The Grahams family of Norton Conyers, Charlotte Bronte & Slave Plantations in the Caribbean
Britain’s Hidden Heritage: BBC 1, Sunday 28th Aug 2011: Clare Balding’s clip revealed that in May 1839 Charlotte Bronte took the temporary post of governess to the Sidgwick family at Stonegappe, Lothersdale, near Skipton. By 19 June 1839 she had left the Sidgwicks' employment. It was during her time with the Sidgwicks’, however, that Bronte had had the chance to visit Norton Conyers, a grand stately home belonging to the Graham family. It is said that this house was the inspiration for Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’. What the programme did not comment on was the links to slave ownership.
If the Mrs Rochester character is a creole from the Caribbean this would be in keeping with the Graham name because members of the Graham family owned several slave plantations, in Jamaica alone. The thing to do now is to establish what links these slave-owning Grahams, in the Caribbean, had to those based at Norton Conyers.
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