A rare photograph of the Reverend Patrick Bronte is to come home to Haworth, where it was last on show more than a century ago.

The miniature, pictured, has been sold by auctioneers Ewbank Clarke Gammon Wellers to a telephone bidder, a woman in the south of England, who paid £1,476.

Now she wants it to return to the Bronte Parsonage Museum, where it will go on permanent loan.

The woman, who wants to remain anonymous, immediately contacted the museum, a shrine to the three Bronte-sister authors, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, to tell curators she wanted to see it back home.

It was last sold in 1898 by Sotheby’s for just one shilling when the Museum of Bronte Relics, housed in the Temperance tea rooms in Haworth, closed.

Andrew McCarthy, director of the Bronte Parsonage Museum, said the Bronte Society had made a bid for the item but he was delighted with how things had turned out.

He said: “This is great news and a very generous and wonderful offer. She telephoned us straight away and said she wanted it back in Haworth.

“She believes it is important that it’s accessible to the public, that it’s there for the general public to see and Bronte readers and for scholars.

“The photograph did attract a lot of interest because of the exposure in the media. We had people ringing up and making significant donations, which was hugely appreciated.

“They said in the event of us not getting the photograph, the money should go into our collections fund.

“We believe there are some significant Bronte items coming up for sale this year and we are hoping those donations will help us.”

A spokesman for the auctioneers said the photograph fetched three times the expected price and there had been a lot of interest.

He said: “In the end it came down to two telephone bidders and this woman was determined that nobody else should have it and that it should not be secreted away in a private collection where it would not be seen by the public. She has made an extremely generous gesture.

“This indicates how close to people’s hearts the Brontes and their fascinating story are.”