“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will” – Charlotte BrontëCharlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, a village near the city of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England on 21 April 1816. She was one of six children born to her mother Maria and father Patrick, but on 15 September 1821, Charlotte’s mother died leaving her, four sisters, Maria, Elizabeth, Emily and Anne, and a brother, Branwell behind. Their father was aided in the upbringing of the family by Maria’s sister, Elizabeth Branwell, who moved from Cornwall to the Brontë residence in Haworth.

In August 1824, four of the sisters, Charlotte, Emily, Maria and Elizabeth were sent by their father to the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire, but Charlotte later maintained that the conditions there led to permanent health conditions for her and were responsible for the deaths of Maria who was born in 1814 and Elizabeth, who was born in 1815. They both died of tuberculosis in June 1825. The Clergy Daughters School became the Lowood Institution in Charlotte’s most famous novel, Jane Eyre.

Charlotte was a timid and very self-conscious young woman in everyday life who was very concerned with and disliked, the way she looked. However, when it came to her writing, she was quite self-confident and believed in her abilities as a writer very strongly. In terms of the writing force that the Brontë sisters became, it was Charlotte who was the one who persuaded her sisters to collect their poems together and to seek publication for their written works.

In 1831, Charlotte was sent to Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head, near Huddersfield, where she remained for about a year before returning home to help educate her sisters. However, in 1835, she returned to Roe Head, this time as a teacher, to supplement the family’s income and to help pay the debts that her brother Branwell was accumulating in his efforts to become an artist. Unfortunately, Charlotte became ill and unable to continue her duties, her position was terminated in 1838.

The following year Charlotte turned down at least two marriage proposals but was keenly aware of a responsibility to continue to supplement the family’s income, and so she took up a governess position with the Whites at Upperwood House in Rawdon. Around this time, the weak-willed and intemperate Branwell began to take refuge in alcohol and opium.

The three Brontë sisters decided that they could open a school of their own and so in 1842 Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels to improve their French and German. Although she briefly returned to England shortly afterwards due to the death of her aunt, Charlotte spent the whole of 1843 in Brussels but was lonely and depressed.

The following year, Charlotte attempted to open the school that she and her sisters had envisaged but although prospectuses were issued, no pupils could be attracted to Haworth to attend. It is around this time that Charlotte discovered some poems written by Emily and the three sisters published a joint volume at their own expense called Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell in 1846. The pseudonyms for Charlotte, Emily and Anne were used to hide the fact that the work was published by women, but unfortunately, only two copies were sold.

However, a way forward had now been identified, and three novels were already on the way to being published. Charlotte’s first, The Professor: A Tale, failed to find a publisher but Jane Eyre was accepted by Smith, Elder and Company on 16 October 1847. It was an immediate success.

Tragedy followed shortly afterwards. Branwell died in September 1848, Emily in December and Anne in May 1849.

Shortly afterwards, Charlotte managed to complete Shirly: A Tale, and it was published in October 1849. She went to London several times over the next few years where she met the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray and she sat for a portrait which was painted by George Richmond. In 1851 she turned down another offer of marriage.

Villette was published in January 1853.

Charlotte’s fourth suitor was Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father’s curate, and it took some months for Charlotte to convince her father to agree to the marriage, but agree he eventually did, and the couple were married on 29 June 1854 at the church in Haworth. Nicholls was an Irishman and the couple honeymooned in his home country. After returning home, she seemed content to begin her life as a devoted wife. She started another novel called Emma, but it was never finished as her health rapidly declined after becoming pregnant. Charlotte Brontë and her unborn child both died on 31 March 1855, three weeks before her 39th birthday.

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