Elizabeth Brontë

For the Witchblade character, see Elizabeth Brontë (comics).

Elizabeth Brontë
Born	(1815-02-08)8 February 1815 Hartshead, Kirklees, West Riding of Yorkshire
Died	15 June 1825(1825-06-15) (aged 10) Haworth, West Riding of Yorkshire
Resting place	Church of St Michael and All Angels
Education	Cowan Bridge School
Parents	Patrick Brontë Maria Branwell
Relatives	Brontë family

Elizabeth Brontë (/ˈbrɒnti/, commonly /-teɪ/;[1] 8 February 1815 – 15 June 1825)[2] was the second-eldest child of Patrick Brontë and Maria Brontë, née Branwell. A member of the literary Brontë family, Elizabeth was the younger sister of Maria Brontë as well as the elder sister of writers Charlotte, Emily and Anne, and poet and artist Branwell. Less is known about Elizabeth than any of the other members of her family.

Early life

The Brontë Parsonage, the parsonage in which Elizabeth and her family lived from 1820.

Elizabeth Brontë was born on 8 February in 1815[3] and was named after her maternal aunt, as was customary at the time.[4] She was only a few months old when she and her family, along with her aunt and namesake Elizabeth Branwell, moved from Hartshead to Thornton, where her baptism took place. Elizabeth was baptised on 26 August 1815 by J. Fennell, an officiating Minister at the Parish of Thornton and Chapelry of Thornton.[5] Elizabeth's godmother was chosen to be Elizabeth Firth, one of the Brontës' new friends in Thornton.[6] By 1820, Patrick and Maria Brontë had had four more children during their years in Thornton and they decided to move again to Haworth where Patrick would become a pastor at the Church of St Michael and All Angels and would live with his family at the adjoining parsonage.[7]

St Michael and All Angel's Church, Haworth, where Patrick Brontë was appointed as pastor.

However, in 1821, Mrs. Brontë passed away – this led her sister, Elizabeth Branwell, to move into the Parsonage to look after the children. A servant of the Brontë family, Nancy Garrs, recalled how the young Elizabeth would lead her younger sisters by their hands on their walks across the Yorkshire moors, stating that she was ‘very thoughtful’ in her treatment of them. When Patrick Brontë asked Elizabeth what the best mode of education was for a woman, she responded “that which would make her rule the house well”.[8]

Education

In 1823, Elizabeth and her elder sister Maria were sent to Crofton Hall, a fashionable boarding school in Yorkshire.[9][10] However, the school's fees soon proved to be too high for Patrick, who also wished his three younger daughters to receive a formal education.[11] Therefore, Maria and Elizabeth joined Cowan Bridge School, a newly opened boarding school for daughters of the clergy in Lancashire in July 1824 which was funded by, among others, William Wilberforce.[12][6] The school would later be immortalised in fiction as Lowood School in Jane Eyre. The director and founder of Cowan Bridge, Reverend William Carus Wilson,[12] was a clergyman who was said to have been looked up to by Patrick Brontë.[8] Maria and Elizabeth were followed by Charlotte and Emily two months later. There was a distinct lack of sanitation in the school:[13][14][15] the food provided by the school was often poorly cooked and unhealthy, and the cook was reported as being "careless, dirty, and wasteful".[16][8] Both Maria and Elizabeth had recently recovered from measles and whooping cough, and they often could not eat despite the fact that they were hungry.[6][15]

“Reads little. Writes pretty well. Ciphers none. Works very badly. Knows nothing of grammar, history, geography or accomplishments.” — a school report received by Elizabeth.[11][17]

Elizabeth was not generally described as academic and instead was described as a practical girl with 'sound common sense' by her father; while school records showed that Maria, Charlotte and Emily were to be trained to be governesses, Elizabeth's future occupation was listed as a 'housekeeper'. Perhaps owing to this, Patrick did not pay an extra £3 a year so that Elizabeth might learn French, music and drawing, as he did with his other three daughters.[4]

Illness and death

A plaque commemorating the Brontë sisters at Cowan Bridge School.

In February 1825, Maria was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was transported back home. Possibly encouraged by bad conditions, in the early spring of that same year there was an outbreak of typhus in the school.[18][14] There is a possibility that this may have covered up symptoms of tuberculosis in Elizabeth. Over the following six months one girl was to die at school and 20 more were withdrawn ill with six dying soon afterwards. Elizabeth was sent home ill on 31 May, by which time Maria had already died. A few days later, Charlotte and Emily were brought home in good health and none of the family were ever to return to Cowan Bridge School.[8] Elizabeth died of her illness on 15 June in 1825,[13][19] with her school record stating she died of consumption.[2][20] Her loss affected her family deeply[21] and her other sisters and brother were to follow, leaving her father without any grandchildren.[22] Elizabeth was buried in the Brontë vault at the Church of St Michael and All Angels. On her tombstone is enscribed the following message taken from Matthew 18:3:

Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.[23]

See also

• Brontë Parsonage Museum, parsonage previously owned by the Brontës which has been converted into a museum presenting their lives
• Arthur Bell Nicholls, husband of Charlotte Brontë
• Elizabeth Gaskell, good friend of Charlotte Brontë

References

1. As given by Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature (Merriam-Webster, incorporated, Publishers: Springfield, Massachusetts, 1995), p viii: "When our research shows that an author's pronunciation of his or her name differs from common usage, the author's pronunciation is listed first, and the descriptor commonly precedes the more familiar pronunciation." See also entries on Anne, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, pp 175–176.
2. "Brontë, Elizabeth". the Oxford Companion to the Brontës. Oxford University Press. January 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-866218-1. Archived from the original on 2 April 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
3. "The Brontës in Context" (PDF). Cambridge University Press. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 January 2023. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
4. "More than a footnote – Elizabeth Brontë". annebronte.org. 30 April 2017. Archived from the original on 7 January 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
5. Gaskell 1900, p. 47.
6. "Bronte Parsonage Museum – Elizabeth Brontë". bronte.org.uk. Archived from the original on 7 January 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
7. Winn 2010, p. 121.
8. "Elizabeth Brontë". sevenov.com. 3 June 2022. Archived from the original on 7 January 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
9. Gaskell 1900, p. 64.
10. "What you Should Know about the Brontës: 10 Facts about the Most Interesting Literary Family". BookRiot. 26 August 2021. Archived from the original on 12 March 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
11. "Bronte Parsonage Museum – Maria Brontë". bronte.org.uk. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 26 September 2010.
12. "The Brontë sisters and Brontë School House". The Brontë School House. Archived from the original on 10 January 2023. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
13. "This is why the Bronte sisters died so young". The Yorkshire Post. Archived from the original on 10 January 2023. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
14. "School report on the Brontë sisters". British Library. Archived from the original on 10 January 2023. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
15. Brontë, Charlotte (1876). Life and works of Charlotte Brontë and her sisters. Vol. 7. Smith, Elder & Co. Plaintext
16. Gaskell 1900, p. 66.
17. Gaskell 1900, p. 65.
18. Edward Chitham, A Life of Emily Brontë, Basil Blackwell, 1987, p. 46
19. "The creative soul of Emily Bronte: a study of the role of self-reflective learning theory in the development of a writing genius". Gale Academic. Archived from the original on 10 January 2023. Retrieved 11 January 2023.
20. Smith Kenyon, Karen (April 2002). The Brontë Family: Passionate Literary Geniuses. Lerner Publications. ISBN 0-8225-0071-X.
21. Dinsdale, Ann (2006). The Brontës at Haworth. Frances Lincoln ltd. pp. 38–43. ISBN 978-0-7112-2572-5. Retrieved 27 May 2013.^[permanent dead link‍]
22. "The Brontës didn't die from melancholy, weather or death wishes – they died from TB". The Independent. 29 October 2018. Archived from the original on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 16 January 2023.
23. Gaskell 1900, p. 8.

Works cited

• Winn, Christopher (2010). I Never Knew That About Yorkshire. London: Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0-09-193313-5.
• Gaskell, Elizabeth (1900). Life and works of Charlotte Brontë. London: Smith, Elder & Co.