BRONTE RESEARCH PAPERS
will be part of the Elizabeth Treffry collection
at Morrab Library

Three boxes containing the working papers of my late wife, Dr Melissa Hardie-Budden, who died on 5th July 2022, will become part of the Elizabeth Treffry collection at Morrab Library.

For over 10 years she worked tirelessly on the lineage of the Branwell/Brontë family of Penzance. Her main reason for doing this was that a great deal of research had been carried out on the male ancestry of the Brontë sisters, but little was known about their mother and her sister, ‘Aunt Branwell’, who brought the girls up in Haworth.

Melissa considered that, as their father, Patrick, was a busy church minister, the influence of the Cornish Branwell’s, mother and aunt, on the growing girls, would probably have been more important than his. Melissa sometimes joked that the Brontë sisters were actually ‘Cornish authors, transplanted to Yorkshire’.

Her book, Brontë Territories: Cornwall and the Unexplored Maternal Legacy, 1760-1860 was published by Edward Everett Root of Brighton in 2019. The book was launched in Morrab Library. It was a labour of love and, she considered, the most important book that she wrote during her long life.

Before she died she told me that she had put all her remaining research papers into these three boxes. I was her editor and proofreader, supporter and tea maker. Although I read and checked the whole manuscript, I didn’t ever read the chapters in the right order. I was given each chapter as she completed it and am no expert. However, she told me that there is enough material in these boxes for future Brontë researchers to continue her work and produce two or three more books. So there is a challenge.

Melissa donated her collection on Women in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to Morrab Library in 2018, via The Hypatia Trust, which she founded. Named by her The Elizabeth Treffry Collection, it now occupies an important room in the Library, and these boxes of papers should be seen as part of that collection. 

Phil Budden
30th January 2024