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Charlotte
Brontė
was born on
21st April 1816 at Thornton near Bradford. Her father became curate
at Haworth when Charlotte was four. Charlotte's mother died a year
after they arrived in Haworth.
In 1824 Charlotte
and three of her sisters were sent to the Clergy Daughters' School
at Cowan Bridge. This was a charity school and like most charity
schools of the time life was not easy for the children. Maria was
sent home before the first year end with consumption, dying in May
1825 aged eleven. Elizabeth followed shortly and died also at home
on 15th June. Rev
Brontė
removed Charlotte
and Emily bringing them home to safety. The school depicted in
Jane Eyre will no doubt have been drawn from memories of the
Cowan Bridge School.
Charlotte
eventually went to Miss Wooler's school at Roe Head Mirfield in
1831. In time she returned to the school as a teacher, taking Emily
and Anne as pupils.
Later she and Emily
studied in Brussels for a year hoping to secure sufficient knowledge
of a new language in order to open up a school of their own.
Charlotte returned to Haworth in 1844 with the burden of unrequited
love for Monsieur Heger, her teacher. Their school never opened.
Charlotte and Emily
and Anne then devoted themselves to writing. Jane Eyre was
Charlotte's greatest success. Charlotte married her father's curate,
Arthur Bell Nicholls in Haworth on 29th June 1854. The
Professor, her first novel, was finally published in 1857, two
years after her death in March 1855. Elizabeth Gaskell was
Charlotte's first biographer publishing The Life of Charlotte
Bronte.
Emily
Brontė
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