My Brontë stories : Young Arthur in Ireland Biddy and The Old Church of Banagher 1835

 

My Brontë stories. Young Arthur in Ireland

Biddy and The Old Church of Banagher   1835

Introduction

 

The character of Biddy came to being in a rush...I just couldn't say no to this world wise philosopher!She's not quite an Irish Traveler...but she is a woman of the road, at home anywhere because she's so at home within herself.

 

It all started as I researched Arthur's religious background.

 

Who was his Pastor in Ireland when ABN was young? That has to be important. The answer is very interesting and led to this Brontë story set in Arthur's youth.

 

The Pastor of Banagher during Arthur's young years was a Rev. Alexander Ross.

He was an Evangelical, as robust in his faith as Rev. Brontë himself.

 

Which may explain how Arthur and Rev. Brontë got along on for all those years before Arthur proposed to Charlotte. Arthur knew the Evangelical creed and ways well.

Rev. Alexander Ross was a scholar and he published a book length poem about the Sixth Crusade, called "Selma."

 

As a matter of fact, his book was published by Smith and Elder, CB's own publisher.

In one of the stories, I have CB make note of Smith and Elder when, upon his arrival in Haworth ,she asks ABN if he has any "non-clerical" books her family may read. They were always on the hunt for reading material.

 

Rev. Ross was an admirable man. He made a point to educate the local Catholic boys when no one else were was doing so openly. A bold move at the time. He received some criticism for this but felt it was the right thing to do.

 

After many years of this service to Catholic youth, a young, firebrand priest arrives (I'm not making this up) and he angrily insists the practice must stop as if Ross was committing a crime.

 

The implication being, Rev. Ross was not merely teaching the lads their letters, but he was trying to convert the boys.But Rev. Ross never advocated for the boys to convert. He left their religious education to their priest and parents. Rev. Ross only wished to aid the boys, in keeping with his Evangelical outlook of education over all. The young priest couldn't believe that. Perhaps it was a case of projection.

 

This young priest came when the RC congregation finally had its own church. They had it thanks to a gift of land from a Protestant landowner and prominent Banagher inhabitant named Captain Armstrong. Before that, the Catholic congregation shared the ancient, old Banagher church with the Protestants.

 

Eventually The Church of Ireland group built a new church for themselves,named St. Paul.Then the RC group received the land from Captain Armstong for their new church.

This left the old Banagher church, where Biddy lodges, empty.

 

So, it was a much better time for the RC congregation when the fire brand showed up than when the college-educated Rev. Ross began to teach the Catholic boys their letters years earlier.

 

What was a boon yesterday, can become a shameful thing in better times!

 

Anyway, Rev. Ross found the angry dressing down hurtful, but quickly took it in his stride. He knew his motive and that he had helped many boys to better themselves and what was more, the boys knew it too; that was enough.

 

Ross was a sunny fellow most of his life. He strove to see the best in everyone as Evangelicals of his era tended to do.

However, there came a time when Rev. Ross faced a grief so overwhelming, that for a few years, it broke him completely.

 

How I tell it in the story is exactly what happened to him and I have this sad event in the life of his Pastor become important to Arthur's religious development.

 

At this point, Biddy arrived in my mind and impressed herself in the vigorous manner she displays and she became an important character of the story. I enjoy Biddy's sense of freedom. We think such a person is to be pitied. However, Biddy would protest that notion!

 

I also have Arthur talk about an activity I believed he enjoyed as a young man in Ireland.An activity he couldn't possibly engage in in England as a hard-up curate.

 

In Ireland, however, Arthur Bell Nicholls was gentry ; penniless, but gentry.

 

That was due to being a son of the house of his Uncle, Rev. Allan Bell.

Rev Bell and family were gentry because Rev. Bell's father-in-law, Mr. Adamson, Aunt Bell's father, bought the lease to the Banagher Royal School for his son-in-law and daughter upon their marriage. It so happened the Royal School lease came with a great deal of land and that land raised the family in the social order.

 

So, this activity of Arthur's, in Ireland ,with rented and borrowed equipment to be sure,is not as farfetched as it may seem.

 

Enjoy!

_________________

The Old church of Banagher and Biddy

1835

by Anne Lloyd

I went to visit the old church of Banagher, as I sometimes did. It was an ancient seat of worship,now abandoned. A 0ld woman lived in the half roofed vestry, locally known as Biddy.

When I arrived, she was sunning herself in the graveyard, enjoying her pipe, alongside her pack of dogs.There were always at least two, but often more.

"Ah! Old Biddy knows that tread," she called out, "and your dog's as well!"

For indeed, my dog , Jack was with me, as always.

"It's me Biddy, Arthur Bell Nicolls."

"You always say your whole name, young Sir," she cackled.

"It's my own!"

"Aye, and you hold on to what is yours, young Sir because so little is."

That annoyed me. My poor relation position was a sore point.

Though no Bell or Adamson had ever treated me as such or ever would.

Aunt Bell had found me when I was a boy, weeping and not long arrived from my family's farm. She put a strong arm about my shoulder and with a gentle shake said, "You are no blood to me Arthur, but you and your brother are true sons of of my heart and of this house." And that settled the matter.

Now here I am, the last of Mother's Bell's seven sons and 

the only one who saw her to her grave.

Still, young pride needs no cause to stir and I tersely asked Biddy if she aimed to insult me.

"I aim to be truthful, young Sir," Biddy answered. "I'm too weary for none else. That is employment enough for a body."

"So then, what is your name, old woman? " I said. "For I know it cannot not be Biddy."

"How do you guess that then?"

"Why it's no name at all. It's an insult the village lads use. They would hardly bother to learn the true one."

She laughed again." You please me , lad." her blind eyes looking my way. 

"Nay, those lads cannot insult me, Arthur Bell Nicholls. They haven't the power. Let them call me what they will. I give them no notice. Save a strike of my stick if they prove too bothersome." She gave the cane a twirl to prove her assertion.

"Biddy is as good a name as another, I reckon." she went on."I seem to have forgotten

 my given one. If I had one besides Child of God, your Reverence."

"Faith, woman I am no collar," I scoffed.

"Naw? Well, the way you hang about old kirks, I'd say you will be, your Honor." I blushed because none had addressed me as "your Honor" before. It pleased me, but I had to reproof her.

"You are blind indeed", which caused another cackle.

"You hang about around churches and the Parson and his son." Biddy went on.

"What of it?" I said. " Rev. Ross is a fine man and Jamie Ross is my friend."

"Sickly, ain't he?" Biddy said" The boy? In a bad way...weak lungs there, lad."

I admitted it that was true.

There was no other answer. Jamie Ross was the Pastor Rev. Ross' youngest son. A good friend and brilliant scholar, much was expected of him. However, Jamie indeed had what was called, "weak lungs." Better to say that, than its true name. But my friendship with Jamie was how I knew the sure signs at Haworth later and could not be fooled.

Not long after my visit with Biddy, those weak lungs would kill my friend, Jamie Ross.

Rev. Ross was an avowed Evangelical as much as Patrick Brontë was and a published author too. I rarely met a man so sure in his faith. But Jamie's death broke Rev Ross.

For some time, he even lost his faith and I lost faith in the Evangelical path that had failed Rev. Ross so completely.

I could not depend on such slender reed as it proved to be and I looked elsewhere for religious guidance. I later found my way when at Trinity, then a hot bed of Tractarianism. It looked to the long proven past and  that was more to my liking.

"You carry about that little girl as well, " Biddy said, "to picnics and about the village. More proof of your kindness, young, Master Nicholls."

"How would you know that Biddy?"

"Oh well, all Banagher has heard the little cripple girl calling out to you, "Arthur! carry me!" Time and time again. "Arthur! Arthur!” The little Miss favors you, lad."

I blushed. It was a joke in the family how my small cousin, Mary Anna followed me about and called me,"My Arthur" from a young age.

I could not help but carry the poor girl. Mary Anna was so unsteady on her legs, she could not possibly keep up. But I did not like to be so noticed publicly. I never did. 

Never could I have foreseen I would live most of my life in the reflected light of such high renown as I have.

However, Biddy's remark caused me to bristle. Cripple was a word I would not allow about Mary Anna. She however used the term herself as she does to this day. Mary Anna doesn't fear the word and I do not protest when she uses it. The crippled have their privileges. 

I let it pass.

Indeed. She is my cousin, Miss Mary Anna Bell. "

"What happened to her then?" Biddy asked.

"She fell from a horse and her leg was ill set. She was so little; it wasn't known right off. Only when it was too late to mend."

"Shame, that. Well as I say, all that tells Biddy something about you,Arthur Bell Nicholls that no lad would like it to be known."

I quaked again. Once one's reputation was tarnished, how could it be repaired?But I put on a show and rashly asked her what was her meaning?

"I know you're a kind hearted lad. Don't deny it. Biddy knows."

"Nonsense, old woman." That just made her laugh yet again.

I looked around at the ruin that now marked the old place of worship.

"Why do you stay here Biddy? At the old church?"

"Charity, your honor. What else would it be?"

"You mean there's nowhere else for you and your dogs, poor woman?"

Biddy took her pipe from her mouth. She was genuinely surprised.

"Nay, lad! Never think such rubbish as that! All Ireland is my home and home to my dogs as well."She gave the oldest animal an affirmative rub.

" It is I who grants the charity." said Biddy in a Queenly manner.

"But see now! This poor Church! Both sides have gone to their new churches and left this grand old one loney. Your people at St Paul and the Papists have a new church thanks to Captain Armstrong's gift of land." Biddy said.

"Now mind, it is all well and good that each body has their own church. But when this noble church served so well and long, is it just to leave it forsaken and friendless?" Biddy asked.

 "And what of its dead, kind Sir?" Here her voice took on some heat. "Are they to have no company and remembrance? Shameful, it is. Shameful! I apply a remedy as best I can.”

Then she asked me.

"Why do you come here, young Sir? It's not to visit old Biddy."

"Not wholly."

"Nor is it to collect the sacred sand for the horse races." said she.

There was a legend that sand from the old Banagher churchyard brought a fellow luck in horse racing. What bosh. Yet even now, the tale has its believers.

"Not I, Biddy. Howver, if the sand bestowed luck in a hunt, well that would be a different matter."

That was part jest , but mostly admission. It pleased Biddy.

"Oh, aye! I have heard of your doings when a hunt is on!" Biddy said

You be called “The Mudder" are you not?"

I blushed and with pleasure to hear she knew of me. That stamp of renown I did not mind for it was hard won and I was proud of my achievement.

"You have? Truly?" I said eagerly. My voice, newly deepened, cracked.

Biddy smiled. "You are such a lad still, young, Arthur Bell Nicholls. Indeed, I have. Your determination in the field has won you some small, but sure, reputation, young sir. Never lose that bent. See everything though as you have the hunt. Let the renown see to itself. If you stay kind and true, it will."

 Biddy added, " Stay partly a lad, Arthur Bell Nicholls. The part that is good, earnest and true to the end." I thought on Biddy's words much latter when my wife called me her

 " Dear Boy." Perhaps I had indeed followed Biddy's advice.

I will speak of the Banagher Hunt I rode in during that time, for it shows a trait important to my story.

I had gained a place in the local hunt because of my years of following along by foot with the other village lads. However, because of my determination, unlike the other boys, I was often in on the kill at the end. Covered in all kinds of muck, because I did not let any obstacle in the fields and ditches deter me.

As Biddy said, I became known as "The Mudder.” It began as a joke. But just the year before, I was invited to join the Banagher hunt formally. I thought my heart would burst.

 Upon hearing the news, Aunt Bell convinced Uncle to rent me a horse for each hunt. Then Aunt wrote to her brother to procure his ancient riding jacket, which though faded and out of fashion, I wore with the greatest of pride.

Like many times afterwards, I began as an object of jest. But my industry and my way of sticking to an aim in the end, won respect and regard. This bent of persevering when I truly wanted something, stood me in good stead later during the greatest pursuit of my life.

Presently, I tossed Biddy's curs some treats. I always carried some for dogs along the way or for my own. My Jack, properly trained, stood by in a gentlemanly manner as Biddy's pack enjoyed their biscuits.

I followed the habit of keeping treats in my pocket as a school master, later. It's a remarkably effective way to win over dogs and ensure the factory children will come to school before their shift.

 Miss Anne, the only born-teacher among the Brontës, had the same trick for the village urchins who would do little tasks about the Parsonage such as drawing well water. She made sure of her supply every baking day. I carry such treats in my pocket to this day.

My dog, Jack's manner pleased Biddy.

"You have trained your dog well, young sir."

High praise from that quarter. I nodded in acknowledgment. I swear she heard it.

"Biddy, are not some of these curs of yours new?" I asked.

"Oh aye." She said, stroking those near-by.

"Where do you find such dogs?"

"They find me, your Honor!"

Biddy asked again why did I haunt the old church?

"I...don't know. " I admitted. "It speaks of another, truer time and Church. A time before all the division and muddle we have today. I want to know about its time, the old ways and I feel calm here and at peace."

This was more of my feeling I ever expressed in quietude to another before, save Mother Bell.

Biddy nodded. "That is well your honor. But this land has always been fought over and churches sacked. The peace in this churchyard today comes from the battle having gone elsewhere for a time, as it always does when a use is done.I favor it for that too. 

But Ireland? It be too little to conquer and too big to keep."

"England has it." I said flatly as one would say the sun comes up.little

"Does she? Then why is half of her great army needful and lodged here to

 keep this little isle?”

Biddy's face softened.

"But enough. For now, we will indeed enjoy this yard's blessed peace. All mischief that goes on in a churchyard and the world has left it with the people for the new places. "

“But see, young Sir, how swiftly Nature takes back her own! The grave stones are nearly covered over by the grass and the dead seem quite comfortable together now, do they not?"

"But you cannot see Biddy. How do you know that?"

“By the quiet, your honor, one can hear grass grow and the stones sigh." Biddy sighed deeply herself, then smiled.

"And now, to complete my content, may I have a match for my pipe, Arthur Bell Nicholls?”

     THE END

Anne Lloyd © 2026

How Mrs. Gaskell brought about Charlotte's biography

  Usually I post one of my Brontë stories. 

But today I'm posting an essay on Brontë history

 

Mrs. Gaskell

  

How Mrs. Gaskell brought about Charlotte's biography

 

 

by Anne Lloyd

 

I was going through some books to give away and ran across my copy of Mrs. Gaskell's letters. A hefty tome indeed. I'm a big fan of Victorian writing naturally and so I opened to a page to read a bit before placing the letters in the bag.

 

I happened to open the book upon a letter written on May 31 1855, about two months Charlotte's passing. In this letter, Mrs. G asked George Smith, Charlotte’s publisher, if he has a copy of Richmond's portrait of Charlotte and if she may have an engraved copy for herself. This seems natural enough for a grieving friend.

 

However, I was amazed by the very next passage in her letter to Smith, where Mrs. G swiftly went from a remembrance of a friend, to proposing a biography of Charlotte's life.

 

Mrs. G hardly had time to wipe away the tears for her friend and she's proposing an exploitative opportunity with Charlotte’s publisher.

But even publisher Smith drew back at the proposal, saying it was much too soon.

That tender sensibility did not stop Mr. G, of course. 

 

In fact, she had already been busy about the project since Charlotte's death. But the origins of the biography go even further back to years earlier.

 

Well before Mrs. Gaskell met Charlotte Brontë ; Gaskell couldn't help writing about  CB's life. She heard the stories about the wild moor and the tragic events making the social  rounds and Mrs Gaskell, the novelist, would craft passages in letters to friends, that were similar to pages in the later biography. She had to meet the this  literary phenomenon.

 

Mrs. G pressed Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth to arrange a meeting with the now very famous "Currer Bell." He obliged and it was during a visit to Kay-Shuttleworth 's estate that the two women met and became friends.

 

What gave Mrs. G the extra charge to advocate for a biography right after CB's death came from John Greenwood. He lived in Haworth and among other things, sold stationary. He knew Charlotte; indeed, he supplied the sisters with their writing paper.

 

Mrs. G had meet Greenwood during a visit to the village. Charlotte had introduced them.

 

This acquaintance emboldened Greenwood to write to Gaskell directly, less than a week after Charlotte's death. Indeed, it was John Greenwood who told  Elizabeth Gaskell about Charlotte's passing in a letter written on May 5, 1855.

 

Greenwood also wrote to Mrs. Gaskell letters full of malicious gossip about Patrick Brontë and Arthur Bell Nicholls. He is the source of the stories about Haworth's mad Irish pastor cutting up his wife's dress and starving his children.

 

Mrs. G enthusiastically wrote back to Greenwood:

 

"You can't think, how your letter interests me."

 

Oh, you bet.

 

Mr. Greenwood thus became Gaskell's Haworth connection and gossip source. John Greenwood was hardly a disinterested bystander. He had a nice Brontë souvenir business that Arthur disapproved of and wish to end.

 

In short, Greenwood had a grudge and Mrs. G had a vision. Together they created the biography and its scandalous first edition stories about Patrick.

 

Armed with Greenwood's tales, Mrs. G wrote an anonymous magazine article called

" A few notes about Jane Eyre", that appeared in the June 1855 edition of Sharp's Magazine. 

 

To appear in June, the article had to be written very soon after Gaskell heard from Greenwood

 

With the stories in print, Gaskell then had Ellen Nussey write to Rev. Brontë a letter telling him about the article and saying to him there must be an answer to these "malicious misrepresentations!"  

 

Helpfully in her letter, Ellen also offered a solution to this outrage. Only Mrs. Gaskell could effectively counter these slanders! Would Rev. Brontë ask her to undertake the task?

 

In short: Mrs. G anonymously put into print the Greenwood gossip. She then had Ellen Nussey write to the Parsonage, telling Rev. Brontë and Arthur about the publication and strongly advocating Mrs. G to be commissioned to refute the stories that Mrs. G herself had written.

 

How do I know Mrs. Gaskell wrote that anonymous article? Because the author of the article used Greenwood's tales and these stories appeared again two years later in the official biography, almost word for word.

 

Also, I don't believe Ellen found the article and came up with the Mrs. G idea on her own. Ellen would hardly offer Gaskell as an answer to Patrick if she did not have Gaskell's commission to get , not only Rev. Brontë's permission, but  also to make it seem to all the world that a biography was his idea!

 

The original Parsonage response to Ellen's letter about the article was:  who cares what an obscure magazine article says and  an answer would only spread the stories further.

 

However, Patrick always like to see what the press was saying about his daughter and so a copy was obtained which Arthur read to him.

 

Patrick's first reaction to these fantastic tales was peals of laughter. Arthur wrote to Ellen that he had not seen his father-in-law that merry for many months.

 

But the poison had been drunk and perhaps with Ellen's further urging, Patrick changed his mind.

 

Perhaps that is why the stories were mostly about how ghastly Patrick Brontë had treated his wife and children throughout their lives and thus were used as a particular goad in Mrs. G's aim to get that permission\ request from him.

 

Patrick was a man very sensitive to his reputation as an immigrant Irishman in England and his standing as a gentleman and a churchman... since he worked very hard to reach that station.

 

But I believe, eventually the idea of his most famous and last child not disappearing altogether, was also a reason he agreed to the book as well.

 

So, as he was instructed by Ellen, Patrick wrote Mrs. Gaskell to formally ask her to undertake his daughter's biography.

 

Mrs. Gaskell immediately sent Patrick's letter to George Smith, saying to him, see here the solemn task, nay, duty! (which she had arranged) that was somehow laid upon her.

 

So Patrick Brontë was thus manipulated to ask the author of the awful stories to write a push-back to the stories she herself had authored.

 

When Mrs. G told people she was" frightened " of Arthur. That's was her guilty conscience speaking. It's nice to know she had one.

 

What could the scene have been like two years later when the published biography was opened at the Parsonage by Rev. Brontë and Arthur Bell Nicholls, only to find, word for word the very same stories that book was meant to refute?

 

Whatever the sensation at the Parsonage, after seeing they were cruelly tricked, forever afterwards Patrick always defended Mrs. G in public. He told others he wanted no quarrel with her and even said, "Well, novelists will have their little stories."

 

Patrick simply asked Mrs. Gaskell to remove the slanders in later editions. This she did, but the damage was done.

 

However, others in her book came after Mrs. Gaskell for the treatment they received. The former Mrs. Robinson, now Lady Scott, had her lawyers force Mrs. Gaskell to publicly recant the stories written about her ; a heaping plate of crow indeed. 

 

 But it was Mrs. Gaskell's husband and their lawyers who dined upon the meal.

 She ran off to Italy.

 

Many in Haworth itself were angry over the village's portrait drawn in Mrs. G’s book and one of the Garr sisters, nursemaids to the Brontë children, had complaints.

 

But as I say, Patrick did not join the post-publication fray. 

 

He stood by Mrs. G, even though he was the most ill-used. Mrs. Gaskell noted his generosity years later and called Patrick Brontë, "a real brick" ( a good sport) about it all. Indeed.

 

The only major event of Charlotte's life which Mrs. G did not inflame for sensation was Belgium. That was given special treatment. Gaskell traveled there, met Professor and Madame Heger and was shown CB's letters to Monsieur to read.

 

She was so shocked by their contents that she glossed over that time period and the later events in her book. Mrs. Gaskell trembled at the thought the letters might be published; destroying the image of Charlotte she had carefully created.

 

But Gaskell felt the Hegers were too honorable to do so. She was correct in that assumption. The letters were published in 1913 after the letters left the family's hands.

 

Ellen Nussey was ready and able to aid Mrs. G in her aim with vim and vigor.

 

Whenever Mrs. G was momentarily refused by Arthur in one of the book's needs, Ellen wisely advised Gaskell; don't ask the husband, ask the father. Work on Patrick, whom Arthur could not refuse and Mrs. G would get her way. The technique worked perfectly.  

 

However, Ellen was not rewarded for her help once her usefulness was over. Mrs. G had long promised Ellen she would be able to read though the manuscript before it would be sent to the publishers and strike out or changed what she wished.

 

As the publishing date drew near, Ellen sent a number of inquiries about when that opportunity would be given? What Ellen was given was  a half hour to glance though the manuscript. With that, Lily felt her promise was more than fulfilled.

 

Elizabeth Gaskell was not a bad person. But she could be a remarkably high handed and self-serving one, such as in the history I'm relating.

 

Ellen was of course "hurt." But I have little sympathy for her in this case.

 

So as the writing went along, Mrs. G got just about everything she wanted for her book in the way of letters and information by appealing to Patrick. Everything that is, but the Brontë copyright.

 

George Smith and Gaskell could not wrestle that from Arthur, even though they tried. Charlotte had said of Arthur that he was , "...a man who could be led, but never driven." Mrs. G and Smith certainly found that out.

 

Arthur also had believed his wife's letters would be used only for background information, not published by the dozens.

 

But of course, they lied to him about that and when the book was ready to go to the printer, Arthur was shocked to find many of Charlotte's letters were actually included.

 

Later he lamented he did not insist on reading the manuscript before publication. While Arthur and Patrick had nothing to do with the book's contents, they were subjected to the local complaints about it.  

 

Arthur said "Mrs Gaskell seemed not to realize she writing about living persons!" 

Mrs. G may have, but I don't believe that mattered to her too much. It was the story telling that mattered.

 

Regardless of all this, again, Arthur could not disappoint Patrick and so as the letters' copyright holder, he gave permission for the biography to be sent to press....and on to glory.

 

Mrs. Gaskell told publisher Smith that after Charlotte's wedding, Charlotte had often asked her to come to Haworth. But again, Mrs. G told Smith she was too "afraid" of Arthur to even answer.

 

What Mrs. G did not tell Smith, was that during those post wedding months, when Charlotte invited her, Mrs. Gaskell was totally taken up and enamored with a new, famous, individual, Florence Nightingale.

 

Mrs. G visited with Miss Nightingale three times during those months when Charlotte's invitations went unanswered.

Gaskell had moved on.

 

But then CBN died unexpectedly ; and Greenwood sent the news with juicy gossip and just like that , Charlotte was back in Mrs. Gaskell's life front and center.

 

Now you know the story.

 

However I must end with a further observation. Throughout her life, beginning at Miss Wooler's school when a girl, Charlotte told her life story to anyone of intelligence who cared to listen.

 

William S. Williams, the Smith and Elder's reader, who discovered CB, particularly comes to mind. Her letters to him weave a detailed story of her life.

 

This tendency of Charlotte's was how Lily heard about the moor and the sisters via London friends in the first place. Hearing of them, as I've said, Gaskell became fascinated and very interested in meeting Charlotte: to hear the tales from the source.  

 

Charlotte, like Mrs. Gaskell afterwards, told the stories in livid terms,adding heightened color to the scenes.

 

In a sense, Lily Gaskell was following Charlotte's own footsteps when

she wrote of Currer Bell's life in the way she did.

 

They were both novelists to the heart after all.

 

 

 

 Anne Lloyd © 2026