Brontë Christmas lunch and entertainment 2010

45 members gathered for the group's Christmas lunch on Saturday 11 December, seven of whom had travelled from the Netherlands to join us, with journeys of over three hours each way in some cases. We were lucky with the weather, since the lunch fell between two cold spells, just over the heavy snow that had been making for difficult travelling conditions and with more snow threatened soon.

There was plenty of good cheer, good conversation, and excellent entertainment from several of our talented members who had volunteered to amuse us over our desserts and coffee.

Until today we had known Franklin as the creator of visionary drawings inspired by the Brontës. He now acquainted us with another of his talents by singing 1960s and 70s songs for us (no Brontë link here, but very enjoyable!), accompanying himself on the guitar. Valerie Sculfor, Sally Batten and Sherry Vosburgh sang carols and songs from musicals.

Franklin and his guitar, and singers Valerie, Sally and Sherry

We had first-rate literary entertainment, too, and this was all Brontë-related. Sheila Fordham, who has been known to write poems for group occasions in the past, often drafted on the train journey in to work, didn’t let us down this time and read us a prose poem, a humorous reflection on the life of Branwell Brontë.

Sheila entertains us with her tribute to Branwell

In similarly satirical and light-hearted vein we got fun out of the whole Brontë family (or rather the popular stereotypes of them) in the sketch Christmas Dinner at Haworth Parsonage which appeared in Punch magazine in the 1930s. Richard Fletcher played an irascible Patrick Brontë, Sally Batten an embittered Charlotte brooding about Brussels (whereas Patrick is more interested in the Brussels sprouts), Sheila Fordham a lachrymose Anne and Valerie Sculfor a formidable Emily squabbling with a Branwell somewhat the worse for drink (Liviu Danubiu) over the authorship of a well-known poem.

Tracie Ryan, who directs and acts in the Brussels Shakespeare Society, also took us into the Parsonage with her performance of a Victoria Wood sketch, The guide in Haworth Parsonage.

Valerie, Sally, Sheila, Richard and Liviu performing the sketch Christmas Dinner at Haworth Parsonage

Tracie performing her Victoria Wood sketch

Eric Ruijssenaars, taking leave of us for a year, told us about the scholarship he has been granted by the New Netherland Institute in Albany, US, to do a research project involving 17th C Dutch colonial archives. While in the US Eric will also make contact with the Brontë Society there and talk to its New York section and will also address the annual meeting of all the American sections of the Society. The subject of his talk will of course be Brussels Brontë research and our group!

We gave Eric a going-away present prepared by Selina Busch and ended with a raffle with gifts also prepared by Selina. In her role as Father Christmas, Selina came from the Netherlands bearing Christmas cards as well as gifts for everyone present.

Eric telling us about his scholarship to do research in the US and receiving his going-away present from Selina and Helen

If Branwell Brontë, that lover of good cheer, had been present at our revels surely he would have enjoyed himself and forgiven some good-humoured fun at his expense. I think even his more retiring sisters, had they been flies on the wall, would have been pleased to see so many of us gathered in Brussels to celebrate Christmas in their honour.

Helen MacEwan

Thanks to Peter Cavanagh for the photos

Jane Eyre in Luxembourg

On Friday 3 December I made the three-hour train journey from Brussels across the snow-covered Ardennes to see June Lowery’s stage adaptation of Jane Eyre performed by the Berliner Grundtheater, an English-language theatre company which performs frequently in Luxembourg. The play was being premiered there with a mainly Luxembourg-based cast.

A more romantic setting for this most romantic of stories is hard to imagine: the arts centre in the magnificently renovated Abbaye de Neumunuster down in the picturesque Grund quarter. At this time of year the quarter was particularly beautiful, the snow sparkling with the Christmas lights.

June Lowery has been involved in drama since her university days when she helped her future husband with the lights for a student production of Hamlet he was directing. They set up the Berliner Grundtheater 20 years ago.

She re-discovered Jane Eyre through reading Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels with her daughter. She wrote the script in 5 months - somehow combining the work with her roles as a manager at the European Commission and mother of two children- after she and her husband, Tony Kingston, met their Jane (Jacqueline Milnes).

The play was directed by Tony and produced by June who also took the role of Mrs Fairfax.

It is an ambitious staging, every essential scene of the novel packed into the two-and-a-half hours, with a huge cast and a striking set design, stairs up to a higher level being used to different effect for Gateshead Manor, Lowood School and Thornfield Hall where of course they lead up to the attic!

As usual in English-language productions in Luxembourg and Brussels, the cast was multinational, with a Danish Rochester, for example. The cast’s multilingualism came in useful: Adèle spoke in impeccable French as did Jane when required (Jacqueline Milne is Irish but was brought up in Luxembourg).

Charlotte Brontë’s interest in foreign languages was one aspect of the novel that attracted June. Jane loves French, learns German, even learns Hindustani. This made the play particularly suited to the babel of tongues that is Luxembourg. In preparing the show, June met fans who had read the novel for the first time in French, Spanish, Greek, Romanian, Slovakian….

Two other aspects of the novel seemed to June timely and modern: the treatment of sexual passion, and of religion. Charlotte Brontë acknowledges the force of sexual passion and frankly analyses Jane’s dilemma when torn between love and principle. As for religion, while the framework of the novel is Christian – Rochester must be punished and repent before he can be united with Jane – the emphasis is on tolerance and forgiveness. Brontë has no time for the strict and narrow-minded religion of Brocklehurst and St John Rivers.

The Brussels Brontë Group has several members in Luxembourg, who have been known to spend hours on trains in order to attend our events. I hope there will be lots more “trans-Ardennes” exchanges!

Helen MacEwan

Mrs. Chadwick online and other research news

Published in 1914, Mrs. Chadwick's In the footsteps of the Brontës is one of the most interesting early biographies of the family. The book, which has some very valuable information about 'Brussels' has now become available online.

http://archive.org/stream/infootstepsofbro00chadrich#page/n5/mode/2up

Little is known about the author, Esther Alice Chadwick. She seems to have been born in 1882. In 1910 she published a biography of Mrs Gaskell. Both books she signed, confusingly, as Mrs. Ellis H Chadwick. In 1917 her article about A gift from M. le Professeur Constantin Heger to Charlotte Brontë was published in 'The Nineteenth Century'. The last reference to her that can be found is a book named Haworth Parsonage, the home of the Brontës, from 1928. It's not known when she died.

The book has some very interesting photographs and other illustrations, for instance of the Rue d'Isabelle and M. and Mme. Heger's grave. There's also a nice but too speculative chapter about a third visit to Brussels by Charlotte (beginning on page 400) in 1850.

Research

With regard to the Jenkinses, and in particular the question about where exactly they lived, a giant breakthrough has been achieved by Brian Bracken. Below you can read his article about it. Brian, if I may say so, is a great addition to the Brussels Brontë Group's Research Dept. With the aid of Renate Hurtmanns, who previously did vital cemetery research, we will continue to bring you interesting resarch news.

There's also more to come on the website, the beginning of an A to Z of places and persons, in which among other things a longer version of Brian's article can be read. In the near future we also hope to make available online some old articles ourselves, like Mrs. Chadwick's A gift.

Eric Ruijssenaars

The Jenkinses’ house in Ixelles

Brian Bracken reports on an important discovery concerning the location of the house of the Rev. Evan Jenkins, the British chaplain in Brussels whose home was so often visited by the Brontë sisters.

The Jenkins family played an important role in the Brontë Brussels story, introducing Emily and Charlotte to the Hegers and their Pensionnat, yet the only concrete address we've ever had for the family's home in Ixelles is from W. Gérin's famous biography of Charlotte Brontë, wherein she cites the address as Chaussée d'Ixelles, 304. This lies near the Place Flagey end of the Chaussée. It would have proved a long enough walk for the Brontës, coming from downtown Brussels on their Sunday visits to the Jenkinses. However, our new research has shown that the address provided by Gérin is incorrect.The Brontë biographer repeats an erroneous address listed in the 1840 Indicateur Belge, used by her as a source book. If one looks at other Indicateurs, or address books, for Brussels in the period 1838-1848, the Jenkins address is clearly given as Ch.d'Ixelles, 388. The Ixelles Commune's Population Census for 1846 confirms this address.

However the Chaussée d'Ixelles we know today ends at number 359. So where was number 388? This has a simple explanation - the houses of Ixelles underwent a major numbering change between the years 1846 and 1850. Chaussée d'Ixelles 388, in the new numbering system became Chaussée d'Ixelles, 138. The death certificate of the Rev. Evan Jenkins, issued by the Ixelles Commune, confirms this. He died at this address, on 23 September 1849.

Where was number 138 located exactly on the Chaussée? Reading the 1846 and 1856 Census Registers for Ixelles, it's clear that the house bearing this number lay between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue de la Tulipe, on the left hand side as one goes from the Porte de Namur to Place Fernand Cocq. It was located about eight or nine houses before the corner of Rue de la Tulipe. The Ixelles cadastral maps of 1836 and 1866 also show this position. On their Sunday afternoon visits here, the Brontë sisters, accompanied by the Rev. Jenkins' sons, John and Edward, would have walked up from the Place Royale in half an hour at the most.

We must note, however, that the Ch. d'Ixelles,138 of the 1840s is not the 138 we see today. There were further minor house number changes on the Chaussée over the last 160 years, with the result that the house would have stood somewhere between the present day 144 and 148, still on the same section of the Chaussée d'Ixelles, between the Rues de la Paix and de la Tulipe. It's impossible to be more precise for the moment. The street has seen a lot of new constuction over the years, and old houses have been swallowed up by new blocks of flats. Numbers 144 and 146 today are neoclassical houses of 19th century origin, with transformations, and it's possible either one of the two is the Jenkins house.

In any case, even if no further information can be attained, it's certain that the Jenkins family's home, whose whereabouts has long since been a puzzle, was located on this part of the Chaussée d'Ixelles. Our research also offers one of those mysterious coincidences sometimes found in Brontë studies - the house we have been patiently seeking, and which Charlotte and Emily often visited many years ago, may in fact be the house now occupied by a shoe shop called … Pronti !

Brian Bracken

Brontës in Brittany

Brussels Brontë Group member Johan Hellinx explains how he came to write an article in the Breton language about the Brontës’ stay in Brussels.

For a British expat it might sound very strange, but for a Fleming like myself it’s not unusual to speak two or three languages besides our mother tongue, Dutch. I learned French, German and English at school and quickly discovered why I needed to know what we call “our languages” in Belgium: when we travel 100 kilometers, we are already in another language area or … in another country ! So if we want to broaden our horizons, we have to learn languages, unlike some other Europeans …

When I trained to become a French teacher – oh yes, I learned the language of the “enemy” ! – I also studied Italian. At that time, I also laid the foundations of another hobby of mine, Celtic languages and cultures. During the lectures on medieval French literature, our professor told us about the “matière de Bretagne”, the medieval French literary works inspired by the ancient Celtic legends, Tristan and Yseut, Marie de France, Chrétien de Troyes, King Arthur … It all came back years later when I decided to study Breton. It took me some time – Breton is a very strange language after all and I didn’t get younger either – but after ten years I can confirm I speak it quite fluently. That’s how I recently started writing articles for the Breton literary review ABER. When I eventually became acquainted with the Brussels Brontë Group, I formed the project of writing an article about the stay of the two Brontë sisters in Brussels – for a Breton public. I read out my article at a literary conference on women writers in Quimper in the départment of Finistère, Brittany.

Johan Hellinx