Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, afterwards Mrs. Gaskell, was born at Chelsea on September 29, 1810. At the age of twenty-two she married William Gaskell, a minister of the Unitarian Church in Manchester. She became famous in 1848 on the publication of "Mary Barton," a novel treating of factory life. Her "Life of Charlotte Brontë," published in 1857, caused much controversy, which became bitter, and occasioned the fixed resolve on the part of its author that her own memoirs should never be published. This gloomily-haunting, vivid human "Life of Charlotte Brontë" was written at the request of the novelist's father, who placed all the materials in his possession at the disposal of the biographer. Mrs. Gaskell took great pains to make her work complete, and, though published only two years after Charlotte Brontë's death, it still holds the field unchallenged. Mrs. Gaskell died on November 12, 1865.
Into the midst of the lawless yet not unkindly population of Haworth, in the West Riding, the Rev. Patrick Brontë brought his wife and six little children in February, 1820, seven heavily-laden carts lumbering slowly up the long stone street bearing the "new parson's" household goods.
A native of County Down, Mr. Brontë had entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1802, obtained his B.A. degree, and after serving as a curate in Essex, had been appointed curate at Hartshead, in Yorkshire. There he was soon captivated by Maria Branwell, a little gentle creature, the third daughter of Mr. Thomas Branwell, merchant, of Penzance. In 1816 he received the living of Thornton, in Bradford Parish, and there, on April 21, Charlotte Brontë was born. She was the third daughter, Maria and Elizabeth being her elder sisters, and fast on her heels followed Patrick Branwell, Emily Jane and Anne.
"They kept themselves to themselves very close," in the account given by those who remember the family coming to Haworth. From the first, the walks of the children were directed rather towards the heathery moors sloping upwards behind the parsonage than towards the long descending village street. Hand in hand they used to make their way to the glorious moors, which in after days they loved so passionately.