By Hermione Williams

We celebrated the Brontë Film Season at the end of March and beginning of April to coincide with the Bradford Film Festival.

We enjoyed viewings of Wuthering Heights (1939), Jane Eyre (1943) and Devotion (1946).

These three films, when they were released, attracted many visitors to the Parsonage, and since then have rarely been shown on the big screen. So it was a real treat to be able to see them in a cinematic environment!

We enjoyed an event on April 2 in association with Bradford’s Cartwright Hall exhibition – Rossetti’s Obsession, Images of Jane Morris – which finishes on June 1. Jan Marsh, the author of Jane and May Morris; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painter and poet and current president of the William Morris Society; and Juliet Barker, award winning biographer and author of The Brontës and The Brontës: A Life In Letters, discussed the letter writing of Jane Morris and the Brontë sisters.

Jan Marsh began the event with a fascinating introduction to the life of Jane Morris, which provided an excellent foundation for the conversation to begin. Jan and Juliet discussed the letters of the women, highlighting the similarities and differences between them.

An interesting point they discussed was the tone of the letters. Charlotte Brontë often consciously adopted a masculine style, whereas Jane Morris was much more conventionally feminine in her style of writing.

There was an opportunity for questions at the end, in which members of the audience were particularly curious about the art of letter writing more generally and its survival.

One member of the audience asked how quickly would letters be received, to which Juliet Barker answered Charlotte Brontë could write a letter in the morning and have an answer that same afternoon – much quicker than postal services today!

The weather is beginning to warm up, and summer is certainly on its way, and the Brontë Parsonage Museum organised many different events during Easter and the Bank Holiday weekend.

We celebrated Charlotte Brontë’s birthday in style on Easter Monday. There were talks throughout the day about various aspects of her life, such as her early school days at Cowan Bridge and her life-changing meeting with Monsieur Heger in Brussels.

There was also a rare opportunity to view Charlotte’s possessions with our collections manager, Ann Dinsdale.

We will have a Study Day – Words of War – on Saturday to commemorate the outbreak of the First World War, and on May 16 we have a candle-lit tour of the Parsonage to celebrate Museums at Night. Please see our website at bronte.org.uk/whats-on for how to book.