THE BRONTË Society is to receive almost £1 million funding from the Arts Council.

The organisation, which runs the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, will spend the cash over the next four years expanding its work amongst young people, new audiences and online.

The £930,000 boost comes as a result of the Brontë Society being adopted by the Arts Council as one of its National Portfolio Organisations (NPO) from 2018 to 2022.

The society, one of the world’s oldest literary societies, applied to the NPO programme following the Arts Council’s decision to integrate museums into the portfolio.

Kitty Wright, the society’s executive director, described the decision as tremendously exciting.

She said: “The funding will enable us to deepen our work for and with young people and help us reach new and diverse audiences.

“We also look forward to developing our digital offer, so that we can share our work with those currently unable to access it due to distance, disability or other barriers.

“Applying for funding is always a very competitive process and while we recognise that not all of our fellow museums and arts organisations will be as fortunate as ourselves today, we are extremely proud and delighted that the Arts Council has chosen to support our vision and ambition.”

Brontë Society chairman John Thirlwell said the “fantastic” news was particularly welcome as the society was in the midst of celebrating the 200th anniversaries of Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne’s births.

He said: “It’s the icing on the cake and will provide a huge boost to our mission to bring the Brontës to the world and the world to Yorkshire. I look forward to working with everyone at the museum to help us bring all our plans to fruition.”

The Brontë Society and its Haworth museum houses the world’s largest collection of artefacts and documents associated with the Brontë family and their work, and the society works to inspire modern-day scholars, writers and artists.