Among Houlston’s earliest published texts were two small volumes of poetry entitled The Rural Minstrel and Cottage Poems. Their author was Patrick Bronte, a young Irish Curate who had arrived at All Saints parish church in January 1809. During a short stay of less than a year, he made connections that had a lasting impact on his life and without which he may never have fathered a British literary dynasty: Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte.
If he had never left Wellington, Bronte’s journey to the town would already have been a remarkable one. Born to a County Down farmer and the eldest of ten children, he arrived in England in 1802 to study at St Johns College, Cambridge. After showing, in his own words, ‘an early fondness for books’, Bronte managed to stay at school until the age of 16 without being sent out to work or apprenticed to a local trade, in itself a rare feat. He then opened his own public school, which eventually led him into the service of Rev Thomas Tighe, a prominent member of the Irish aristocracy and an influential evangelist. It was this connection that led Bronte to St John’s College (renowned for its evangelical tradition) where he was personally sponsored by William Wilberforce and Henry Thornton.