After contracting T. B Anne Brontë died in Scarborough, her favourite place in the world, in 1849

This often overlooked Brontë sister was actually one of the most radical, most adventurous and determined of the family.

A short thread about Anne’s last days.

Anne hated injustice, and has she lived today she would have been a social equality activist.

It was Anne, not Charlotte, who wrote the first plain and ordinary governess novel (Agnes Grey) and Anne that wrotethe hugely controversial, proto-feminist The Tennant of Wildfell Hall

Her last letter:

‘I have no horror of death...but I wish it would please God to spare me...I long to do some good in the world before I leave it. I have many schemes in my head ...and I should not like them all to come to nothing, and myself to have lived to so little purpose.

Anne, Charlotte with their friend Ellen Nussey embarked on a difficult journey to Scarborough, telling Anne it was for the good of her health but knowing they were taking her there to die.

They arrived on May 27th

‘As Anne sits at the window she can look down on the sea.’