The Death of Currer Bell

At the end of March, 1855, six months or so before the memorial presented to the Newport magistrates decrying the loose morals of the Borough, the pseudonymous Currer Bell, author of “Jane Eyre”, and the last of the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, passed away.

See also

JANE EYRE : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Edited by CURRER BELL. 3 vols. Published: October, 1847. Vol. 1, Vol. 2,Vol. 3.

The Obituary this week, April 1855

Hampshire Advertiser - Saturday 07 April 1855

THE OBITUARY this week includes—

Mrs. Nichol, formerly Miss Bronte, who, under the nom de plume of Currer Bell established a lasting reputation by the publication of “Jane Eyre.” We have two other novels from her pen, “Shirley,” and “ Vilette,” and all are especially distinguished for great power of conception and vigorous portrayal of character. The unfortunate lady, wbo was the last survivor of a family of six, died on Saturday last, at her father’s house, at Haworth, Yorkshire.

The Author of Jane Eyre, June 1855

Durham County Advertiser - Friday 15 June 1855

THE AUTHOR OF JANE EYRE ( From Sharpe’s Magazine )

On the northern side of one of the wildest and bleakest moors of Yorkshire, stands the little village of Haworth, consisting of church and few gray stone cottages. One of these, scarcely superior to its fellows, and distinguished only by a sort of courtyard surrounded a low stone wall, and overgrown with grass (shrubs and refusing vegetate ungenial atmosphere), the parsonage. The architecture is of the simplest description—a straight walk leads up to the front door, either aide of which appears a window, that of the sitting room looking into the churchyard, well filled with gravestones. On this parsonage, until within a few mouths since, not a touch of paint, nor article of new furniture, had been expended for thirty years, the period which has elapsed since the death of Miss Bronte’s mother. Some six or seven years antecedent to that date, Irish clergyman, the Rev. Patrick Bronte, then resident at Penzance, espoused a young lady, contrary to the wishes of her relations, who refused to hold any intercourse with her after her marriage. Her husband, obtaining the perpetual curacy of Haworth, took his bride to his new residence, where she spent the remainder her days, dying in a rapid consumption after the birth of her sixth child, Charlotte. Mr Bronte, who, though advanced in years, is still alive, is described as a man of studious and solitary habits, and of singular and highly eccentric turn of mind, which, together with a very peculiar temper, must have rendered him anything but a suitable guardian to a youthful family. Nor can we wonder at the mother’s dying exclamation, “What will become of my poor children !” Engrossed by his own pursuits, the father never even dined with his family nor taught them anything, and the children learned to write and read from servants only. When Charlotte was twelve years old, she (even then of an original and self-reliant nature) asked and obtained her father’s permission, that her sisters and herself should be placed at the clergy school Cowan Bridge. This, as it then existed, she has described to the life in “Jane Eyre.” Two of her sisters died of the fever which one time devastated the school ; the two others, and probably Charlotte herself, quitted it with the seeds of consumption in their constitutions, fostered by the cruel privations they underwent. The food was horrible, and of it, bad as it was, they obtained so little that often they were literally half starved. Frequently has she “crept under the table to pick up the crumbs others had dropped.” At the time of the fever the doctor examined the food ; he put some in his mouth, and hastily rejecting it, protesting it was not fit for dogs. “So hungry was I,” said Charlotte, “that I could have eaten what he threw away.” The three survivors returned to Haworth with broken health ; but there fresh trials awaited him. “At nineteen,” continued Charlotte, “I should have been thankful fur a penny a week. I asked my father ; but he said ‘ What women want with money ?’ She was yet only nineteen when she advertised for and obtained situation as teacher in a school; not finding it turn out she had hoped, she waited until she had saved money enough to pay her passage to Brussels, where she had secured a position as school teacher—she started alone, never having previously quitted Yorkshire. When she arrived in London it was night; she became alarmed, and, not knowing where to go, and fearing to trust herself with strangers, she took a cab, drove to the Tower Stairs, hired a boat, and was conveyed to the Ostend packet. At first, the officer in command refused to take her on board till the next morning, but on learning her desolate situation, recalled his prohibition. In Brussels she remained two years ; her experiences there are detailed in “Villette.” The character of “Adele,” in particular, is drawn from life. On her return, she found that the health of her two remaining sisters was declining, and that her father’s eyesight was becoming affected, and she considered it her duty to remain at home. She tried various ways of increasing their income, but failed in all. Without mentioning her project to her father, she wrote “Jane Eyre,” a work of which Messrs. Smith and Elder had the good sense to perceive the merits, and were courageous enough to publish it, in spite of its peculiarities, which might have alarmed any but a really spirited publisher. About three months after the appearance of her novel, and when its success was no longer doubtful, Miss Bronte resolved to screw up her courage, and inform her father of the step she had taken. Mr Bronte, it appears, did not then join his family, even at meal-times. At dinner, Charlotte announced her intention to her sisters, adding, that she would put it into execution before tea! Accordingly, she marched into his study with a copy her work, wrapped up in review it, which she had received, and the following conversation ensued :—

“Papa, I have been writing a book!”

“ Have you, dear!” (He went on reading)

“But, papa, I want you to look at it.”

“ I can’t be troubled to read a manuscript.”

“ But it is printed.”

“ I hope you’re not been involving yourself in any such silly expense.”

“I think 1 shall gain some money by it; may I read you some reviews of it!” She read the reviews, and again asked him if he would look over the book ; he said she might leave it, and he would see. Later on that same evening he sent his daughters an invitation to drink tea with him. When the meal was nearly concluded, he said : “Children, Charlotte has been writing a book, and I think it is a better one than I expected.” For some years he never mentioned the subject again.

A lady, who afterwards became intimate with Miss Bronte, thus describes her first introduction to her. “I arrived late at the house of a mutual friend, tea was on the table, and behind it sat a little wee dark person, dressed in black, who scarcely spoke, so that I had time for a good look at her. She had soft lightish brown hair, eyes of the same tint, looking straight at you, and very good and expressive ; reddish complexion, a wide mouth—altogether plain ; the forehead square, broad, and rather overhanging. Her hands are like birds’ claws, and she is so shortsighted that she cannot see your face unless you are close to her. She is said to be frightfully shy, and almost cries at the thought of going amongst strangers.” Article: A Few Words About Jane Eyre.

The original article, in Sharpe’s London magazine of entertainment and instruction for general reading, n.s. 6, 1855, has a much longer opening, commenting on the reception that “Jane Eyre” received when it was first published..

Some eight years since, 1855

Sharpe’s London magazine of entertainment and instruction for general reading, n.s. 6, 1855

SOME eight years since, a novel, in three volumes, emanating from the shelves of, if we mistake not, Messrs. Smith and Elder, found its way, by their influence, into the circulating libraries; and, in due course of time, met with readers, and became famous. But the strange thing was, that no two people could agree in their Opinions of it, so full was it of contradictions. Miss A. was delighted with it, Miss B. as much disgusted—Miss C. heard it so talked of, that she was most anxious to read it ; but her married sister, Mrs. D., said, “No woman under thirty ought to Open it.” Then, it was such a strange book ! imagine a novel with a little swarthy governess for heroine, and a middle-aged ruffian for hero. As well perform a pantomime with a wooden-legged cripple as Harlequin, a rheumatic old maid as Columbine, and a Methodist parson for Clown. Then, the characters used such language; the middle-aged ruffian‚we mean the hero—swore, not the usual melodramatic paraphrases “ By Heaven, sir, this language is unhearable— fiends and furies ! do ye mean to insult me?”—but real wicked oaths, like a bold, bad, live man. All this was very odd and incorrect; the novel-reading public had become accustomed to the “fiends and furies” style; believed in it as the language common to the aristocracy of nature, and associated all plainer speaking with pot-house company, skittles, and unlimited beer and tobacco. So the public clamored at this glimpse of nature thus unceremoniously revealed to them, very much as they would have clamored if the writer had chosen to go to the Opera sans culottes; and, having clamored, they philanthropically wished to remonstrate with the author on his improper innovations—but who was the author? Ay, there was the rub. The title-page ran thus—“Jane Eyre; by Currer Bell.” Yes; Currer Bell. Nobody had ever heard of Currer Bell—nobody believed in Currer Bell; and very soon the only fact which obtained universal credence in regard to Jane Eyre was that, be it written by whom it might, it certainly was not the production of Currer Bell. This was enough; here was a strange book, written in a strange style, by—and this was strangest of all—a mysterious stranger! In those days, events were few—Louis Philippe dozed in false security on the throne of France, nor dreamed the hand of destiny was drawing it from beneath him. Sebastopol was then building; and British youth learned geography, yet remained blissfully ignorant of its name and nature. Lord Raglan was innocuously employed at the Horse Guards, his own, being the only arm of the service he had then had the opportunity of sacrificing; for at that time we had a real commander living, though years were fast conquering the invincible Wellington. Thus the public was easily excited, and a Jane Eyre furore spread rapidly and raged like wild-fire. Jane Eyre was written by a man! no—Jane Eyre was written by a woman. Of course it was a man’s writing, no woman would have written such a book. Look at the details of woman’s inner nature—photographs of her very soul; no man could have written such a book. Parties ran high about it; there were Jane Eyre-ites and Anti-Jane Eyre-ites: had the work been religious, two sects would have sprung up, hating each other for the love of God, as only sectarians can hate. But being fortunately secular, the controversy did not stir up any very deep feelings of animosity, although the surface of coerulean society was considerably ruffled. But when men’s minds became sufficiently agitated to warrant such an interposition, an oracle spoke; the “ Quarterly “ reviewed Jane Eyre—light flowed in upon the darkness—the oil of certainty tranquilized the waves of doubt and conjecture. It was, confessed the mighty Rhadamanthus, to common intelligences, an enigma hard to discover, whether this book proceeded from a man’s pen, or from that of a woman. But Rhadamanthns had looked through the millstone at a glance, and seen beyond it the very man who had done the deed—who had inadvertently afforded a glimpse of his toga virilis, by his appalling ignorance of female manners and customs, and, above all, by his thoroughly masculine, false, and ridiculous notions in regard to female attire. How Charlotte must have chuckled over this judicial blindness in the little parlor at Haworth. The “ Quarterly” having spoken, the public mind became tranquilized, and the tumult was allayed; a strange man had written a strange book—that was all. So society sat down to dinner without its appetite being impaired any longer by oppressive curiosity. Then followed other books by other Bells—books also peculiar, clever, and interesting (especially the “Tenant of Wildfell Hall”), though inferior in each particular to Jane Eyre. When the nine days (the period popularly assigned, we wish we knew why, to evanescent excitements) of this wonder were nearly accomplished, gradually and stealthily a rumour began to gain ground, that in spite of the “Quarterly,” and the profound ignorance of mantus-making, Jane Eyre was written by a young lady, after all, and the name of Charlotte Bronté was repeated with daily increasing confidence, until the authorship of the work ceased to be a moot point any longer. Our limits forbid, nor is it the intention of this notice, to enter on any review of the authoress’s writings, although much yet remains both of beauty and of blemish, on which the critical faculty has not been exercised; but as the mystery which attended this lady’s public debut has in some degree enshrouded her, even to the moment when the thousands to whom she has afforded pleasurable interest and excitement are lamenting her untimely decease, we imagine the following particulars, obtained from a private and we believe authentic source, though we do not pledge ourselves to their accuracy, may not prove unacceptable to our readers.

It also has an extra closing paragraph, which was as follows:

Such are a few particulars concerning this remarkable woman; with the broader features of her history, especially her marriage with Mr. Nicol, her father’s curate, and her melancholy death six months after she (probably for the first time in her strange eventful life) knew what it was to enjoy domestic happiness — the daily press had already made everyone familiar. That she has been taken from us in the full vigour of her intellect, ere the sunshine of a happy home had fostered and developed the brighter and more genial portion of her nature, must ever be a source of regret to those who, admiring as we admire the works she has left as her lasting memorial, hoped for yet nobler proofs of her remarkable powers of invention, when time and an increased knowledge of life should have corrected the eccentricity, without lessening the originality, of her genius.

But what intrigues us most is the description of one key locations in the text, and the biographical inspiration for it:

When Charlotte was twelve years old, she (even then of an original and self-reliant nature) asked and obtained her father’s permission, that her sisters and herself should be placed at the clergy school Cowan Bridge. This, as it then existed, she has described to the life in “Jane Eyre.” Two of her sisters died of the fever which one time devastated the school ; the two others, and probably Charlotte herself, quitted it with the seeds of consumption in their constitutions, fostered by the cruel privations they underwent. The food was horrible, and of it, bad as it was, they obtained so little that often they were literally half starved. Frequently has she “crept under the table to pick up the crumbs others had dropped.” At the time of the fever the doctor examined the food ; he put some in his mouth, and hastily rejecting it, protesting it was not fit for dogs. “So hungry was I,” said Charlotte, “that I could have eaten what he threw away.”

A Retired Clergyman Revisits His Old Haunts

A couple of months after the death of Charlotte Brontë, before heading south to start his retirement on the Isle of Wight sometime in June, 1855, the Revd. W. Carus Wilson visited Kirby Lonsdale on the Lancashire, Cumbria and Yorkshire border.

A visit to Casterton Hall, June 1855

Lancaster Guardian - Saturday 02 June 1855

KIRKBY LONSDALE.

Rev. W. C. Wilson. — During the last few days, the Rev. Carus Wilson, has been paying a visit to Casterton Hall, his native place, after an absence of six years. His presence at Casterton, in the schools, we doubt not, would be very gratifying, and we are informed he expressed himself delighted with the manner in which they are at present conducted. He preached in the chapel of the above place on Sunday last, the 27th inst, to very crowded congregation from the words, “ When the son of man cometh, will he find faith on the earth.” This discourse was earnest, and eloquent, and could not fail but make a deep impression all present.

Articles such as the one that had appeared in Sharpe’s London magazine following the loss of Charlotte Brontë had perhaps made him a little uneasy. So what, we may ask, was it that connected Carus Wilson with Charlotte Brontë and Casterton Hall?

What Next?

To find out what links Carus Wilson with the inspiration for the infamous Lowood School, as depicted in Jane Eyre, we need to step back in time a few years…