[3][4] He was born in a house (now known as the Brontë Birthplace) in Market Street, Thornton, near Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire,[3] and moved with his family to Haworth when his father was appointed to the perpetual curacy in 1821.

[3] He took a leadership role with Charlotte in a series of fantasy role-playing games which the siblings wrote and performed about the "Young Men", characters based on a set of wooden soldiers.

[3] Branwell's particular interest in these paracosms were their politics and wars, including the destructive rivalry between their heroes, Charlotte's Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Zamorna, and his Alexander Percy, Earl of Northangerland.

[4] Christine Alexander, a Brontë juvenilia historian at the University of New South Wales,[7] wrote "Both Charlotte and Branwell ensured the consistency of their imaginary world.

He documented in encyclopaedic detail, in neat lists, footnotes, sketches, and maps, the geography, history, government, and social structure of the Glass Town Federation (and later, the new kingdom of Angria)—laying down the parameters of the imaginary world".

[4] In his only real attempt to find work, on the death of James Hogg, a Blackwood's writer, the 18-year-old Brontë boldly wrote to the magazine suggesting himself as a replacement.

[3] During this time he wrote letters to his pub friends in Haworth which give "a vivid picture of Branwell's scabrous humour, his boastfulness, and his need to be accepted in a man's world".

[4][6] During this employment he continued his literary work, including sending poems and translations to Thomas De Quincey and Hartley Coleridge who both lived in the Lake District.

His complexion was fair and his features handsome; his mouth and chin were well-shaped; his nose was prominent and of the Roman type; his eyes sparkled and danced with delight, and his forehead made up of a face of oval form which gave an irresistible charm to its possessor, and attracted the admiration of those who knew him.

"[4] During his 30 months service Branwell corresponded with several old friends about his increasing infatuation with Robinson's wife Lydia, née Gisborne, a charming and sophisticated woman, almost fifteen years senior to him.

[3] He wrote, perhaps unreliably, to one of his friends that "my mistress is DAMNABLY TOO FOND OF ME" and sent him a "lock of her hair, wch has lain at night on his breast – wd to God it could do so legally !

[4] According to Gaskell, he received a letter "sternly dismissing him, intimating that his proceedings were discovered, characterising them as bad beyond expression and charging him, on pain of exposure, to break off immediately, and for ever, all communication with every member of the family.

[4] Brontë returned home to his family at the Haworth parsonage, where he looked for another job, wrote poetry and attempted to adapt Angrian material into a book called And the Weary are at Rest.

[4] In January 1847, he wrote to his friend Leyland about the easy existence he hoped for: "to try and make myself a name in the world of posterity, without being pestered by the small but countless botherments.

[15] On 24 September 1848, Brontë died at Haworth parsonage, most likely due to tuberculosis aggravated by delirium tremens, alcoholism, and laudanum and opium addiction, despite the fact that his death certificate notes "chronic bronchitis-marasmus" as the cause.

[3] Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte reports an eye-witness account that Brontë, wanting to show the power of the human will, decided to die standing up, "and when the last agony began, he insisted on assuming the position just mentioned.

Charlotte, the last living sister, married the Reverend Arthur Bell Nichols, curate of Haworth, in 1854 and died in March 1855, due to complications from pregnancy.

[18] British novelist Robert Edric wrote Sanctuary (2014), a novel chronicling Branwell's final months, during which family secrets are revealed and he learns about the publication of his sisters' books.

In Tim Powers' novel My Brother’s Keeper (2023), Branwell is a major character, along with his sister Emily as the protagonist, as well as, to a lesser extent, the rest of the Brontë family.