Patrick Bronte

Patrick Bronte (1777-1861) was the father of the famous Bronte Sisters; Anne, Charlotte and Emily, three of Victorian England's greatest novelists, but he was a fascinating man in his own right and not nearly such an unsympathetic character as Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte would have us believe.Born into poverty in Ireland, he won a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge, and was ordained into the Church of England. He was perpetual curate of Haworth in Yorkshire for forty-one years, bringing up four children, founding a school and campaigning for a proper water supply. Although often portrayed as a somewhat forbidding figure, he was an opponent of capital punishment and the Poor Law Amendment Act, a supporter of limited Catholic emancipation and a writer of poetry.This is the first serious biography of Patrick Bronte for more than forty years.