Cowan Bridge School

They slept two in a bed with their heads propped up, rising before dawn, making their morning ablutions in a basin of cold water (shared with six other pupils) which had often frozen during the night for lack of any heating.

Lessons began again without pause until 5 p.m., when there was a short break for half a slice of bread and a small bowl of coffee and 30 minutes recreation, followed by another long period of study.

Furthermore, when Mr Williams, reader at Smith, Elder & Co, congratulated her for the narrative vigour of her description, Charlotte Brontë, unusually vehemently, insisted that it was true, and that furthermore she had deliberately avoided telling everything so as not to be accused of exaggeration.

For example, there is the description, given by an unidentified witness to Mrs Gaskell, of the little Maria who, very ill and having just received a suction cup placed on her right side by the doctor, rose suddenly on seeing Miss Andrews enter the room, and began to get dressed.

Before she could slip into some clothing, the mistress pulled her violently into the centre of the room, scolding her for negligence and disorder, and punished her for being late, upon which Maria descended from the dormitory although she could hardly stand up.

In all weather, without adequate protective clothing, the pupils had to walk more than three miles (five km) over the fields to St John the Baptist's Church, Tunstall to attend the Sunday service.

His preachings and writings, in the form of small manuals for the use of the pupils, were full of rhetorical force and other effects designed to make an impression on their young readers' minds.