Poor Branwell

   There have been an endless number of dramatizations of the lives of 19th century writers coming out of Britain the past few years. My favorites are about the Brontës, those three sisters writing away in the middle of the Yorkshire moors. They had to assume male pen names, because women were not expected to be writers in the early 1800s.

   Always in the background in these videos is their beloved brother Branwell. He aspires to be a painter, but he drinks. He'll burst into the room late in the evening. His shirt is pulled out, his hair's a mess. After he knocks over a table or two, one of the sisters puts him to bed. "Anne, it's your turn."

   Branwell was born on June 26, 1817. His mother died when he was four. Two of his three older sisters died four years later. Friends of the family urged Branwell's father to send him to boarding school for a change of scene, but his father, a church curate, decided to educate Branwell at home.

   Branwell and his three sisters created a fantasy world and wrote plays and stories about it.  Branwell  was more interested in painting and took lessons from a local portrait painter. He painted a portrait of himself with his sisters but was dissatisfied with his own portrait and painted himself out. 

   He began hanging around the village pub for male companionship. He was charming and popular and never went home before closing time. He went to London to study painting, but wasted too much time drinking and was soon back home.

  He now began a series of jobs as a tutor in schools and in the homes of the wealthy. These jobs always started brilliantly, but soon saw him dismissed for negligence or worse. His last job was as a tutor to the children of a wealthy gentleman.  Branwell commenced an affair with the man's wife.  He would have been shot if this was Italy, but the gentleman sent Branwell home with the worst possible reference.

   Back home Branwell decided to sit tight and wait for the gentleman to die at which point he could marry the wife and live at ease.  In a stroke of luck, the gentleman soon died.  Unfortunately the wife, who really did care for Branwell declined to marry him.

   Well, there was always his faithful friend the bottle. He also took up opium, a drug as available then as marijuana is today.  Branwell's sisters started to sicken of his behavior, but Branwell obliged them by dying on this day in 1848, aged 31. Emily and Anne both followed him within a year. Charlotte actually managed to escape the parsonage in a happy marriage but soon died in childbirth at age 38.

   Old man Brontë, of tough Irish peasant stock, persisted on till age 84, giving his sermons and visiting the sick and poor.

The Brontë sisters. MIA brother Branwell