HAWORTH, BRONTE PARSONAGE

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte lived in Haworth Parsonage from 1820 to the end of their lives. The major works produced in that time were Jane Eyre (1847), Wuthering Heights (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). Between the years 1801 and 1851 the population grew by 118 percent to 3,365. A small town with no sanitation and polluted water contributed to high mortality rates. Between 1840 and 1850 there were 1,344 burials in the churchyard. The average lifespan was 25 years and 41 percent of babies died before their sixth birthday. The Bronte's father the Revd. Patrick Bronte had a print of the Victorian painter John Martin's 'The Day of Judgement' hanging on the wall of his study. A large fiery image of the end of the world predating modern film visual effects by some distance - the original can be seen in the Tate Gallery.
Emily died in 1848 at the age of thirty, Anne in 1849 at the age of twenty-nine and Charlotte in 1855 at the age of thirty-eight.