The Bronte Parsonage Museum

The lucky visitors were Mr. & Mrs. Derek Stringer from Bowness-on-Windermere who were visiting Haworth to take in the atmospheric home of the talented Brontë family whose novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights won them international acclaim.

Alan Bentley, Brontë Parsonage Museum Director, surprised the couple with a bag containing a selection of Brontë gifts, including a collection of the Brontë novels.  The couple also received a year’s free membership to the Brontë Society and were invited to be guests of honour at an open day at the Museum on Saturday 29 July 2006.

The Parsonage Museum has enjoyed buoyant visitor figures over the years with the highest visitor figures of 221,000 recorded in 1974. This figure was attributed at the time to the popularity of a TV mini series, The Brontes of Haworth, and the recent success of the Wuthering Heights film staring Timothy Dalton.  Soon after, it was decided that the large numbers of visitors were damaging the 200 year old building and steps were taken to control visitor numbers more effectively to preserve the building for future generations

Alan Bentley said “to celebrate the 7th millionth visitor is a real honour for the Parsonage Museum.  Although there have been many additions and alterations to the Museum since 1928, it remains a place of pilgrimage for thousands of UK and overseas visitors.  Our aim at the Parsonage is to extend a warm welcome to all and to provide an authentic interpretation of what life was like for the Brontës in the 1800s”.

A new exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum uncovers the scandal that surrounded the first ever biography of Charlotte Brontë, published 150 years ago in 1857.

The Life of Charlotte Brontë, written by novelist Elizabeth Gaskell at Patrick Brontë’s request, was an immediate success with both the critics and the book-buying public.  However it got Mrs Gaskell into hot water - after several threats of legal action she vowed never to write another biography, complaining that the book had landed her “in the hornet’s nest”.

The exhibition explores the background to the book, the process of writing and the picture it painted of Charlotte Brontë, one of the 19th century’s most popular and enduring novelists.   Visitors can see objects rarely on display to the public, including letters written by Charlotte under her pen name “Currer Bell”, miniature books that Charlotte wrote during childhood and exquisite drawings that reveal her artistic as well as her literary skill.  The dress that Charlotte wore to go on honeymoon with her husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, is also displayed following recent conservation work.

In The Life of Charlotte Brontë Elizabeth Gaskell, famous for her novels “Cranford” and “North and South”, set a new standard for biographical works, exploring Charlotte’s personal life as well as her literary achievements.  She created an enduring image of a patient, tragic figure who, having suffered the loss of her mother and five siblings during a life of loneliness and hardship, nevertheless created great works of literature.  It is to Mrs Gaskell that we owe the popular image of the Brontës and Haworth and the beginnings of ‘Brontë tourism’.

However in trying to silence critics who claimed Charlotte’s books were ‘coarse’ and unfeminine, Mrs Gaskell sometimes went too far in her defence.  Her descriptions of Patrick Brontë’s neglect and eccentricity were often wrong.  Her damning indictment of the school Charlotte attended, recreated by Charlotte as ‘Lowood’ in Jane Eyre, led to legal action by the school’s founder.  Her exposure of Branwell Brontë’s affair with his employer’s wife caused a major scandal in polite Victorian society, and further threats of being sued.   Eventually Mrs Gaskell re-wrote some of the more controversial passages, but felt that by doing so her book had been deprived of its ‘deepest truths’. 

Over the years the Museum has been the inspiration behind many events and exhibitions which interpret the Brontë family and their novels in a new and dynamic way.  The Brontë Society, which was founded in 1893 and is the oldest literary society in the world, has welcomed contemporary interpretations of the Brontë family and hopes new exhibitions and events will appeal to younger audiences who may only be familiar with the Brontë novels through school textbooks.

Richard Wilcocks, Chairman of the Brontë Society says:

“For many years the Brontë Parsonage Museum and the Brontë Society have worked hard to appeal in new and different ways to today’s audience. In recent years the Museum has brought the lives of the Brontës to life using new technology such as video projections on the façade of the Parsonage and contemporary artwork by world renowned artists using electron microscopes.

“The new and improved educational workshops also hope to bring the joy of literature and poetry alive for children of all origins. The Brontë Society is delighted that the Radical Brontës series of events, part of the Illuminate festival, has proven popular with so many visitors both at home and abroad”.

With a new Brontë film due out in 2007 starring ‘Brokeback Mountain’ star Michelle Williams  and the serialisation of a new TV production of Jane Eyre, interest in the Brontë family has never been stronger and the Museum is seeking to ensure that visitors to the original home of the Brontë family provides an authentic and realistic glimpse of life in the 1800’s.

The parsonage is famous throughout the world as the Brontës’ home and the place where great novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were written. The house is now displayed as a ‘period home’, with the Brontës’ furniture, domestic objects, artworks and personal belongings set out to give an impression of the house in their own time.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum’s Contemporary Arts Programme, which has Professor Germaine Greer as its Honorary Patron, includes visual arts, theatre, music, poetry, talks and workshops involving visiting authors, and more.

Telephone 01535 642323