The Brontë Sisters (Anne, Emily and Charlotte), a.k.a., the “Pillar Portrait”, by Patrick Branwell Brontë (circa 1834)

1625: The English start colonizing Barbados, the first English colony in the West Indies.

1667: Anguilla, Montserrat and Saint Kitts become part of the British Empire.

1670: The Spanish colony of Jamaica is formally ceded to England, along with the Cayman Islands. Sugarcane is introduced as the main crop instead of cotton and tobacco, and hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans are brought to the island by British colonists in the next century and a half.

1718: The Bahamas, formerly a haven for pirates, become a crown colony.

1728-1740: The First Maroon War: freed African slaves (“maroons”) rebel against the British authorities in Jamaica.

1740: Samuel Richardson publishes Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded.

1760: Tacky’s War: led by Tacky, a local warlord, hundreds of slaves attack Jamaican plantations in April 1760, killing some 60 whites and setting crops alight. Tacky is soon captured and executed, as are 400 other rebels, but skirmishes continue for many months.

1763: The English take control of the island of Grenada.

1777: Patrick Brunty is born in Rathfriland, Northern Ireland.

1791: John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, dies in London.

1792: Mary Wollstonecraft publishes A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

1802: Trinidad becomes a British crown colony.

1805: Admiral Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar secures the Royal Navy’s control of the seas during the rest of the Napoleonic Wars, and the century to come.

1807: Shipment of slaves is prohibited in British ships or to British colonies.

1811-12: During two years of high unemployment, textile workers known as Luddites (named after their leader Ned Ludd) sabotage machinery in the woollen, cotton and hosiery industries in Nottinghamshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire. The government sends 12,000 troops to Yorkshire in 1812 to stop further industrial violence.

1812: Patrick Brontë, an Irish Protestant clergyman, marries Maria Branwell, a Cornish Methodist from Penzance, and they settle in Liversege, West Yorkshire. The same year, Henry Martyn dies in Tokat, Turkey.

1813: Maria, the Brontës’ first child, is born. The same year, Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice.

1814: After more than a century of rivalry with France, Britain adds the island of Saint Lucia to its Empire.

1815: Elizabeth Brontë is born. The same year, Napoleon escapes from Elba, becomes Emperor, and is defeated in Waterloo.

1816: Charlotte Brontë is born on 21 April.

1817: Branwell Brontë is born.

1818: Emily Brontë is born. The same year, Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein.

1819: The Peterloo Massacre: A huge crowd of people gather at St Peter’s Fields, Manchester, to hear radical orators speak on parliamentary reform and high food prices. The local yeomanry are ordered to arrest the speakers but they panic and charge the crowd. Eleven people die and hundreds of others are injured. The massacre becomes known as Peterloo, an ironic inversion of the victory of Waterloo.

1820: The Brontës move to Haworth, Yorkshire, where Patrick Brontë becomes Perpetual Curate of St Michael and All Angels’ Church. The same year, George III dies and is succeeded by George IV.

1821: Maria Brontë dies of cancer; her sister, Elizabeth Branwell joins the household to care for the children. The same year, John Keats dies.

1824: Charlotte, Emily, Maria and Elizabeth are sent to the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. The same year, Lord Byron dies in Greece.

1825: Maria and Elizabeth Brontë die of tuberculosis at Cowan Bridge School; Charlotte and Emily are removed from the school.

1826: Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell start imagining stories associated to the Glass Town.

1828: George Combe publishes A System of Phrenology.

1830: George IV dies and is succeeded by William IV.

1831: Charlotte becomes a pupil at Miss Wooler’s Roe Head school, Mirfield; she meets Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey, who become lifelong friends. The same year, a cholera epidemic spreads across England.

1832: Charlotte leaves Roe Head school and remains at home for three years, instructing her sisters and assisting in running the household. The same year, the First Reform Act is passed, and Walter Scott dies.

1833: Charlotte writes an unpublished novella, The Green Dwarf, using the name Wellesley. The same year, the Abolition of Slavery Act frees all the 700,000 slaves in the British empire and provides for compensation for their owners.

1834: The New Poor Law is passed: inspired by utilitarian principles, the law reforms the Poor Law of 1601 to make England’s relief system more economical and effective: relief is now provided only in workhouses, where conditions in terms of work, confinement, and discipline are so harsh as to deter any but the truly destitute from applying for relief.

1835-8: Charlotte returns to Roe Head as a teacher.

1836: Charlotte writes to Robert Southey, the Poet Laureate, asking for his advice about a literary career; he replies that “Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life: and it ought not to be.”

1837: William IV dies and is succeeded by Victoria.

1838: The People’s Charter is published. The same year, the British West Indian slaves are emancipated.

1839: Charlotte refuses a proposal of marriage from Rev. Henry Nussey, Ellen Nussey’s brother, and then from a visiting young Irish curate, Mr Pryce. She is employed as a governess with the Sidgwick family at Stonegappe, near Lothersdale. The same year, Charles Simeon dies.

1841: Charlotte becomes a governess to the White family, near Bradford.

1842: Charlotte and Emily study French in Brussels at the Pensionnat Heger; the two sisters return homme when their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, dies in October.

1843: Charlotte returns to Brussels to teach, and falls in love with Constantin Heger.

1844: Charlotte returns home when her father becomes almost totally blind; she plans but fails to establish a school with her sisters at Haworth Parsonage. The same year, she writes a series a passionate letters to Monsieur Heger.

1845: Charlotte and Helen Nussey visit North Lees Hall, the seat of the Eyre family. The same year, Margaret Fuller publishes Women in the Nineteenth Century, and Benjamin Disraeli publishes Sibyl; or, The Two Nations.

1846: The three Brontë sisters publish Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell at their own expense; the collection sells only two copies. The same year, the Corn Laws are repealed.

1847: Charlotte publishes Jane Eyre under the pseudonym of Currer Bell; Anne publishes Agnes Grey under the pseudonym of Acton Bell; Emily publishes Wuthering Heights under the pseudonym of Ellis Bell. The same year, William Makepeace Thackeray publishes Vanity Fair.

1848: Anne publishes The Tenant of Wildfell Hall under the pseudonym of Acton Bell. The same year, Branwell dies of tuberculosis and alcoholism at the age of 31 and Emily dies of tuberculosis at the age of 30. Elizabeth Gaskell publishes Mary Barton. 1848 also marks the beginning of the Springtime of the Peoples: revolutions erupt in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Venice, Rome, Milan, Naples, Prague and Budapest.

1849: Anne dies of tuberculosis at the age of 29. Charlotte publishes Shirley: A Tale under the pseudonym of Currer Bell. The same year, Charlotte visits London and meets some of the most important writers of her day, including Elizabeth Gaskell, Harriet Martineau and William Thackeray.

1851: Charlotte visits London, where she goes to the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. She rejects an offer of marriage from James Taylor of Smith, Elder.

1852: Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father’s curate, proposes marriage to Charlotte, but Patrick Brontë opposes it.

1853: Charlotte publishes Villette under the pseudonym of Currer Bell.

1854: Charlotte marries Arthur Nicholls; her father does not attend the wedding. The same year, Charles Dickens publishes Hard Times.

1855: Charlotte becomes pregnant, but dies of ill health and pneumonia on 31 March; she is buried in the family vault in the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Haworth.

1857: Elizabeth Gaskell publishes The Life of Charlotte Brontë, the first biography of the author. The same year, The Professor: A Tale is published posthumously under the pseudonym of Currer Bell.

1859: Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is published.

1860: “Emma,” Charlotte’s last, unfinished work, is published posthumously in the Cornhill Magazine.

1861: Patrick Brontë dies. The same year, John Stuart Mill completes The Subjection of Women.

1876: Queen Victoria takes the title Empress of India.