This is a brilliant idea for a Brontë video, and one I haven’t seen before. Super insight into daily life at the time, not just for them but others of their social class.
Thank you. I often wonder about the social history side of the family. We know so much about their writing but at the end of the day they were normal people that needed to live and not so much is know about that. It took forever to collate all the info but I'm pleased I did. It really helped me understand their life at the Parsonage better.
Kate, I hope youtube see these messages of appreciation, and realise, there IS a community of Bronte-fans out there, who DO want to see more content, EXACTLY like yours! It's alarming to realise, how little this family got by on, before Charlotte's success-and what a drain on resources Branwell was; two things about their economic reality which I'm ashamed to say, had not really occurred, to me, previously! I loved the £, shilling, and pence bit too! Another entertaining and enjoyable Vlog! Thanks Kate, have a great w/end love sue xxx
Thank you Sue. I wanted to talk about the £,s,d but didn't want to get too deep into it, enough so people understand what I'm talking about. Loved finding out about it all and wasted too much time reading about the cost of things. I get so much feedback and it still amazes me every time. I am so pleased you enjoy my videos. xx
About the water: there's a letter in the late 1400s from Spanish ambassador Dr. de Puebla to Isabel of Castile. They were preparing to send Isabel's daughter Catherine over to England to marry the eldest son of Henry Tudor, Arthur. In the letter de Puebla advises Isabel to teach Catherine to drink ale, because "you can't drink the water in England."
They always made out that the Black Bull watered the beer down so you got the dirty water weather you liked it or not. I am sure they did do small beers, if you didn't have the money for a quart.
@@brontesistersuk Oh! This makes me think of a scene from a favorite movie: "Hobson's Choice". It was based on a play, and takes place (and was filmed) in Salford, near Manchester. In this scene, Hobson, played by Charles Laughton, is with his friends in the local tavern. They're all a little drunk, and Hobson states that he knows the tavern keeper always waters down their drinks once they've had enough not to notice. About one of the circle of friends, he laughs: "Poor Denton hasn't had right change for years!"
In the 1600s Samuel Pepys describes three times drinking water. Once in the country side where he thought it would be safe, he became dreadfully ill. Another time resulted in his famous stone. The third occasion he took the water of Epson, on his doctors advice for constipation. It worked wonders.
This was such a fascinating topic! Thank you. Ellen remembers an interesting trip with all three sister when they went to buy fabric for dresses. She remembers that Charlotte and Anne both chose dark, sensible material but Emily chose a dramatic pattern with thunderclouds or something similar, and Ellen says that it suited her. Another additional expense would be the music and art lessons Patrick (and/or Aunt Branwell) sprung for. An example of Aunt Branwell's economy comes from another memory from Ellen (thank you, Ellen!!): William Weightman, the sisters and Ellen went walking to (Bradford?) for a lecture or another event, and came back to the Parsonage with a couple of Weightman's friends, as I remember it. Aunt Branwell had made just enough coffee for the original party and was extremely upset about not being able to serve everyone properly. Ellen remembers that Weightman, who enjoyed teasing Aunt Branwell, decided he was very thirsty.
Thank you, I loved looking into it all. Coffee would have been expensive too. I wish the thunder dress survived and we could see it. Imagine finding that in a truck.
Hi I like your videos very much so informative.Wuthering Heights is my favourite book I have it also on CD and have listened to it about six times and I am amazed how those girls who were so innocent yet wrote in such a a passionate way is extraordinary.
Thank you for watching. They must have been very good at observing and listening to people’s stories to get the insights into lives to write the way they did.
New subscriber here. 😊 I loved this! Thank you so much for the video. I appreciate having this information about the economic situation of the Brontë family. I did know about British pre-decimalization money from research I did in my early years because my grandmother introduced me to Georgette Heyer when I was eight in 1965. I know this was quite uncommon in the USA at the time. I was reading Jane Austen and the Brontës before my teens and have continued to re-read their works to this day. Georgia in Billings, Montana, USA. (edit for spelling)
Hello Georgia and welcome. Thank you for coming along on my Bronte Adventure. I am so pleased you enjoyed the video. I think if you read the Brontes when you are young they are with you forever, they don't leave your mind. I like the sound of your Grandmother, sensible lady teaching you young. Thanks again for watching and wow, you are in America.
My grandmother made her own soap, out of lard, perfumed for the bathroom but with carbolic for the laundry. She had electricity, but in earlier times perhaps they made their own candles too.
This is brilliant, social history first hand (almost anyway). You have me thinking about if Tabby would have made soap in the early days to save money. This is a great idea to research, thank you. And...I love the smell of Carbolic soap, it's such a clean smell, strange I know. Thank you for watching.
@@brontesistersuk I can remember threepenny bits and half crowns very well. Also if I received a 10 shilling note in a birthday card, i was very happy! I love watching your videos very much so thank you❤. Especially visiting Anne's grave, and finding where the Brontes vault really is in the church. I am going to stay with my son in Lancashire this week, and he always takes me to Haworth, and something new to learn.
@@user-qh8nh7oe6d I hope you get to visit the true location of the vault. If the church starts finding flowers in the middle of the floor, it's my fault. Thanks again.
@@brontesistersuk I admired the Bronte sisters since I was young. When I got to the door of the museum I teared up and didn't go in, but I am visiting there again this month. Thank you for your great video 🙏
@@savingsavioursinvestments I hope you get that tingle feeling again when you visit but managed to go in. I always imagine Tabby is about to come out and tell me off for letting all the hot air out the door.
I'm so pleased you liked it. Loving hearing from my regular viewers and getting their thumbs up. I loved researching this but it was so hard to find it all out.
Love your channel, so glad I found it! I'm a viewer from Michigan, USA. 🙂 This was very interesting, thanks for the analysis. You mention how wool combers earned more than domestic servants... but wouldn't they have had housing costs, unlike the servants or the Brontes? Any idea about the cost of housing for the different classes at that time?
Welcome and thank you for watching. Love to hear where everyone is from. Hard to believe the video I made in my village in Yorkshire is being seen in Michigan. Wow. Very true, Tabby and Martha didn't need to worry about the cost of food, rent, money for soap for washing as I'm sure they washed all their stuff with the families and coal. Also, the families of the Wool Combers were often large so the money you earn would be to feed and cloth about 8 other people too. Will hold onto your question about rent costs in Haworth and maybe turn that into a video. What was life like for the villagers. Thank you.
Absolutely fascinating, Kate. Thank you. Love a waffle myself 😘 I’m a child of the 60’s so can just about remember decimalisation. You explained the imperial currency values very well. Keep it simple and stay away from those farthings and three penny (threpny 🙄) bits. Looking forward to the next instalment xx Sharon xx
Hi Sharon. I think because the topic needed me to concentrate my brain overheated and sent me off on waffles. I kept them in to show I am very human and make mistakes. I have always said that I would be me on these videos and I hope I'm sticking to that. Talking to my parents about the money was great (and confusing), it's a great memory land topic.
Whenever I walk into a home that is more than a couple of hundred years old or so, I often wonder what first conversations were had in the parlour. What kind of clothes they wore and how they kept time..... When did the first newspaper drop into their hands - and what they made of it. In the town in which I grew up there are two churches separated by a beck. One of the parish churches began to be built in about the year 1100, the other perhaps 700 - 800 years ago. I think of the news brought to the congregation by a chap on a horse, galloping up to the entrance, flinging the doors open and ( being forgiven by the Priest for the abrupt intrusion ) announcing the fall of Constantinople. Well - I`m still just a lad at heart.
I can't help but think of past occupants of a house when I go somewhere and what they would think of us modern people in our casual clothes. Imagine being the chap on the horse with that message, some responsablity to get there and tell the news (and not get distracted on the way like I would be).
@@brontesistersuk A few years ago I was an inmate of a Catholic Pre-Seminary College. We took a journey out to Spain and during that trip had a nightmare road journey - 12 hours of mayhem on the road with a professor from the University of Wales at the wheel - who`d never driven on the right hand side of the road before. Eventually we arrived at the Royal English College, Valladolid ( with the help of a police escort ). We were all exhausted upon our arrival, but I was not so tired as to spare half a dozen pints before lights out. The following day we were given a tour of the college, and this is where things turn slightly toward a twilight zone. At the time we were there ( May, 1989 ) the college was undergoing some major renovations. The ( then ) young Priest - our guide - opened up a room and said that the construction workers had found `this library,` as they stripped the area down. Then he took out some books from the shelves ( `can,t remember whether he wore white golves.... ) The books were in print - so post Gutenberg (?). But many of the printed paragraphs had been spoilt by hand held ink and pen. In their place, in the margins of the pages, were the hand written opinions of those in the `upper echelons` of the Order of Preachers. Also then know as the Spanish Inquizition. I never made it into the Catholic Priesthood, but was exposed to some fascinating artefacts of history ( often terrible ) on the way toward it. I would certainly have missed this, because the library was not open to the public then.
@@dogwithwigwamz.7320 Wow, that is a brilliant story. Loved you included the 6x pints in the tale too. Seeing these items with your own eyes means so much more than any photo.
Fascinating material. Patrick almost certainly did contribute to charity, but getting figures might be impossible. He might have been on one of those lists of subscribers for local charities - but he might also have given more privately. And sometimes there were fees for services - probably not much in a small parish, and I really know very little about the way church income might have been handled. We tend to assume, looking at the enormous and impressive rectories, that the residents must have been rich, even though there's so many references from the period to poor curates and the difficulty less senior clergy might have getting a more remunerative post!
It's very true that the size of the Parsonage and many houses for the clergymen would make us think they were well off. I could image in some ways having the big house was more of a pain, the cost heating and maintaining it must have been high. I'm so pleased you watched and found my video interesting, thank you.
Curates were poor because they were paid employees of the holder of the parish rather than the church. Patrick Bronte was unusual in that he didn’t have an additional private income in addition to the salary provided by his living. The title of perpetual curate means that the living paid a salary from an endowment managed to supply an income rather than on the tithes and other dues associated with other livings. This made him poorer than a full vicar because his fixed salary would tend to decline over time rather than grow with the economy the way a tithe based income would. The fees for services (christenings, funerals, weddings) would have been fairly regular. My understanding was that he looked after 3 villages and Harworth was fairly big by the standards of the time. For 1000 families 1-200 christenings a year would be a fairly low estimate. For an urban parish like Thornton in Bradford those fees could form the majority of the income of the parish.
@@davidwright7193 Thank you, that's very interesting! My knowledge of the subject is pretty limited. I did try to decipher the finances of a Church of England clergyman in 19th century Canada, but was largely baffled. He - and his colleagues - generally were paid by missionary societies (the SPG in the cases I was interested in), but there was all kinds of stuff about fees, who got them, and it also appeared that the finances of the local church and the local missionary were sometimes deeply intertwined (at least once in what sounds like a criminal fashion). At one point I thought well, how did clerical finances work in England at the time? But I never felt that I gained much of an understanding of the subject.
Branwell and Patrick were but I don't think (off the top of my head) the sisters were. Maybe it was a man thing. They did borrow books from the family at Ponden Hall and I am sure they would have read what their brother and dad borrowed. I might look into that more, thank you for the idea and for watching.
New subscriber. I have read Rebecca Fraser's book 'The Brontes' a million times. This was great, I realized I'm living on par with them. You manage. Excellent!
Welcome and thank you. It was a big task to try and work it all out for this video so you positive feedback is great. I haven't read that book, off to Amazon right now. Thank you.
Because the pound £ was divisible in several different ways, I believe this gave significance to smaller coins and eased the pressure on prices. Now, since decimalization, only the pound and possibly the 50p coins (old 10s) have any significance or value. Contributor to inflation, at least initially.
My mum was telling me how companies rounded up prices when decimalisation kicked in and tried to confuse people with prices. People were not happy. The same when we lost the 1/2p, it all went up 1/2p to make a solid 1p. It's such an interesting topic when you dig into it.
Fascinating video! Thank you so much 🙏 It really helps to see how it relates to today. I remember my mum telling me about the old money, compared to now it's so confusing! 😂
So confusing to someone who has never used it. It took me ages to work it out in my head before I could talk about it in this video. Thank you for watching my videos, and for all your lovely feedback too.
@@rosemarielee7775 There seemed to be so many more coins and strange combinations too. I always remember Room with a View when the young folk have to explain to Cousin Charlotte how the money system works.
I've always wondered about this. Brilliant bit of historical research here. Thank you. Edited to say that, as an American, the word "manky" is something that we need over here ! ! ! 😎
You made me giggle, I forget that some of my words might not mean anything to other countries. Manky is a great word for anything dirty and horrid. Thank you for watching and coming back each week.
Thank you for watching. I loved researching for this video and went down many worm-holes too. I've learnt so much from it. Your feedback means a lot, thank you.
I can still add up with Pounds, shilling and pence even though decimal came to NZ when I was 8 years old. It's not hard at all. Just adding and subtracting. Showed my adult children how to do it and they had a lot of fun.
I have been with my parents the last week and they have been trying to teach me, I now know why we were taught times tables up to 12, never thought about it until now. Thank you for watching.
This is fascinating! I have long wondered about costs of necessities in relation to income. There is some information regarding Jane Austen and in Boswell's Life of Johnson, in a letter of May 10, 1766, Johnson urges Bennet Langdon to make a note of his late uncle Peregrine Langton's way of ordering his life and expenses. Thank you!
I'm so pleased you enjoyed it. It was a big task to find it all out and try and get my head around the money but I love doing this sort of thing even if I do have mad moments trying to remember it all (hence the waffling). Thanks for the tip on the letter, will look into that.
Thank you for watching. In the video from a few week before I did about the sisters being Governesses and I talk about the pittance they earned. th-cam.com/video/avb2_D8aSmk/w-d-xo.html But, basically about £30 for Anne and £20 for Charlotte. Terrible really.
Why oh why do video makers have to have dialogue competing with music. Its really distracting. Just turn the back ground music off when the narrator is talking. It does nothing to enhance the video and distracts from the content.
Couldn't agree more. Interesting topic and presentation but I am not even continuing to watch after the first 2 minutes because of this. Absolutely hate the background music so many channels add these days.
You are being rather too generous to that awful school in saying it killed Patrick’s two eldest daughters. It probably killed all his children. All the daughters and probably Bramwell died of tuberculosis. The two eldest daughters died while at the school. Charlotte and Emily almost certainly contracted TB while there. Anne and Bramwell likely got TB from their siblings. While the parsonage is a fairly big house compared to the village cottages as it was in the 1840’s it wasn’t a big house for a family of 7 and two servants with only 4 bedrooms and none of those big by modern standards.
I found myself editing a lot out about what I really thought about the school. I found myself going off on a rant about it. But yes, I agree that school damaged all his daughters in a way. When I looked into housing in Haworth, families of 7 were living and working in 2 rooms with no ventilation. I'm sure the Bronte Family counted their blessings they had more space and were at the top of the hill. Thank you for watching.
Thank you so much for this video. I wonder what the poor did in order to get clean water for their tea when they had tea. I also wonder what a "cate" is on the sign which marks the cate the Bronte family used in order to go into the church. This video is so good!😊
It's 'Gate" but the weather has marked the stone (if thats what you mean) so the G looks like a C. I think the poor just boiled the water and hoped for the best, some of the water pumps were better than others in Haworth so I assume people would avoid the ones giving out horrid coloured water until it cleared up a bit. The Brontes' had a well and above the Graveyard too, had cleaner water unlike the villagers.
@@brontesistersuk It was so kind of you to answer me and I appreciate it. It's funny about "cate" because I thought surely it must be an obscure word from very old English.😊. Thank you for filling me in about the water, too. It must have been horrible to be one of the people crammed into London in those days. Thank you so much!!
I know, I did think about going into all the different coins and combinations but it was complicated and for what I was talking about I only needed to explain £,s,d. Maybe I will of a video just on money one day.
It was so hard to pin point prices for that video because of what was happening in and around the UK, like you said things were happening and it all had a knock on effect. Also, bad crops had an effect on prices massively. Thank you for watching.
Please… The cost of living back then just reminds me of the cost of living today and all I will probably never be able to afford when it comes to housing It’s really shitty that I can’t provide my offspring with the kind of life quality my parents provided myself and my siblings. I’m serious… This stuff depresses me so badly sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed. I still do… But it feels pointless. I miss the days when the American dream seemed viable Maybe when I’m dead, I can have one of those little toy houses built over my grave. And some cultures, it’s believed that those little houses are transferred over somehow into the spirit world and all of a sudden you’re dead relatives actually have a roof to call their own. It’s a comforting thought
Cost of living is all over still and when you look through history it's been a regular problem. I'm sure your children are just happy to have a loving parent. You do the best you can and that's worth so much more than the latest phone or the trendy trainers. Thanks for watching and I'm sorry it made you sad.
Sweetie, I don't know how old you or your kids are but it's really not that bad. I'm old, I get that in a lot of people's minds that means ineffectual and useless. We're heading into the next stage of our lives. We're moving to another state and starting over. I really looked at our Life and said This SUCKS. Hubs has a really physically difficult job and doesn't make squat. Literally a crapshoot as to which bills we can afford to pay based on necessity. Ugh. We have a slumlord as a landlord and live in a crap trailer in Central Florida. I realized this had to end. No question. So I sat down with a notebook and started listing what made us actually happy. Then figured out how to make it happen. It's going to take a couple years but it's doable. Figuring it out really made a difference in the whole getting up in the morning thing. It's working Toward something rather than substance. It's HUGE.
I have just subscribed. I am slowly entering the world of classics and to my shame I have yet to read a Brontë book. The previous money system always confused me so thank you for explaining it as I understand it a little better. I'm 25 so the shillings wasn't around when I was young. 😂
Welcome and thank you for watching. You are about to start a great journey if you are new to the Brontes. I am excited for you. The who money thing threw me and I'm older than you so don't feel alone there. :-)
More likely to be three'apporth. My dad spoke thick Cheshire dialect. He was born in 1912, and used the same words and meanings. Helped a lot reading Jane Eyer because I understood starved as cold etc. Great video. X
This is a brilliant idea for a Brontë video, and one I haven’t seen before. Super insight into daily life at the time, not just for them but others of their social class.
Thank you. I often wonder about the social history side of the family. We know so much about their writing but at the end of the day they were normal people that needed to live and not so much is know about that. It took forever to collate all the info but I'm pleased I did. It really helped me understand their life at the Parsonage better.
Fascinating insight into Bronte family life--well researched and presented.
Thank you, that means a lot to me. I loved doing the research for this video.
Kate, I hope youtube see these messages of appreciation, and realise, there IS a community of Bronte-fans out there, who DO want to see more content, EXACTLY like yours! It's alarming to realise, how little this family got by on, before Charlotte's success-and what a drain on resources Branwell was; two things about their economic reality which I'm ashamed to say, had not really occurred, to me, previously! I loved the £, shilling, and pence bit too! Another entertaining and enjoyable Vlog!
Thanks Kate, have a great w/end love sue xxx
Thank you Sue. I wanted to talk about the £,s,d but didn't want to get too deep into it, enough so people understand what I'm talking about. Loved finding out about it all and wasted too much time reading about the cost of things. I get so much feedback and it still amazes me every time. I am so pleased you enjoy my videos. xx
Hear! Hear!
About the water: there's a letter in the late 1400s from Spanish ambassador Dr. de Puebla to Isabel of Castile. They were preparing to send Isabel's daughter Catherine over to England to marry the eldest son of Henry Tudor, Arthur. In the letter de Puebla advises Isabel to teach Catherine to drink ale, because "you can't drink the water in England."
Would it be "small beer" which was less alcoholic?
They always made out that the Black Bull watered the beer down so you got the dirty water weather you liked it or not. I am sure they did do small beers, if you didn't have the money for a quart.
@@brontesistersuk Oh! This makes me think of a scene from a favorite movie: "Hobson's Choice". It was based on a play, and takes place (and was filmed) in Salford, near Manchester. In this scene, Hobson, played by Charles Laughton, is with his friends in the local tavern. They're all a little drunk, and Hobson states that he knows the tavern keeper always waters down their drinks once they've had enough not to notice. About one of the circle of friends, he laughs: "Poor Denton hasn't had right change for years!"
@@melenatorr I forgot about that. I read the book years ago.
In the 1600s Samuel Pepys describes three times drinking water. Once in the country side where he thought it would be safe, he became dreadfully ill. Another time resulted in his famous stone. The third occasion he took the water of Epson, on his doctors advice for constipation. It worked wonders.
Thank you for sharing your research on this fascinating family! Really helps give context to the books.
Thank you for watching. I'm so pleased it helped, I think looking at the lives of the sisters really help us understand why they wrote what they did.
This was such a fascinating topic! Thank you. Ellen remembers an interesting trip with all three sister when they went to buy fabric for dresses. She remembers that Charlotte and Anne both chose dark, sensible material but Emily chose a dramatic pattern with thunderclouds or something similar, and Ellen says that it suited her.
Another additional expense would be the music and art lessons Patrick (and/or Aunt Branwell) sprung for. An example of Aunt Branwell's economy comes from another memory from Ellen (thank you, Ellen!!): William Weightman, the sisters and Ellen went walking to (Bradford?) for a lecture or another event, and came back to the Parsonage with a couple of Weightman's friends, as I remember it. Aunt Branwell had made just enough coffee for the original party and was extremely upset about not being able to serve everyone properly. Ellen remembers that Weightman, who enjoyed teasing Aunt Branwell, decided he was very thirsty.
Thank you, I loved looking into it all. Coffee would have been expensive too. I wish the thunder dress survived and we could see it. Imagine finding that in a truck.
@@brontesistersuk There's always hope! I keep hankering for the discovery of a cache of letters from Anne to the Robinson sisters.
@@melenatorr imagine that.
Hi I like your videos very much so informative.Wuthering Heights is my favourite book I have it also on CD and have listened to it about six times and I am amazed how those girls who were so innocent yet wrote in such a a passionate way is extraordinary.
Thank you for watching. They must have been very good at observing and listening to people’s stories to get the insights into lives to write the way they did.
New subscriber here. 😊 I loved this! Thank you so much for the video. I appreciate having this information about the economic situation of the Brontë family. I did know about British pre-decimalization money from research I did in my early years because my grandmother introduced me to Georgette Heyer when I was eight in 1965. I know this was quite uncommon in the USA at the time. I was reading Jane Austen and the Brontës before my teens and have continued to re-read their works to this day. Georgia in Billings, Montana, USA.
(edit for spelling)
Hello Georgia and welcome. Thank you for coming along on my Bronte Adventure. I am so pleased you enjoyed the video. I think if you read the Brontes when you are young they are with you forever, they don't leave your mind. I like the sound of your Grandmother, sensible lady teaching you young. Thanks again for watching and wow, you are in America.
My grandmother made her own soap, out of lard, perfumed for the bathroom but with carbolic for the laundry. She had electricity, but in earlier times perhaps they made their own candles too.
This is brilliant, social history first hand (almost anyway). You have me thinking about if Tabby would have made soap in the early days to save money. This is a great idea to research, thank you. And...I love the smell of Carbolic soap, it's such a clean smell, strange I know. Thank you for watching.
I remember the old money very well, and what you could buy with it!
It's so interesting learning about it all. It was great to sit down and ask my parents about it all too. Thank you for watching.
@@brontesistersuk I can remember threepenny bits and half crowns very well. Also if I received a 10 shilling note in a birthday card, i was very happy! I love watching your videos very much so thank you❤. Especially visiting Anne's grave, and finding where the Brontes vault really is in the church. I am going to stay with my son in Lancashire this week, and he always takes me to Haworth, and something new to learn.
@@user-qh8nh7oe6d I hope you get to visit the true location of the vault. If the church starts finding flowers in the middle of the floor, it's my fault. Thanks again.
I remember the change over to decimal and being worried I would never learn the new system lol!
@@user-qh8nh7oe6d make sure he buys you a pot of tea and a cake whilst you are there. Enjoy.
This was really interesting thank you 💜🇬🇧
Thank you. So pleased you enjoyed it.
When reading about the Mayflower's voyage to North America, I learned that the ship carried stores of ale because of the bad water in England.
Maybe that's why Britain is good at making ale, we needed to be. All the passengers must have been drunk all the time on the Mayflower.
So glad I came in with decimalisation! Really interesting video. Thanks
Thank you was watching. I don't think I would have been great pre-decimalisation.
I was in Haworth last week 😊
It's the best time of year to be there when the leaves start to change. Its beautiful. Thank you for watching.
@@brontesistersuk I admired the Bronte sisters since I was young. When I got to the door of the museum I teared up and didn't go in, but I am visiting there again this month. Thank you for your great video 🙏
@@savingsavioursinvestments I hope you get that tingle feeling again when you visit but managed to go in. I always imagine Tabby is about to come out and tell me off for letting all the hot air out the door.
I loved this so interesting I’m fascinated by the Victorian period
Thank you so much for your comment and for watching. Tomorrow's video might be up street too then. :-)
Excellent video kate...very interesting, on how much it took to run a household..😊
I'm so pleased you liked it. Loving hearing from my regular viewers and getting their thumbs up. I loved researching this but it was so hard to find it all out.
Love your channel, so glad I found it! I'm a viewer from Michigan, USA. 🙂
This was very interesting, thanks for the analysis. You mention how wool combers earned more than domestic servants... but wouldn't they have had housing costs, unlike the servants or the Brontes? Any idea about the cost of housing for the different classes at that time?
Welcome and thank you for watching. Love to hear where everyone is from. Hard to believe the video I made in my village in Yorkshire is being seen in Michigan. Wow. Very true, Tabby and Martha didn't need to worry about the cost of food, rent, money for soap for washing as I'm sure they washed all their stuff with the families and coal. Also, the families of the Wool Combers were often large so the money you earn would be to feed and cloth about 8 other people too. Will hold onto your question about rent costs in Haworth and maybe turn that into a video. What was life like for the villagers. Thank you.
Very nicely put together.
Thank you, that means a lot to me. I love researching and making these videos so it's lovely to get your feedback.
Thank you. Enjoyed.
I'm so pleased. Thank you was watching.
Absolutely fascinating, Kate. Thank you.
Love a waffle myself 😘
I’m a child of the 60’s so can just about remember decimalisation. You explained the imperial currency values very well. Keep it simple and stay away from those farthings and three penny (threpny 🙄) bits.
Looking forward to the next instalment xx
Sharon xx
Hi Sharon. I think because the topic needed me to concentrate my brain overheated and sent me off on waffles. I kept them in to show I am very human and make mistakes. I have always said that I would be me on these videos and I hope I'm sticking to that.
Talking to my parents about the money was great (and confusing), it's a great memory land topic.
Whenever I walk into a home that is more than a couple of hundred years old or so, I often wonder what first conversations were had in the parlour. What kind of clothes they wore and how they kept time.....
When did the first newspaper drop into their hands - and what they made of it.
In the town in which I grew up there are two churches separated by a beck. One of the parish churches began to be built in about the year 1100, the other perhaps 700 - 800 years ago. I think of the news brought to the congregation by a chap on a horse, galloping up to the entrance, flinging the doors open and ( being forgiven by the Priest for the abrupt intrusion ) announcing the fall of Constantinople.
Well - I`m still just a lad at heart.
I can't help but think of past occupants of a house when I go somewhere and what they would think of us modern people in our casual clothes. Imagine being the chap on the horse with that message, some responsablity to get there and tell the news (and not get distracted on the way like I would be).
@@brontesistersuk A few years ago I was an inmate of a Catholic Pre-Seminary College. We took a journey out to Spain and during that trip had a nightmare road journey - 12 hours of mayhem on the road with a professor from the University of Wales at the wheel - who`d never driven on the right hand side of the road before.
Eventually we arrived at the Royal English College, Valladolid ( with the help of a police escort ).
We were all exhausted upon our arrival, but I was not so tired as to spare half a dozen pints before lights out.
The following day we were given a tour of the college, and this is where things turn slightly toward a twilight zone.
At the time we were there ( May, 1989 ) the college was undergoing some major renovations. The ( then ) young Priest - our guide - opened up a room and said that the construction workers had found `this library,` as they stripped the area down. Then he took out some books from the shelves ( `can,t remember whether he wore white golves.... ) The books were in print - so post Gutenberg (?). But many of the printed paragraphs had been spoilt by hand held ink and pen. In their place, in the margins of the pages, were the hand written opinions of those in the `upper echelons` of the Order of Preachers. Also then know as the Spanish Inquizition.
I never made it into the Catholic Priesthood, but was exposed to some fascinating artefacts of history ( often terrible ) on the way toward it. I would certainly have missed this, because the library was not open to the public then.
@@dogwithwigwamz.7320 Wow, that is a brilliant story. Loved you included the 6x pints in the tale too. Seeing these items with your own eyes means so much more than any photo.
@@brontesistersuk You hit the nail on its head. It was history being brought to life in front of my eyes.
@@dogwithwigwamz.7320 thank you so much.
Fascinating material. Patrick almost certainly did contribute to charity, but getting figures might be impossible. He might have been on one of those lists of subscribers for local charities - but he might also have given more privately. And sometimes there were fees for services - probably not much in a small parish, and I really know very little about the way church income might have been handled. We tend to assume, looking at the enormous and impressive rectories, that the residents must have been rich, even though there's so many references from the period to poor curates and the difficulty less senior clergy might have getting a more remunerative post!
It's very true that the size of the Parsonage and many houses for the clergymen would make us think they were well off. I could image in some ways having the big house was more of a pain, the cost heating and maintaining it must have been high. I'm so pleased you watched and found my video interesting, thank you.
Curates were poor because they were paid employees of the holder of the parish rather than the church. Patrick Bronte was unusual in that he didn’t have an additional private income in addition to the salary provided by his living. The title of perpetual curate means that the living paid a salary from an endowment managed to supply an income rather than on the tithes and other dues associated with other livings. This made him poorer than a full vicar because his fixed salary would tend to decline over time rather than grow with the economy the way a tithe based income would. The fees for services (christenings, funerals, weddings) would have been fairly regular. My understanding was that he looked after 3 villages and Harworth was fairly big by the standards of the time. For 1000 families 1-200 christenings a year would be a fairly low estimate. For an urban parish like Thornton in Bradford those fees could form the majority of the income of the parish.
@@davidwright7193 Thank you, that's very interesting! My knowledge of the subject is pretty limited. I did try to decipher the finances of a Church of England clergyman in 19th century Canada, but was largely baffled. He - and his colleagues - generally were paid by missionary societies (the SPG in the cases I was interested in), but there was all kinds of stuff about fees, who got them, and it also appeared that the finances of the local church and the local missionary were sometimes deeply intertwined (at least once in what sounds like a criminal fashion). At one point I thought well, how did clerical finances work in England at the time? But I never felt that I gained much of an understanding of the subject.
This was so interesting! Do we know if the Brontes were subscribers to a circulating library? (Or was there even one in Haworth at the time?)
Branwell and Patrick were but I don't think (off the top of my head) the sisters were. Maybe it was a man thing. They did borrow books from the family at Ponden Hall and I am sure they would have read what their brother and dad borrowed. I might look into that more, thank you for the idea and for watching.
New subscriber. I have read Rebecca Fraser's book 'The Brontes' a million times. This was great, I realized I'm living on par with them. You manage. Excellent!
Welcome and thank you. It was a big task to try and work it all out for this video so you positive feedback is great. I haven't read that book, off to Amazon right now. Thank you.
Because the pound £ was divisible in several different ways, I believe this gave significance to smaller coins and eased the pressure on prices. Now, since decimalization, only the pound and possibly the 50p coins (old 10s) have any significance or value. Contributor to inflation, at least initially.
My mum was telling me how companies rounded up prices when decimalisation kicked in and tried to confuse people with prices. People were not happy. The same when we lost the 1/2p, it all went up 1/2p to make a solid 1p. It's such an interesting topic when you dig into it.
@@brontesistersuk Yes, they did. I loved the old money.
@@jessaglenny I need to find my old coins, I know they are in the attic somewhere. 🙂
Fascinating video! Thank you so much 🙏 It really helps to see how it relates to today. I remember my mum telling me about the old money, compared to now it's so confusing! 😂
So confusing to someone who has never used it. It took me ages to work it out in my head before I could talk about it in this video. Thank you for watching my videos, and for all your lovely feedback too.
Thank you. It’s interesting to see how they would have lived. I never knew what a farthing was and you have explained that. Very neat cost comparison.
A ha'penny was half a penny.
Thank you. I was so worried I would mess it up, it's all new to me too so took a while to get it right.
Love how the words get shortened.
It was a relief when farthings ceased to be legal tender. Our arithmetic problems no longer had all prices ending with 3 farthings.
@@rosemarielee7775 There seemed to be so many more coins and strange combinations too. I always remember Room with a View when the young folk have to explain to Cousin Charlotte how the money system works.
Love the post, very interesting 👍
Thank you. I loved making it.
I've always wondered about this. Brilliant bit of historical research here. Thank you. Edited to say that, as an American, the word "manky" is something that we need over here ! ! ! 😎
You made me giggle, I forget that some of my words might not mean anything to other countries. Manky is a great word for anything dirty and horrid.
Thank you for watching and coming back each week.
You really researched the video really well
Thank you for watching. I loved researching for this video and went down many worm-holes too. I've learnt so much from it. Your feedback means a lot, thank you.
Really interesting, thank you!
Thank you for watching. I am so pleased you liked it.
Very well done.
Thank you. I am so pleased people are liking this video, I was worried I would be a but dull.
I can still add up with Pounds, shilling and pence even though decimal came to NZ when I was 8 years old. It's not hard at all. Just adding and subtracting. Showed my adult children how to do it and they had a lot of fun.
I have been with my parents the last week and they have been trying to teach me, I now know why we were taught times tables up to 12, never thought about it until now. Thank you for watching.
This is fascinating! I have long wondered about costs of necessities in relation to income. There is some information regarding Jane Austen and in Boswell's Life of Johnson, in a letter of May 10, 1766, Johnson urges Bennet Langdon to make a note of his late uncle Peregrine Langton's way of ordering his life and expenses. Thank you!
I'm so pleased you enjoyed it. It was a big task to find it all out and try and get my head around the money but I love doing this sort of thing even if I do have mad moments trying to remember it all (hence the waffling). Thanks for the tip on the letter, will look into that.
Fantastic thank you. What about earnings from the sisters when they were governesses/ teachers. Would that of been a modest amount?
Thank you for watching. In the video from a few week before I did about the sisters being Governesses and I talk about the pittance they earned.
th-cam.com/video/avb2_D8aSmk/w-d-xo.html
But, basically about £30 for Anne and £20 for Charlotte. Terrible really.
Why oh why do video makers have to have dialogue competing with music. Its really distracting. Just turn the back ground music off when the narrator is talking. It does nothing to enhance the video and distracts from the content.
Couldn't agree more. Interesting topic and presentation but I am not even continuing to watch after the first 2 minutes because of this. Absolutely hate the background music so many channels add these days.
Totally agreed
Thank you for the feedback. Will take this into account.
You are being rather too generous to that awful school in saying it killed Patrick’s two eldest daughters. It probably killed all his children. All the daughters and probably Bramwell died of tuberculosis. The two eldest daughters died while at the school. Charlotte and Emily almost certainly contracted TB while there. Anne and Bramwell likely got TB from their siblings. While the parsonage is a fairly big house compared to the village cottages as it was in the 1840’s it wasn’t a big house for a family of 7 and two servants with only 4 bedrooms and none of those big by modern standards.
I found myself editing a lot out about what I really thought about the school. I found myself going off on a rant about it. But yes, I agree that school damaged all his daughters in a way. When I looked into housing in Haworth, families of 7 were living and working in 2 rooms with no ventilation. I'm sure the Bronte Family counted their blessings they had more space and were at the top of the hill. Thank you for watching.
Thank you so much for this video. I wonder what the poor did in order to get clean water for their tea when they had tea. I also wonder what a "cate" is on the sign which marks the cate the Bronte family used in order to go into the church. This video is so good!😊
It's 'Gate" but the weather has marked the stone (if thats what you mean) so the G looks like a C. I think the poor just boiled the water and hoped for the best, some of the water pumps were better than others in Haworth so I assume people would avoid the ones giving out horrid coloured water until it cleared up a bit. The Brontes' had a well and above the Graveyard too, had cleaner water unlike the villagers.
@@brontesistersuk It was so kind of you to answer me and I appreciate it. It's funny about "cate" because I thought surely it must be an obscure word from very old English.😊. Thank you for filling me in about the water, too. It must have been horrible to be one of the people crammed into London in those days.
Thank you so much!!
@@kathleenmckeithen118 I loved your comment, made me giggle. Thank you for being part of my adventure.
@@brontesistersuk Thank you for the adventure😊
They boiled water for tea and coffee.
Very silly question: would they have used peat instead of coal for a heating source, or maybe a combination?
Yes, peat was used but it depended on what was available.
Yeah, we don’t have a lot of peat available in Yorkshire…
@@frugalitystartsathome4889 😂
The Brontes’. There were more than one of them.
Yes, I see what you're saying.
The pound 'sign' is a stylised L for librum, latin for pound.
Brilliant, love finding out more. Thank you.
what about half crowns
I know, I did think about going into all the different coins and combinations but it was complicated and for what I was talking about I only needed to explain £,s,d. Maybe I will of a video just on money one day.
Two and a tanner.
@@sheilaackers3854 you'r blowing my brain now 🤣
1840s were a difficult time. Lot of poverty and civil unrest when country claim closest to revolution. Rising prices?
It was so hard to pin point prices for that video because of what was happening in and around the UK, like you said things were happening and it all had a knock on effect. Also, bad crops had an effect on prices massively. Thank you for watching.
Please… The cost of living back then just reminds me of the cost of living today and all I will probably never be able to afford when it comes to housing
It’s really shitty that I can’t provide my offspring with the kind of life quality my parents provided myself and my siblings.
I’m serious… This stuff depresses me so badly sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed.
I still do… But it feels pointless.
I miss the days when the American dream seemed viable
Maybe when I’m dead, I can have one of those little toy houses built over my grave.
And some cultures, it’s believed that those little houses are transferred over somehow into the spirit world and all of a sudden you’re dead relatives actually have a roof to call their own.
It’s a comforting thought
Please forgive the misspellings, I’m using voice to text and the damn thing doesn’t work very well…
Cost of living is all over still and when you look through history it's been a regular problem. I'm sure your children are just happy to have a loving parent. You do the best you can and that's worth so much more than the latest phone or the trendy trainers.
Thanks for watching and I'm sorry it made you sad.
Sweetie, I don't know how old you or your kids are but it's really not that bad. I'm old, I get that in a lot of people's minds that means ineffectual and useless. We're heading into the next stage of our lives. We're moving to another state and starting over.
I really looked at our Life and said This SUCKS. Hubs has a really physically difficult job and doesn't make squat. Literally a crapshoot as to which bills we can afford to pay based on necessity. Ugh. We have a slumlord as a landlord and live in a crap trailer in Central Florida. I realized this had to end. No question. So I sat down with a notebook and started listing what made us actually happy. Then figured out how to make it happen. It's going to take a couple years but it's doable. Figuring it out really made a difference in the whole getting up in the morning thing. It's working Toward something rather than substance. It's HUGE.
I have just subscribed. I am slowly entering the world of classics and to my shame I have yet to read a Brontë book. The previous money system always confused me so thank you for explaining it as I understand it a little better. I'm 25 so the shillings wasn't around when I was young. 😂
Welcome and thank you for watching. You are about to start a great journey if you are new to the Brontes. I am excited for you. The who money thing threw me and I'm older than you so don't feel alone there. :-)
Pronunciation one and ha'penth.. Penny half penny.
So funny isn't it how we just shorten words. I love the English language, even if it does trip me up sometimes. Thank you for watching.
More likely to be three'apporth. My dad spoke thick Cheshire dialect. He was born in 1912, and used the same words and meanings. Helped a lot reading Jane Eyer because I understood starved as cold etc.
Great video. X
We always referred to halfpennies as ha’porth (pronounced, as you say, without the h) when I was a child.
@@frugalitystartsathome4889 a lot of these things we never questioned either. It was just the way it was.
@@collettemcquaide1662 Wuthering Heights also has its fair share of Yorkshire dialect too. Love to hear locals speak no matter where they are from.
A servants wage for a year.
A pair of good boots.
A doctors visit.
Each cost the £15?
Id become a shoemaker if I was a poor person.
Good idea. Thanks for watching.
Victorian Era 1837-1901.
I had to pick one period in that time scale to concentrate on. And this was a time period when we know the Brontes were all living at home.
Also "The Brontes cost of living" precedes that.
@@satsumamoon I know but like I said I had to select one period in time.
Interesting, but whatever made you impose the lunatic music? You should have trusted your own presentation.
Thank you, will keep that in mind.
That family would have been so much better off without Bramwell...
Finically yes but they all loved Branwell and stuck by him. It must've been hard to watch him go through that period of self-destruction.