Anne Brontë attended Roe Head School in Mirfield where Charlotte worked as a teacher. Although there for less than 2 years, she thrived during this time and even received a good-conduct medal from her headmistress Margaret Wooler that was inscribed, “Prize for good conduct passed to Miss A. Brontë with headmistress Wooler’s kind love, Roe Head. Dec.14th. 1836.” [1]
Anne Brontë has always been the neglected one of the three famous literary sisters, and that seems to me to be such a pity. The youngest of Patrick and Maria Brontë’s children, she was born on 17 January 1820.
Anne lived most of her life in the five-roomed Haworth Parsonage on the Yorkshire moors where her father was a clergyman in the Church of England. Her mother died when she was a year old, and she was raised by her Aunt Branwell who lived with the family. She was a stern woman, who did her duty by the children and taught them religion and housekeeping.
With her sisters Emily and Charlotte, Anne published a book of poems under pen names in 1846. It was a financial failure – only two copies were sold. Her first novel, Agnes Grey, was published in 1847 (with Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was published in 1848. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is often considered one of the first feminist novels.
In many ways, Anne was the most successful of the Brontë sisters when it came to leading a ‘normal’ life. She held down positions as a governess, worked hard away from home, and even helped her brother Branwell get a job.
She coped bravely with the tragedy of suffering tuberculosis when still so young. She is the only one in the family buried away from her siblings. You can visit her grave at Scarborough, overlooking the sea which she loved. It’s a moving place to go.
Anne Brontë died of pulmonary tuberculosis on 28 May 1849 at age 29.