Brontës Page 8
Though there was no church at Clifton, the village would have occupied more of Patrick’s time as it had a population of 1,181, compared with Hartshead’s 547. It was wealthier, too, with several magnificent sixteenth- and seventeenth-century stone-built farms and a large number of public houses. Men, women and children from Hartshead and Clifton, and from nearby Hightown and Roberttown, which also fell within Patrick’s parish, worked in both the cottage woollen industry and the mills in neighbouring towns. There appears to have been only one large mill within the parish, the Little John Mill on the outskirts of Clifton which, by 1802, had already installed six carding machines. Open-cast coal mining, stone-hewing and wiredrawing, the last based at Clifton, were the other main occupations.34
Between Hartshead and Clifton, on the slopes of the hill, stood Kirklees Hall, the seventeenth-century pile belonging to Sir George Armitage, Baronet.35 A huge, rambling and unattractive mansion, built in a variety of styles with little to connect them, the house and its estate nevertheless dominated the area. In the grounds which spread out along the river known as the Nunbrook, just below Hartshead, stood the ruins of Kirklees Priory, a Benedictine nunnery founded in the reign of Henry II. Though little remained of the original medieval buildings except a delightful stone and half-timbered gatehouse and an enormous tithe barn, the place was renowned as the site of Robin Hood’s grave. Legend had it that while recovering from wounds at the gatehouse, Robin was treacherously bled to death by the prioress and buried 660 yards away, where the arrow he shot from his deathbed had landed.36 Mr and Mrs Bedford, Patrick’s landlords at Lousy Thorn, had been upper servants at Kirklees Hall before their marriage.37
Patrick arrived in Hartshead with a determination to do well. John Buckworth gave him a useful present to assist and inspire him in the preparation of his own sermons; it was a copy of his latest book, snappily titled A Series of Discourses Containing a System of Doctrinal Experimental and Practical Religion, Particularly Calculated for the Use of Families, Preached in the Parish Church of Dewsbury Yorkshire, upon the flyleaf of which he had written: ‘Revd. P. Brontè 1811. A Testimony of sincere esteem from the Author’.38
At the end of March 1811 the annual ritual of signing off the registers was carried out, and Patrick entered his name for the first time as minister, witnessed by the churchwardens.39 Even then, on the admittedly flawed evidence of the marriage register alone, he does not appear to have taken full responsibility for the duties until the following August. Thereafter, he was thoroughly conscientious, taking virtually all the formal services that occurred. Compared with Dewsbury though, his duties were extremely light; there were only, on average, eleven or twelve weddings a year. Baptisms, which, following Buckworth’s advice, he almost invariably performed during the hours of public worship on Sundays, averaged around ninety-three a year, or less than two a week. Burials, too, fell within the more acceptable levels of fifty-six or fifty-seven a year – a total for the whole year smaller than the numbers he had been burying monthly at Dewsbury.40 For a less committed man this might have been an opportunity for taking things more easily, but Patrick seems to have devoted his leisure hours to assisting his hard-pressed colleagues in Dewsbury.41
Within the area he soon acquired a number of friends, many of whom were to prove important in later life. The Evangelical Hammond Roberson, for instance, himself a former curate of Dewsbury and incumbent of Hartshead, whose martial Christianity Charlotte was to caricature in Shirley; David Jenkins, the new curate at Dewsbury, who would assist Patrick’s daughters in Brussels; most important of all, William Morgan, who had at last secured his own promotion to Yorkshire, becoming curate to John Crosse at Bradford Parish Church.42
What little time Patrick had left to himself he devoted to the cultivation of his mind and talents. Until 1814, when he could afford his own subscription, he would pay a weekly visit to the house of Abraham Lawford to read one of the local papers, the Leeds Mercury.43 Significantly, this was a Whig publication, which would not have met with the approval of at least two of Patrick’s High Tory friends, Roberson and Morgan; already Patrick was displaying that independence of mind which would lead him into frequent challenges to the political establishment.
It was at this time, too, that Patrick embarked on a literary career. It was clearly expected of him, since his vicars at Wellington and Dewsbury, as well as friends like Joshua Gilpin, the vicar of Wrockwardine in Shropshire, had all taken up the pen in the service of Christ. Like the Methodists, the Evangelicals believed in the importance of getting their message across to a wider audience than their own congregations. Even if most of their poorer parishioners were illiterate, hymns and simple verses, designed to be sung or read aloud, in Sunday school or in informal ‘kitchen meetings’, were an ideal way of communicating the faith.
Patrick had already dabbled in the art. His first identifiable piece, Winter Evening Thoughts, seems to have been a response to a Day of National Humiliation for the war against France, which was held on 28 February 1810. Subtitled ‘A Miscellaneous Poem’, it had been published anonymously in 1810, while he was curate at Dewsbury, but Patrick sent a copy to Shrewsbury with the inscription ‘To my dear Friend Nunn, with my unfeigned love, and christian regards. P. Brontè.’, adding ‘By P. Brontè. B. A.’ to ensure that his authorship was recognized.44 On the title page, Patrick paraphrased a line from Horace to declare, in Latin, ‘Although an insignificant man, I create elaborate verses in the hope that some will be worthy of publication.’ A similar idea was expressed more fully in his introduction to the poem:
In this Miscellaneous Poem, now offered to the Public, which in due time will probably be followed by others of a similar nature, and upon the same plan, the Author’s intention is, to ‘become all things to all men, that he might by all means save some’:
He wishes by a judicious mixture of the Profitable and Agreeable, to gain access to the libraries of certain characters, who would shut their doors against anything savouring of Austerity.
Should the Author succeed, in being made the happy instrument of adding to the comforts of any individual, or of reclaiming but one, from the error of his ways, he will esteem himself amply recompensed for his labours.45
The quotation from St Paul, about wishing to ‘become all things to all men, that he might by all means save some’, was to be almost a trademark with Patrick: he used it again in two of his other publications as his justification for undertaking the work.46
Though reflecting the purpose of the Day of National Humiliation, the poem was indeed miscellaneous; 265 lines describing the sufferings of poor cottagers, an innocent girl, seduced in her youth, and now reduced to prostitution and a ship lost at sea with all hands in winter storms. Interwoven with these disparate subjects were patriotic references to the war against France:
O! Britain fair, thou Queen of isles!
Nor hostile arms, nor hostile wiles,
Could ever shake thy solid throne,
But for thy sins – thy sins alone,
Can make thee stoop thy royal head,
And lay thee prostrate, with the dead.47
The message was simple, though not very clearly expressed: sin was the root of all the problems facing the country and people alike.
Where Sin abounds Religion dies,
And Virtue seeks her native skies;
Chaste Conscience, hides for very shame,
And Honour’s but an empty name.48
The same sort of didactic purpose lay behind Patrick’s next publication, a collection of twelve poems entitled, in the Evangelical tradition, Cottage Poems. The poems were
chiefly designed for the lower classes of society … For the convenience of the unlearned and poor, the Author has not written much, and has endeavoured not to burthen his subjects with matter, and as much as he well could, has aimed at simplicity, plainness, and perspicuity, both in manner and style.49
The Advertisement, which Patrick prefixed to the text, is a neat summary of the message of
the poems. The Bible is the ‘Book of Books … in which the wisest may learn that they know nothing, and fools be made wise’; all those who wish to be truly happy must first be truly religious; the simple and natural manners of the poor, when refined by religion, ‘shine, with a peculiar degree of gospel simplicity … wonderfully calculated to disarm prejudice, and to silence, and put infidelity to the blush’. There is also a rather touching confession of the almost guilty pleasure Patrick took in the composition of his verses:
When released from his clerical avocations, he was occupied in writing the Cottage Poems; from morning till noon, and from noon till night, his employment was full of real, indescribable pleasure, such as he could wish to taste as long as life lasts.50
Included in the collection was an adaptation of Winter Evening Thoughts, retitled ‘Winter-night Meditations’, and five poems extolling the virtues of a poor and simple life when coloured by religion. The highly sanitized descriptions of cottage life with its cheerful but welcoming cottagers who, though poor, are contented with their lot because they look to a better future in heaven, obviously bore little relation to the misery, poverty and disease of the labouring poor in Patrick’s parish which was about to explode in the violence of the Luddite riots. Patrick’s aim was not to paint a portrait from life, however, but to point out that faith alone offered salvation and the prospect of happiness.
Though all the poems have a religious theme, at least two had personal relevance to Patrick. The very first poem in the book was dedicated to ‘The Rev. J— B—, whilst journeying for the recovery of his health’; a generous tribute to Buckworth’s character and style of religion, the poem makes Patrick’s admiration for and love of the man abundantly clear. Joshua Gilpin, a friend from the Wellington days, came in for his share of praise too, with a poem extolling the benefits of his newly published ‘improved’ edition of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.51
Cottage Poems bears all the hallmarks of having been written, as Patrick himself described, under pressure of time and with a specific, didactic purpose in mind. It has little literary merit, though it displays that ‘faculty of verse’ which Robert Southey later described Charlotte Brontë as possessing.52 Bearing in mind the limitations imposed by the readership for whom it was intended, it was no worse than most clerical productions of the time.
If Cottage Poems had a didactic purpose, this was doubly true of Patrick’s sermons, which are an unequivocal statement of his beliefs. Only two survive in manuscript, both dating from the Hartshead period, before he had the assurance to deliver his sermons without notes. Significantly, both are on the subject of conversion, which was central to Evangelical belief. The first sermon, a defence of baptism, urged his congregation not to put too much reliance on the outward act of baptism as an act of regeneration in itself; it was the inward, spiritual cleansing of the heart by the Holy Ghost that was the essence of baptism. Without inner conversion, adherence to the mere formalities of religion was useless:
When a man is converted, he is made a new creature in Christ Jesus old things have passed away – Worldly desires – evil propensities, and passions, mistaken notions of religion, spiritual indifference, and enmity to Godliness, are taken away: all the feelings, and inclinations, are sanctified, the mind is enlightened, and the heart is filled with godly zeal and love. From this inward radical change of principle, necessarily proceeds a total change of the outward conduct. The man who before uttered oaths and imprecations, will now sing praises unto God. Indifference, in spiritual things, and consequent inactivity, in good works, will be followed, by Godly zeal, and every corresponding holy action – In the place of gross sins, will be found, all the deeds of
There is a ring of conviction about these words that leads one to believe that Patrick was describing his own conversion.
His other sermon is on a similar theme, urging the necessity of inward conversion as well as outward observation of the forms of religion.
Wherever the heart is reformed, there of necessity, the conduct will be reformed also. No one can be righteous, and in a state of salvation, who will indulge in any allowed sin, or habitually omit opportunities of doing good. Faith and works, go hand in hand, and [ar]e inseperable, – But there may [be] an outwardly moral conduct whilst the heart is unchanged, & the soul under sentence of eternal condemnation … Constant, & regular attendance at church, and a strict conformity to every christian right and ceremony, is no positive proof that a man is a child of God. Under these circumstances, he may still continue ignorant of divine truths … to be a genuine Christian, and in a state of salvation, it is necessary, not only that we should be outwardly moral, but that our morality should spring from faith in Christ –54
A belief in conversion, the mainspring of Evangelical teaching, was also the cornerstone of Patrick’s own life; it explains his frequent and repeated efforts to secure the baptism of his parishioners and also his own particular love for St Paul, the most dramatically converted of all the apostles, whose words he quoted frequently.
Patrick was so preoccupied with his pastoral duties and his poetical exertions that it was not until the end of July 1811 that he made an awful discovery. He had forgotten to make the required formal announcements on successive Sundays in the church at Hartshead and was not therefore legally the minister there. He wrote, in panic, to the Archbishop of York’s secretary:
For want of proper information on the subject, I neglected, reading myself in, in due time, in consequence of which I find that I am not lawfully possessed of this Living. I therefore take the liberty of requesting that you will be so kind as to inform me how I am to proceed, in order to regain right and lawful possession. though this Living is but small it merits particular attention; as Hartshead Church is the only one for several miles round, and there is an increasing number of people here, who are far from being friendly towards the Establishment. It is my intention to get a parsonage-House builded, and to make as far as I can, other necessary improvements, but I cannot proceed, till I get every impediment removed in the way of my retaining the Living. I beg, therefore, that as soon as is convenient, you will give me instructions how I am to act.55
Almost a month later, having obtained a new set of letters testimonial from Dewsbury and a new nomination to the perpetual curacy of Hartshead-cum-Clifton from John Buckworth, Patrick was relicensed, read himself in properly and took lawful possession.56
There was no time to sit back and relax, however, for problems were already building up in the parish. Caught in a terrible trap of inescapable poverty, the working classes of the industrial West Riding had little hope of relief. The interminable war with France disrupted supplies of wool and cotton and cut off important markets for finished cloth and textiles: unemployment, already high, spiralled further and those still working had to accept reduced wages. The cottage-based industries were being forced out of business by the introduction of new, more efficient machinery in the mills which produced more cloth, of a more consistent quality, at a much reduced cost in terms of labour. In many of the West Riding towns Poor Rates, the parochial taxes calculated on property values to provide food, fuel and clothing for the poor, which were intended only as a last resort, were levied four times during the year 1812. At a time when a loaf of bread cost 1s 8d. some 50,000 people in the manufacturing districts had only 2½d. a day, a mere eighth of that, for food.57 In desperation, and urged on by Jacobin sympathizers who hoped to imitate the French Revolution in England, malcontents began to meet in secret. Calling themselves Luddites, after Ned Lud, the semi-mythical Leicestershire man who had led the first rioters in the destruction of machinery, they took revenge on the only identifiable cause of the problems which was close at hand: the new machines.
The first attacks in the W
est Riding began in February 1812 in the Huddersfield area, about six miles south of Hartshead. Inspired by the Nottingham Luddites, whose activities had been recorded in the Leeds Mercury (no wonder Patrick made such a point of reading it!), the local Luddites made their first move right under Patrick’s nose. They attacked a consignment of cropping machines as it crossed Hartshead Moor on its way to Rawfolds Mill, near Cleckheaton. Throughout February and March there were a number of attacks on mills in the Huddersfield area and many shearing frames were smashed to pieces. It must have been a considerable blow to Patrick when, despite his admonitions from the pulpit and in print, his parishioners not only actively joined in but also took a leading role in two of the worst incidents of Luddite violence.58
Under cover of darkness, on the night of 11 April, a large force of Luddites drawn mainly from Hartshead, Clifton, Roberttown and Hightown, all within Patrick’s parish, gathered in the fields belonging to Sir George Armitage behind the Three Nuns public house. Their leaders were almost all from Huddersfield, but included William Hall, a cropper from Hartshead who lived in Hightown.59 With military precision, the men were drawn into ranks and formed into companies according to their weapons: musketmen, hammermen, axemen, pistoliers and the unarmed who were to use whatever came to hand. Then, in silence – but surely not unobserved – the massed bands marched across Hartshead Moor, passing close to both the church and Patrick’s lodgings at Lousy Thorn farm. Their objective was Rawfolds Mill, a couple of miles from Hartshead. William Cartwright, the mill owner, had been a leading light in introducing new machinery and in publicly defying the Luddites to attack him. He was supported enthusiastically by Patrick’s friend, the Reverend Hammond Roberson, though Patrick himself seems to have taken a much less prominent role in the politics of the affair.