Anne Bronte was the youngest member of the literary Bronte
family and her novels are still selling. I won’t bore you with her life story
but tragedy engulfed the Bronte family and all Bronte children died before
their dad. In December 1848 Anne was deeply affected when she watched her
30-year-old sister Emily die on the couch at home at the parsonage in Haworth.
Her own health was poor and she probably knew she was suffering from the same
ailment (she'd be dead within six months.) She was determined to stay well but medication
failed and she got so weak she could hair climb the stairs to her bedroom. The
next month - January 1849 - marked her 29th birthday but it was not a time for
celebration. She travelled to Leeds to see a physician who diagnosed advanced
tuberculosis with no hope of recovery.
The following month Anne
felt a little better and wanted to visit Scarborough on the east coast, a place
she loved. Her only remaining sibling Charlotte thought it would be too stressful
but, knowing it would be for the last time, agreed to take her. Three months later
in May they set off from Haworth with their beloved friend Ellen Nussey. On
route they spent a day and night in York shopping and visiting the Minster. Anne
was so weak she had to be pushed around in a wheelchair. They arrived at
Scarborough on a Thursday and booked into Wood's Lodgings in St Nicholas Square
overlooking the south bay (since demolished and replaced by The Grand Hotel.)
Within
four days Anne was dead. On the Sunday Charlotte asked Anne if it would be
better for her to return home to Haworth to die. They asked a doctor to examine
her but he said the end was near. Conscious and calm Anne died the following
afternoon at about two o'clock in the afternoon. The dinner bell rang as
Charlotte closed her dead sister's eyes. Strangely her body wasn't returned to
Haworth to be placed into the Bronte vault for Charlotte decided to "lay
the flower where it had fallen". The funeral was two days later and their
dad was too far away to travel 70 miles for the burial. She was lowered into
the earth in St Mary's churchyard below the castle walls.
Here
I am by the grave which receives a steady stream of visitors. Different objects
adorn the grave every time I visit it - flowers, pens, coins, books, ink pots,
necklaces, cards. St Mary's is a beautiful church however building work was
being done so the funeral service couldn't be held here - it was held at Christ
Church in central Scarborough which has been demolished (Wacker's fish &
chip shop and an Iceland store back onto the area where it once stood.) Anne's
old teacher and friend Miss Wooler was in Scarborough and attended the burial.
That
Wednesday evening I had a stroll around and took some footage. It was about 9pm
and still visitors arrived: a hippy woman with a 17-year-old dog, a couple from
Hull were "desperate to get away for a couple of nights" and a family
from Cornwall hoping the sea air would knock the kids out for 12 hours. The
grave had a few items on it. I doubt there was little bury in 1849; Anne was so
thin when she died she must have weighed as much as a greyhound. It was a sad life:
her mum died when she was one and as the years passed she saw another four
siblings get sick and then die. Moreover she died in obscurity without a clue
of the legacy she left. What would she think of people reading her work 170+
years on? I did a salute and left.
A photo taken in
2020...
Cracking view of
the south bay...
The grave
receives many visitors…
The remaining
Bronte's are buried here in Haworth....