Charlotte Bronte Chronology
21/04/1816
Charlotte Bronte, third child of the Bronte family was born at Thornton.
29/06/1816
Charlotte Bronte third child of the Bronte family was baptised at Thornton.
26/02/1817
Mary Taylor close friend of Charlotte Bronte was born.
10/08/1824
Charlotte Bronte was sent to the Clergy Daughters School at Cowan Bridge.
12/03/1829
“I am in the Kitchen of the Parsonage house Haworth. Tabby the servant is washing up after breakfast and Anne my youngest sister is kneeling on a chair looking at some cakes which Tabby has been baking for us. Emily is in the parlour brushing it, papa and Branwell are gone to Keighley. Aunt is up stairs in her room and I am sitting by the table writing this in the kitchen.”
Charlotte Bronte – The History of the Year.
13/07/1830
A watercolour still life of wild roses was painted by Charlotte Bronte ‘from Nature’.
22/08/1830
Charlotte Bronte wrote her poem “Morning”.
29/07/1835
Charlotte Bronte went as teacher to Miss Wooler’s school Roe Head. Emily accompanied her as a pupil.
12/03/1837
Charlotte Bronte received a letter from Robert Southey – The Poet Laureate: “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life: & it ought not to be.”
26/03/1839
Charlotte Bronte wrote her poem “Life”.
02/03/1841
Charlotte Bronte became a governess for the White family who lived at Upperwood House, Rawdon, near Bradford.
12/12/1841
Charlotte Bronte wrote her poem “Passion”.
04/08/1843
Charlotte Bronte’s tutor M. Heger presented her with a wood fragment from Napoleon’s coffin.
29/12/1843
Charlotte Bronte received a Diploma from the Pensionnat at Brussels.
01/01/1844
Charlotte Bronte left the Penssionat at Brussels for home. While studying there she had received a Diploma.
03/01/1844
Charlotte Bronte arrived back home at Haworth Parsonage, she had been studying at the Heger’s Pensionnat at Brussels.
06/02/1846
Charlotte Bronte sent a manuscript of poems to Messrs. Aylott and Jones publishers. They used the pseudonym of Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell.
06/04/1846
Charlotte Bronte wrote to publisher Aylott & Jones:
“C.E & A Bell are now preparing for the Press a work of fiction – consisting of three distinct and unconnected tales which may be published together as a work of 3 vols. of ordinary novel-size, or separately as single vols – as shall be deemed most advisable.”
07/05/1846
First printed copies of the Book of “Poems” by Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte arrived at the Parsonage. They had used the pseudonym of Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell.
04/07/1846
The published Bronte Poems using the pseudonym of Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell received favourable criticism. Only two copies were sold.
15/12/1846
Charlotte Bronte wrote:
“I hope you are not frozen up; the cold here is dreadful. I do not remember such a series of North-Pole days. England might really have taken a slide up into the Arctic Zone; the sky looks like ice; the earth is frozen; the wind is as keen as a two-edged blade.”
15/07/1847
Charlotte Bronte sent the manuscript of the “Professor” to the publisher Smith, Elder and Co. Cornhill. It was not published.
24/08/1847
Charlotte Bronte’s manuscript of Jane Eyre was sent to the publisher Smith, Elder and Co. Cornhill.
16/10/1847
Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre was published under the pseudonym Currer Bell.
19/10/1847
Charlotte Bronte received copies of her published novel “Jane Eyre”.
10/12/1847
Charlotte Bronte received payment for her novel Jane Eyre which was published on 16th October 1847.
08/07/1848
Charlotte and Anne Bronte visited London to meet their publisher and revealed their true identity. The Bronte sisters had been using the pseudonyms Acton Currer and Bell.
29/08/1849
Charlotte Bronte completed her novel Shirley.
26/10/1849
Charlotte Bronte’s novel Shirley was published under the pseudonym Currer Bell.
22/05/1850
Charlotte Bronte wrote of her dead sister Emily Bronte:
“For my part I am free to walk on the moors – but when I go out there alone – everything reminds me of the times when others were with me and then the moors seem a wilderness, featureless, solitary, saddening – My sister Emily had a particular love for them , and there is not a knoll of heather, not a branch of fern, not a young bilberry leaf not a fluttering lark or linnet but reminds me of her.”
09/06/1850
Charlotte Bronte met the Duke of Wellington at the Chapel Royal London.
13/06/1850
Charlotte Bronte sat for her portrait. She was drawn by the artist George Redmond.
09/06/1851
Charlotte Brontë wrote to her father about her visit to the Great Exhibition:
“Yesterday I went for the second time to the Crystal Palace. We remained in it about three hours, and I must say I was more struck with it on this occasion than at my first visit. It is a wonderful place – vast, strange, new and impossible to describe. Its grandeur does not consist in one thing, but in the unique assemblage of all things. Whatever human industry has created you find there, from the great compartments filled with railway engines and boilers, with mill machinery in full work, with splendid carriages of all kinds, with harness of every description, to the glass-covered and velvet-spread stands loaded with the most gorgeous work of the goldsmith and silversmith, and the carefully guarded caskets full of real diamonds and pearls worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.”
29/03/1852
Charlotte Bronte completed the first draft of her novel “Villette”.
23/05/1852
Charlotte Bronte visited Filey staying at the same lodgings she and Ellen Nussey had stayed after Anne’s death. Charlotte went to visit Anne’s grave and discovered a number of errors on the Gravestone, in particular Anne’s age, the date on the stone is 28, she was 29 when she died.
13/12/1852
Arthur Bell Nicholls proposed to Charlotte Bronte. Charlotte informed her father who was not pleased about the marriage proposal. She wrote to Nicholls rejecting him.
28/01/1853
Charlotte Bronte’s novel Villette was published.
31/01/1853
Patrick Bronte wrote a reference on behalf of A.B. Nicholls to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. He said that Nichols had been his curate for seven years and had ‘behaved himself wisely, soberly and piously.’
Nicholls had applied to the SPG for a missionary post in Australia after Charlotte turned down his proposal of marriage.
23/02/1853
A.B. Nicholls wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel enquiring whether his application for a missionary posting had been received as he had not had a reply.
25/05/1853
Revd. A. B. Nicholls was presented with a pocket watch, inside the cover is inscribed: “Presented to the Revd. A. B. Nicholls by the teachers scholars and congregation of St Michael’s Haworth Yorkshire May 25th 1853”.
19/09/1853
Elizabeth Gaskell who wrote “The life of Charlotte Bronte” visited Charlotte Bronte at Haworth.
11/04/1854
Arthur Bell Nicholls proposed to Charlotte Bronte who accepted.
29/06/1854
Charlotte Bronte and Arthur Bell Nicholls were married at Haworth Church at 8.00am in the morning. 2004 wedding re-enactment here…
01/08/1854
Charlotte Bronte and Arthur Bell Nicholls returned to Haworth from their honeymoon in Ireland. They were married on 29th June 1854.
29/11/1854
Charlotte Bronte and her husband Arthur Nicholls walked to what is now known as the Bronte waterfalls. Charlotte had wished to see the waterfall in all its glory as heavy rain and melting snow had turned the water into a “perfect torrent”.
30/01/1855
Charlotte Bronte was examined by Dr Mc Turk and was found to be pregnant.
31/03/1855
Charlotte Bronte died at Haworth, she was 38 years of age.
There’s no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part:
There’s such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one’s heart:
04/04/1855
Charlotte Bronte was buried in the family vault at Haworth Parish Church. She had died on 31st March aged 38.
23/07/1855
Elizabeth Gaskell visited Haworth to meet Patrick Bronte to discuss the biography of Charlotte Bronte.
02/10/1856
Elizabeth Gaskell wrote of Charlotte Bronte:
“leaving all authorship on one side, her character as a woman was unusual to the point of being unique. I never heard or read of anyone who was for an instant, or in any respect, to be compared to her. And everything she did and every word she said and wrote bore the impress of this remarkable character.”
07/02/1857
The manuscript of the “Life of Charlotte Bronte” by Elizabeth Gaskell was completed.
25/03/1857
The “Life of Charlotte Bronte” by Elizabeth Gaskell was published.
06/06/1857
Charlotte Bronte’s previously rejected novel “The Professor” was published.
25/08/1864
Arthur Bell Nichols married again.
01/03/1893
Mary Taylor close friend of Charlotte Bronte died.
26/11/1897
Ellen Nussey, Charlotte Bronte’s life long friend died aged 80
02/12/1906
Arthur Bell Nicholls husband of Charlotte Bronte died. He was 87.
10/08/1929
“The manuscript of Charlotte Brontë’s “The Violet” was sold at Sotheby’s on Monday for £250. At the foot of the preface is written, “A Book of Rhymes, by Charlotte Brontë, alias the Marquess of Douro-begun November 8, 1830, finished November 14, 1830.”
Yorkshire Evening News 10th August 1929
10/04/2013
Charlotte Bronte’s I’ve been wandering in the greenwoods, dated 14 December 1829, written when she was just 13 sold at auction for £92,450.