so, I had to leave very dear friends, but I returned to a family as dear and beloved. Likewise, as you were losing me (dare I believe that my departure caused you pain?) you awaited the arrival of your brother and sister. I gave my sisters the apples you kindly sent them; they said that they are certain Miss E. is very amiable and good; all are extremely impatient to see you; I hope that in very few months time they will have that pleasure” (translated by Anne Taranto) .
2 (p. 97) Wordsworth’s and Southey’s poems: Robert Southey (1774-1843) was poet laureate from 1813 until his death. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was considered the founder, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), of the Romantic movement in poetry; Wordsworth became poet laureate upon Southey’s death.