 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author Page 2 : Bronte |
|
|
|
Our 2nd Bronte Page - mainly of brother Branwell and his soldiers |
|
|
|
.... in which Piglet's Grandfather "Trespassers William" gets blind drunk with Branwell Bronte down at the "Black Bull Hotel".... " Pooh!", says Tigger, "Stop telling such terrible fibs, do you hear me? Or I will sconfigscake all your honey pots this very minute!" |
|
SITE MAP
powered by FreeFind |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Depiction of Branwell Bronte (1817-1848) copied from a plaster medallion portrait by J.B. Leyland.
Branwell was the only boy in the family. |
|
|
|
|
|
As mentioned on another page, Patrick Branwell Bront� showed great promise in learning. His translation of Horace had even earned him the praise of that great poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But sad to say the promising start did not continue, and his sister Charlotte's hopes for his bright future were never realised. Instead of becoming a famous author, Branwell became a railway clerk for the Leeds and Manchester Railway at Sowerby Bridge. And even from that lowly position he was to be dismissed for "culpable negligence" due to his drinking too heavily. He spent a lot of time (and money) inside the walls of the Black Bull Hotel - shown below. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Branwell's haunt - "The Black Bull" Hotel in the main street at Howarth in Yorkshire U.K. - etching by C D Manning |
|
|
|
|
|
The Importance of Branwell's Wooden Soldiers
Patrick Branwell Bront� was the only son of the Revd and Mrs Patrick Bront� and was just over 4 years old when his mother died. From that time onward his aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, looked after Branwell and his sisters. |
|
|
|
While Aunt Elizabeth taught the girls Home Management, Sewing, and Methodist hymns full of hell-fire and damnation, Mr Bront� was teaching Greek and Latin to Branwell. And although the children were expressly forbidden to consort with the people from the "town", Branwell had many friends there and secretly used to slip out to meet them. |
|
|
|
It was in June of 1826, the year of the untimely deaths of the 2 eldest children Maria and Elizabeth (from fever), and just before Branwell's 9th birthday, that Mr Bront� brought home from the city of Leeds a box of 12 wooden soldiers. Next morning Branwell gleefully showed the soldiers to his sisters, and he allowed each of them to choose one of the twelve soldiers and become its patron. Charlotte chose the handsomest and named him after her great hero the Duke of Wellington. |
|
|
|
From then on, the children began to 'make-believe' about these "Young Men" or "The Twelves" as they called them, inventing and telling each other stories of their young soldiers' adventures. They sent The Twelves to the West African coast where they founded a group of kingdoms called the Great Glasstown Confederacy, under the rule of the wooden Duke of Wellington, each soldier having a kingdom of his own. By 1829, when Charlotte was still only 13, the young Bront�s were writing The Twelves' adventures in tiny handwriting and in tiny home-made books often in a size of only 2 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches. |
|
|
|
Branwell's failure to make a start at the Royal Academy
On more than one occasion Branwell was given money to enable him to study at the Royal Academy of Arts, but he always returned penniless and there is no record that he ever attended. Instead he preferred to spend his time at the "Black Bull", although his oil painting of his sister Emily did eventually get a place in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Branwell became an alcoholic, took to opium and died of consumption at the age of 31 in the September of 1848. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Branwell's own portrait of (left to right) Charlotte, Emily, Himself and Anne. [This is from a black & white card bought at the Bronte Museum at Howarth.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Here is a copy of a black & white pic showing some of the miniature books which the Bronte sisters used to make. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
You can get an idea of the real-life size of the books from the old British one penny coin standing up against them. And on the extreme left-handside you may be able to read the words "1830 - CHARLOTTE BRONT�" . . . from which you will very quickly work out that she was 14 when she was writing it. The sisters bound them just like real books of their time. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
The Bronte Memorial Chapel - sited in the previously redundant south-east corner of the Howarth Parish Church. Of the four children to reach maturity, only Anne did not die in Howarth. She was buried at Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast. |
|
|
|
Tigger & Eeyore n Pooh invite you to send a free musical greeting "Card of The Day" from
"CARDS BY MOUSE"
Click on the square below, or for the full card menu, click and then scroll down to the end of the page |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
SITE MAP
powered by FreeFind |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Click "Site Map" for details of the 29 pages on Tigger & Eeyore's n Pooh's Website |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Number of visits to Tigger & Eeyore n Pooh's
"Bronte # 2" page since
October 28th 2000 |
|
|
|
by Tigger & Eeyore n Pooh on
August 2nd 2005 |
|
|
|
|
|
Email Tigger, Eeyore & Pooh at:[email protected] |
|