Brontës, selected poems: context links Timeline

Year Historical Literary Author
1812 War with America begins (until 1814)
Further Luddite unrest
Prime Minister Spencer Percival assassinated
Napoleon begins invasion of Russia
Wellington defeats French at Salamanca
Battle of Borodino
Napoleon enters Moscow but begins a retreat one month later 		Birth of Robert Browning, poet
The Brothers Grimm publish their Tales
Shelley publishes Declaration of Rights 		Rev. Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell marry
1813 Toleration Act for Unitarians
Leigh Hunt imprisoned for libelling Prince Regent
Wellington enters France
Napoleon defeated at Battle of Leipzig
Prussian army begins invasion of France 		Maria Brontë born
1814 Robert Stephenson builds steam locomotive
Napoleon abdicates and is banished to Elba
End of war with America
Congress of Vienna
Allies enter Paris
British burn Washington in USA 		Scott's Waverley
1815 Napoleon returns from Elba and is defeated at Waterloo
Corn Law passed

Leigh Hunt released from prison on Feb. 3 

Napoleon returns to France and enters Paris
Napoleon finally defeated by Wellington at the battle of Waterloo
Napoleon banished to St Helena
John Nash begins the Brighton Pavilion 		Scott's Guy Mannering Elizabeth Brontë born
1816 Riots in East Anglia and the manufacturing districts of the north of England
Economic depression
William Cobbett's Political Register

 Shelley marries Mary Godwin

 Scott's The Antiquary Charlotte Brontë born
1817 Prince Regent's coach attacked: further repressive measures by Government. Further social unrest
Manchester 'Blanketeers' march to London 		Scott's Rob Roy
Hazlitt's Characters of Shakespeare's Plays
Southey's Wat Tyler 		Patrick Branwell Brontë born
1818 Proposals for Parliamentary reform are twice defeated in the House of Commons
Percy and Mary Shelley depart from England for the final time 		Peacock's Nightmare Abbey
Scott's Heart of Midlothian 		Emily Brontë born
1819 Peterloo massacres in Manchester and passing of Six Acts placing restrictions on the press and public assemblies
Poor Relief Act passed
Factory Act passed
Queen Victoria born
Birth of Albert (later Prince Consort) 		Scott's Ivanhoe; The Bride of Lammermoor

Leigh Hunt: Hero and Leander

J.H. Reynolds: Benjamin the Waggoner; Peter Bell (both parodies of Wordsworth)
1820 Death of George III and accession of George IV
Royal Astronomical Society founded 		Lamb's Essays of Elia
Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer 		Anne Brontë born. Family moves to Haworth
1821 Another reform bill defeated in Commons
Greek War of Independence 		Scott's Kenilworth
Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater 		Maria (mother) dies. Elizabeth Branwell (aunt) moves to Haworth
1822

Colony for freed slaves founded in Liberia 

 Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater
1823 Scott's Quentin Durward
Hazlitt's Liber Amoris
1824 Combination Acts repealed, thus giving trade unions right to exist Scott's Redgauntlet Maria and Elizabeth to Clergy Daughters school, Cowan Bridge; joined later by Charlotte and Emily
1825 Stockton - Darlington Railway opens Hazlitt's The Spirit of the Age Maria and Elizabeth die at Cowan Bridge; Charlotte and Emily removed from school
1825-31: Children living at Haworth; begin writing
1826 Power looms destroyed by unemployed weavers
Further attempts at Parliamentary reform defeated
1828 Test and Corporation Acts repealed
Duke of Wellington becomes Prime Minister
1829 Catholic Emancipation Act
Robert Peel creates metropolitan police force 		Carlyle's Signs of the Times
1830 Death of George IV and accession of William IV
Earl Grey's Whig reforming government
'Captain Swing' rural riots
Opening of Manchester - Liverpool Railway
July Revolution in France
Greek independence from Ottoman Empire secured 		Cobbett's Rural Rides
Charles Lyell (Dante Gabriel?s Godfather), Principles of Geology
1831 Wellington resigns as Prime Minister in opposition to Parliamentary reform
National Union of the Working Class founded
Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction
Cholera outbreak in England 		Mill's The Spirit of the Age Charlotte to Miss Wooler's School, Roe Head
1832 Parliamentary Reform Act passed
Passage of the Great Reform Act
Morse invents the telegraph 		Chambers' Edinburgh Journal and Penny Magazine (-1837) begin Charlotte returns to Haworth
1833 First Tracts for the Times published
Factory Act limits children's working hours and includes provision for education
Abolition of Slavey Act 		Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (-1834)
1834 New Poor Law
British Empire abolishes slavery
1835 Charlotte to Roe Head as teacher; Emily with her as pupil, replaced later in year by Anne; Branwell fails to enter Royal Academy of Art
1837 Death of William IV and accession of Queen Victoria
Brunel, Great Western Railway 		Carlyle's The French Revolution
Sarah Stickney Ellis, The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits 		Anne leaves Roe Head due to illness
1838 Anti-Corn Law League founded
Chartist petitions published
London to Birmingham railway opens
People's Charter issued 		Letitia Landon dies, Gold Coast Emily teacher at Law Hill, near Halifax; stays about six months; Branwell sets up as portrait painter in Bradford; Charlotte leaves Roe Head
1839 First Factory Inspector's report Carlyle's Chartism
Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle
Ellis' The Women of England:Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits 		Charlotte refuses two offers of marriage; Emily leaves Law Hill; Anne spends eight months as governess to Sidgwick family of Lothersdale
1840 Penny post begins
Queen Victoria marries her cousin Albert, who becomes Prince Consort. 		Branwell goes to be tutor to Postlethwaite children, Brughton-in-Furness: dismissed after three months. Anne governess to Robinsons at Thorp Green; Branwell becomes a railway clerk
1841 The Tories come to power. Sir Robert Peel becomes Prime Minister
Punch begins 		Charlotte governess to Whites at Rawdon
1842 Jowett becomes tutor at Balliol College, Oxford
Chartist riots. Report on Sanitary Conditions of Labouring Population
Mudie's Lending Library opens
Illustrated London News begins 		Sisters plan to establish own school; decided that Charlotte and Emily should improve languages; they go to Le Pensionnat Heger, Brussels. Branwell promoted, then dismissed for negligence
Charlotte and Emily return to Brussels on death of Aunt Branwell
1843 Theatre Regulation Act Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present
Ruskin's Modern Painters (vol. 1) 		Charlotte returns to Brussels; Branwell joins Anne as tutor at Thorp Green
1844 Co-operative Society founded in Rochdale
Factory Act (women and children)
Expansion of railways across Britain 		Disraeli's Coningsby, or The New Generation published Charlotte returns to Haworth; plans for school abandoned
1845 John Henry Newman converts to Catholicism
Financial speculation in Railways
Onset of the Irish potato famine
The first Anglican sisterhood, Park Village, is founded in the Christ Church parish 		Disraeli's Sybil, or The Two Nations published
E. A. Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination 		Sisters begin to write seriously; in autumn, Charlotte discovers Emily's poems and persuades her to publish
1846 Repeal of Corn Laws
Famine in Ireland
Whigs come to Power 		Poems by Acton Currer and Ellis Bell (the Brontë sisters' pseudonyms) published
May: Seeking publishers for The Professor (Charlotte Brontë), Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë) and Agnes Grey (Anne Brontë)
August: Charlotte accompanies father to Manchester for cataract operation; begins to write Jane Eyre while nursing him
August: Thomas Newby agrees to publish Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey; Smith, Elder reject The Professor but accept Jane Eyre
1847 Railway reaches Dorchester
Ten Hours' Factory Act 		Disraeli's Tancred Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre
1848 Chartist demonstrations in London following by the collapse of the Chartist movement
Democratic Revolutions in Europe.
Cholera epidemic
Public Health Act
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founded 		Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto
Newman's Loss and Gain 		July: Anne and Charlotte make themselves known to George Smith
September: Branwell dies
November: Emily Brontë dies
1849 Bedford College for Women founded Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke May: Anne Brontë dies
C. Brontë's Shirley published
November: Charlotte Brontë begins correspondence with Elizabeth Gaskell and Harriet Martineau
1850 Roman Catholic hierarchy established
Public Libraries Act 		Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter 		Charlotte Brontë meets Elizabeth Gaskell
Brontë's Shirley
1851 Great Exhibition in London
Taylor Mill's The Enfranchisement of Women 		Ruskin's Stones of Venice

Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe

 Charlotte Brontë refuses offer of marriage from James Taylor of Smith, Elder

1851-52: Brontë works on Villette
1853 Cholera epidemic
Crimean War 		Yonge's Heir of Redclyffe Charlotte Brontë's Villette published
Brontë marries Rev. Arthur Nicholls, her father's curate; honeymoon in Ireland; begins work on Emma
1854 Onset of Crimean War
1855 Daily Telegraph
Repeal of stamp duty on newspapers 		Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South March: Charlotte Brontë dies while pregnant
1856 Crimean War ends Dickens, Little Dorrit
1857 Railway extended to Weymouth
Indian Mutiny
Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act 		Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary
Hughes' Tom Brown's School days
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh 		C. Brontë's The Professor published
1858 Ballantyne's Coral Island
English Woman's Journal begins
George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life
1859 Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species published
Rise of movement for Home Rule in Ireland 		Smiles' Self Help published
Mill's On Liberty
1860 Cornhill Magazine begins
1861 Death of Prince Consort
American Civil War begins 		Dickens, Great Expectations
Beeton's Book of Household Management
Wood's East Lynne
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