Roe Head's Aleph Revisited

Some time ago, we posted about an unexpected and fascinating connection between the Brontës and Jorge Luis Borges that was unveiled in the book Literatos y Excéntricos-Los ancestros ingleses de J.L. Borges (Erudites and Eccentrics- J.L. Borges's English Ancestors) written by Martín Hadis (also the editor of Internetaleph).

The author of the book, Mr. Hadis, has contacted us correcting and adding to the information that we posted:

Minor correction regarding the ALLBUTs: Mary Eleonora Allbut was indeed the daughter of Thomas Allbut (1777-1857) and Sydney Ashford.

As you correctly point out there´s a relationship between the Haslams and the Brontes through the Allbuts, but the three persons who were a) the father of Mary Eleonora b) the husband of Mary Anne Wooler and c) the distinguished physician are all called almost the same (THOMAS ALLBUT or ALLBUTT) but actually belong to three sucessive generations.

To re-cap:

Thomas Allbut and Sydney Ashford married on Feb 27, 1798 at St. Martin´s-in-the-Bull-Ring, Birmingham.

They had a number of sons and daughters (all of them with curious names - apart from Mary Eleanora, which we´re already familiar with, there were also Sydney Maria, Lauretta Jana and Frances Sarah Allbut. )

It is one of these sons, Thomas Allbut (Jr) (1800-1867), vicar of Dewsbury, named after his father, and brother of Mary Eleonora Allbut, who married Mary Anne Wooler on July 9th 1835. This Mary Anne Wooler indeed worked at Roe Head; in fact Mary Anne taught at Roe Head during the time that Charlotte Bronte was there. And Charlotte was well aware of Mary Anne´s courtship by Thomas Allbutt (Jr).

After Thomas Allbutt Jr married Mary Anne Wooler, they had the following children: Marianne Maria (1804-1906) and the distinguished Victorian physician Thomas Allbutt, the inventor of the clinical thermometer, appointed "Regius Professor of Physic" at Cambridge University.

For more information see: The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends, 1852-1855 , p. 190, footnote 7. (Letters of Charlotte Brontë). and also - Alexander, Christine. The Oxford Companion to the Brontes, pp. 10-11.

This is indeed a fascinating connection. Especially because the Allbuts were a family of publishers, responsible for sending to print the writings of some other members of this erudite and eccentric clan. All through my research, I never ceased to be amazed by the extent to which the HASLAMs were inclined towards books - towards writing, reading, publishing. It is as if Borges´ works had been two centuries in the making. The two traits that Borges quotes in his "Poem of the gifts as " Books and the night "- - his literary inclination as well as his blindness- were both inherited from this side of the family.

Categories: Books, Scholar