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Monday 18 April 2016

'Charlotte Brontë in Three Locations'

Richard Wilcocks writes:
Charlotte's Birthday Party takes place in Haworth - in the Old School Room - all day this coming Thursday 21 April, finishing at around 8pm. At 2.45pm you'll be able to see (and taste?) the cake made for the occasion by Great British Bake Off contestant Sandy Docherty. Find the full details on the Parsonage website - see Links.

If you are within reach of Dewsbury Library in the morning, you might be interested in a talk I am giving, illustrated by Powerpoint slides, which begins at 10.30am. I will be reading extracts from Charlotte's letters and from Jane Eyre, and I will also be in role as John Benson Sidgwick, the partner in a mill business who owned Stonegappe, where she was an unhappy governess for a short while. He will see the situation from his point of view.

The three locations are Roe Head School in Mirfield, Stonegappe and Wycoller Hall, the inspiration for Ferndean. You don't need to book, just turn up.

Charlotte Brontë in Three Locations - 10.30 - 11.30am

Dewsbury Library 
Dewsbury Retail Park 
Railway Street
Dewsbury

WF12 8EQ 

01484 414868


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am sure that the morning will be very interesting. I wish I could be there. I have done some research into the Sidgwick family. I found it interesting that there was a branch of the family who lived in Dent. Dent was the place where the Sills family are thought to have brought back slaves from their plantations in Jamaica. It is thought that there are a few comparisons to Emily Bronte's foundling Heathcliff('I wish I had light hair and a fair skin'-Wuthering Heights -Chapter 7), and Catherine Earnshaw with Ann Sill who is said to have fallen in love with her black coachman. All conjecture on my part but maybe Charlotte overheard some conversation whilst at Stone Gappe about Dent where the Lothersdale Sidgwicks had relatives and passed it on to Emily.
I have spoken to someone whose father lived in Lothersdale in the 1920s and who played with the children who lived at Stone Gappe House. On wet days they were allowed to play in a padded room.
Perhaps Charlotte's unhappy stay at Stone Gappe was not entirely without its benefits!