Struggling Bronte museum given lifeline donation – from TS Eliot’s family

Centre dedicated to England’s greatest literary sisters facing closure if it cannot raise £100,000

Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth (Getty)

One of England’s great literary museums, facing closure on the back of the coronavirus crisis, has been given a lifeline by the family of one of the country’s great poets.

The Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, West Yorkshire, is attempting to raise £100,000 following a collapse in visitor numbers caused by the Covid-19 lockdown and subsequent social-distancing rules.

Now, it has received a £20,000 gift from the estate of TS Eliot.

The donation should allow the centre – which celebrates the life of sisters Charlotte, Anne and Emily Bronte – to secure its immediate future while continuing to generate funds.

The gift is understood to have been made possible due to the success of the musical Cats, which is based on Eliot’s book Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

Clare Reihill, trustee of the poet’s estate, said: “It seems to me crucial we help other literary bodies should they run into trouble.

“We have to secure our literary past and the Bronte sisters contribution to our literary culture cannot be overstated.”

The parsonage, which was the family home of the trio, usually welcomes more than 70,000 visitors every year.

But, following lockdown, it is unable to cater for anything like those numbers under new social-distancing guidelines because of, what bosses call, the “intimate nature” of the property.

The Bronte Society has now notified staff it will enter a period of consultation, which may lead to redundancies at the 92-year-old museum.

A crowdfunding appeal had already been launched with an online festival, Bronte2020, generating £6,000 just this week.

Rebecca Yorke, a spokesperson for the society, said the Eliot donation was “very generous”.

She said: “It was totally unexpected and has given our fundraising a huge boost, we are extremely grateful and touched by their support.”

Eliot, who was born in the US but became a British citizen, is one of the giants of 20th century poetry and won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1948. His works include “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” and “The Hollow Men”.

Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are among the classics written by the Bronte sisters.