Women's History Month — Mr Curre Bell!

Madeline Gibbs
Feb 28, 2023
10 min read

Updated: Mar 30, 2023

Hello, Reader!

Allow me to start Women’s History Month by introducing you to one of my favourite authors—Mr Curre Bell!

Wait, what?

You said this was women’s history month. . .

That’s right!

So, what gives?

Allow me to explain. . .

Mr Curre Bell was not this author’s real name. Their real name was actually Ms Charlotte Brontë and she was absolutely awesome.

So, let’s dive right on in, starting with the obvious: Why did Charlotte adopt a man’s name?

Well, in order to answer this question, we have to go back to the beginning. Because Charlotte, from a young age, was painfully aware of how little women were valued in society. That is, hardly at all. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that most girls and women were aware of this fact simply by existing, however, Charlotte has this message drilled into her time and time again. It’s for this reason that Charlotte decided to ‘work the system’ to her advantage. Not only this, Charlotte held herself in high esteem, even going so far as to reject numerous marriage proposals before becoming one of the most successful authors of the 19th century.

Here’s how she did it:

As the third child of six children, Charlotte’s mother died when she was just five years old. Now, my child is almost the same age as I write this and I, too, have experienced the sudden and unexpected death of a parent. At the time, however, I was eighteen years old. . . I cannot even begin to imagine how losing her Mother at such a young age affected poor Charlotte.

Once her mother died, her aunt took over caring for the children (five girls, one boy) but it wasn’t long before said aunty and the children’s father decided it would be better if the girls were sent away to school. Fortunately, Charlotte, aged eight at the time, wasn’t alone; her sisters Emily, Maria and Elizabeth were sent away with her. Their sister, Anne, was only about four years old at the time, and so stayed home with their Father and their younger brother, Branwell.

Charlotte’s experiences with death, however, were only just beginning. Within a year of arriving at the Cowan Bridge, Charlotte’s two older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth both died within a month of each other. I wish I could say that at least the girls were surrounded by supportive friends and kindly teachers, and had a warm environment in which to feel safe following the deaths of her sisters.

Sadly, I cannot.

Charlotte was utterly miserable at Cowan Bridge, mainly because the conditions were atrocious, the food was awful and the discipline was as harsh as it was strict. This led to many illnesses sweeping through it. In fact, the conditions at Cowan Bridge were so poor that Charlotte later blamed her overall failure to thrive on the school (she was only about 4’8” in height. I’ve seen a dress of hers in person at the Parsonage Museum in Haworth, UK, and she really was tiny, even for those times).

If any of you have read Jane Eyre, you’ll know about Lowood School, the school that Jane attends aged ten to 18 years of age. You’ll also remember the lack of care and concern Mr Brocklehurst had for the girls—Charlotte’s time at Cowan Bridge School was almost certainly the blueprint for Lowood in her novel. That alone should tell you everything about Charlotte’s experience at Cowan Bridge.

After the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth, Charlotte's father, Patrick Brontë, pulled Charlotte and Emily out of the school and had them brought home.

Needless to say, Charlotte, now aged nine, was already receiving the message that, as a girl, she held very little status in society. After all, everyone who was supposed to care for her and her sisters simply. . . hadn’t. In addition to this, their brother, Branwell Brontë (also the youngest of all the siblings), stayed home with their Father, Patrick Brontë, who also ensured that Branwell received a decent education from him personally.

Nothing like a bit of favouritism to highlight just how unimportant you are to a parent, eh?

Nevertheless, Charlotte’s light continued to shine and her soul continued to thrive. Kindness was something that came naturally to her: when she returned from Cowan Bridge School, it was noted that aged just nine, she took on the role of "motherly guardian and friend" of her younger sisters Emily and Anne who were aged just seven and five years old respectively.

Starting to get a better understanding of her yet?

Good!

Let’s crack on, then.

We’re going to jump ahead a few years to 1829. Charlotte is now thirteen years old and has, at long last, begun to write. Needless to say, this was a brilliant decision on her part, and I’m glad she made it; Charlotte would go on to become one of the greatest writers of the Romance movement and would still inspire and captivate readers and authors almost two centuries later.

She just didn’t know it yet.

After the disaster that was her short stay at Cowan Bridge School, Charlotte attended Roe Head School from 1831 to 1832 (aged fifteen to sixteen).

Luckily for us, she continued to write poems and, in 1833, authored a Novella (The Green Dwarf) aged just seventeen. This, in itself, is pretty incredible, especially since she’d received quite a broken education up until this point. Here, we also see the first instance of Charlotte using a pseudonym: she wrote The Green Dwarf under the name ‘Wellesley’.

In 1835, Charlotte, now aged nineteen, returned to Roe Head School but this time, she was a teacher. She stayed there for three years. Three long, unhappy years, that is. It was also about this time that her writing began to change from fantastical to realism. Her poems were certainly melancholy in nature, and you can see just how much she relied on writing to process the world around her and keep her sane.

Charlotte, however, knew that writing was special and, in its own way, magickal to her.

This is evidenced in Dec. 1836 by Charlotte taking the extraordinarily bold step of consulting with the Poet Laureate Robert Southey about taking steps to advance her writing career, namely, publishing her poems. This jackass, however, replied with the following:

“Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it even as an accomplishment and a recreation.”

As I said, jackass.

Reader, I am delighted to tell you that this was certainly a sentiment Charlotte most definitely did not share because she threw him the proverbial middle finger, and continued to write anyway.

Writing helped her endure a further two more years at Roe Head and, in 1838, Charlotte embarked on the next stage of her journey: becoming a governess.

According to Kelsie Tylka, “Women who became governesses were generally “ladies” of an upper or middle-class upbringing themselves that had fallen on hard times and required to work for their living. Generally, governesses would live in the household and receive a salary along with their room and board. Because of their class, governesses commonly found themselves outsiders within the household”.

This attitude was experienced first-hand by Charlotte when she worked as a governess for a rich family from 1839 to 1841. Again, Charlotte was unhappy, even experiencing physical abuse from the child in her care. We can only imagine the overall attitude of the rich family towards her.

By now, Charlotte was twenty-five years old, unmarried, childless and, to somebody living in the 1830s, perhaps uncertain and directionless.

Despite her previous experiences as a teacher, Charlotte continued to try to educate children—in 1842 and 1843, Charlotte travelled to Brussels and became an English teacher there. However, once again, she reported that she was unhappy with her situation. Though, once again, Charlotte did what she did best, and used her experiences in her writing (in this case, it was her books The Professor and Villette). If you want to have a more intimate look at Charlotte’s mindset and mood during her time in Brussels, have a read of Villette.

After Charlotte returned from Brussels, the Brontë sisters did something absolutely incredible—they opened a school in their own home called “The Misses Brontë’s Establishment for the Board and Education of a limited number of Young Ladies”. Tragically, there wasn't much interest (hardly surprising, given the time, but let’s respect the hell out of these women for trying to give girls in that time period a leg up in life.)

In 1846, all three of the Brontë sisters decided to finally push their writing to the next level by self-financing the publication of their poems. It was here that Charlotte decided that enough was enough. She was tired of being treated badly, of being the outcast, of being treated like she didn’t matter, like her writing didn’t matter. She was tired of the loss and what I can only imagine was a complete lack of independence. So, she decided to work the system, as it were, to achieve her dreams:

“Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because – without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called “feminine” – we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice—”

A vague impression! Can anyone else hear the sarcasm here? I love it.

Their publication venture, however, was a failure with only two copies of their poems being sold. Nevertheless, they all prevailed, and in August 1847, Jane Eyre, my favourite book of all time, was published.

Remember, however, this book was published under Charlotte's pseudonym, Mr Curre Bell, and it was met with glowing reviews. People loved it, and raved about it being written from the ‘first person, female perspective’—a feat readers thought remarkable and ‘groundbreaking’ for a male author to achieve.

It wasn’t long after that Charlotte, enjoying her newfound fame and fortune, revealed her true identity in London (1850). It was not long after this revelation that critics’ opinions about Jane Eyre and Charlotte’s other writing began to change.

Shocker, I know.

The pattern I’m seeing here is Charlotte, despite facing the cruel realities of life and becoming aware of women’s status and value in society continued to fight. She fought to get a good education for herself, despite how miserable it made her. She fought to teach other children, again, despite her own unhappiness. She travelled to teach and, when once again her sadness prevailed, she and her sisters attempted to educate girls and young women. In a time period where teachers were looked down upon, this was beyond brave. It’s also very obvious that Charlotte used her writing to escape the dreadfulness of life and it’s realities, to process her thoughts, emotions and experiences. Anyone who has read Jane Eyre and Villette will know this—the emotions there are so powerful, so believable that every time I read them, I feel as though I’m the one living the main character’s life. Charlotte knew all of this and still, believed in herself enough to keep fighting. She fought for her writing, fought to achieve what other women couldn’t and struggled with.

Charlotte set the example.

There was one other thing I wanted to touch on. You may have noticed that I’ve not mentioned anything relating to marriage, a husband or children. That’s because Charlotte didn’t marry until she was thirty-seven years old. Yes, Reader, you read that right. 37!

That's because Charlotte turned down many proposals, instead focusing on herself, her writing and her family.

Nice.

Well, not exactly 'nice' because it's these focuses that caused Charlotte to go into teaching in the first place, leaving her miserable, lonely and depressed. . . but I digress.

What I will tell you about now, though, is a gentleman named Arthur B. Nichols. A.k.a.: The One Who Won Her Heart. Well, kind of.

Unsurprisingly, Charlotte, and her father, rejected Nichols's proposal.

Why?

It's not 100% clear but most agree that it was due to the fact that Nichols had terrible finances and Charlotte wasn't interested in talking about the proposal further until he got his sh-t together.

Now, today people would just roll their eyes or accuse Charlotte of being a gold digger or being ‘only after the money’ or whatever misogynistic bullsh-t incels come out with these days. The fact is, though, that Charlotte was 100% right in doing this. Back then, husbands were meant to go out and earn money, and the wives were expected to stay home and care for the children.

In addition to this, Charlotte was a successful and healthy individual.

Why would she marry a man who had absolutely no financial awareness? She could have lost everything.

So, instead of giving it all up, Charlotte demanded that Nichols bring himself up to her level.

A brilliant power move, if I ever saw one.

Reader, it worked! Nichols actually managed to get his act together, and Charlotte actually began to fall in love with him, and the couple married in June 1854 after finally securing Patrick Brontë's blessing.

I refer here to Charlotte's own words when I say that Arthur B. Nichols was 'almost worthy of such a wife.'

And they lived happily ever after . . . right?

Sadly, not.

This is where Charlotte’s amazing life comes to a screeching halt.

Charlotte fell pregnant not long after her wedding but died on 31st March 1855 due to complications with said pregnancy. Severe morning sickness (Hyperemesis Gravidarum) left Charlotte horrendously dehydrated and, tragically, aged just 38, she died.

Considering that she did fall pregnant not long after her wedding, it’s likely that she was in the final trimester of her pregnancy.

I can’t even.

After almost four decades of fighting for herself, believing in herself and achieving all she did, Charlotte, was dead after daring to lightly tread into the realms of the ‘traditional’ and ‘typical’ roles of wife and mother.

Her death, however, was not the end. In fact, in many ways, it was a beginning. You see, not long after Charlotte passed away, in 1857, an author, and acquaintance of Charlotte’s, a lady by the name of Elizabeth Gaskell, penned a biography of the incredible author. This was one of the earliest examples of women writing about the careers of other women—something that we are teaching children to do every day via school projects and assignments. Not only that but Elizabeth focused not on Charlotte’s achievements but on her as a human being. She attempted to humanize Charlotte, to focus on what made Charlotte, well, Charlotte.

When I think of Charlotte Brontë, so many adjectives spring to mind it’s hard to pinpoint which ones I feel are best suited to describe her. Brave, is one. Intelligent, fearless, determined and self-aware are some more. As I said in my opening paragraph, Charlotte is my favourite author but she’s an all-around awesome woman. She tried her absolute best to educate girls—a social issue which, sadly, still prevails to this day. And, when I say issue, I mean ‘a problem of outrageous proportions that we should all be ashamed still exists’. Today, nearly 130 million girls worldwide are prevented from accessing education. This is mainly due to the numerous issues girls around the world face, such as child marriage, preference for boys to obtain an education over girls, poverty, social expectations for girls, gender-based violence. . . This problem is so prevalent that just under half of all countries around the globe have achieved gender equality in education.

And if that doesn’t shock and enrage you, then we cannot be friends.

So, here’s to you, Charlotte Brontë, and your brilliance.

May you continue to shine, inspire and influence!