Is Charlotte Brontë Dead or Still Alive? Charlotte Brontë Birthday and Date of Death

Charlotte Brontë Death

Charlotte passed away on March 31, 1855 at the age of 38 in Haworth, Yorkshire, England, UK. Charlotte's cause of death was pneumonia.

Charlotte Brontë Birthday and Date of Death

Charlotte Brontë was born on April 21, 1816 and died on March 31, 1855. Charlotte was 38 years old at the time of death.

Birthday: April 21, 1816
Date of Death: March 31, 1855
Age at Death: 38

Charlotte Brontë - Biography

Charlotte was born 1816, the third of the six children of Patrick Brontë, an Anglican clergyman, and his wife Maria Branwell Brontë. After their mother's death in 1821, Charlotte and her sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, were sent to Cowan Bridge Clergy Daughters' School, which Charlotte would later immortalize as the brutal Lowood school in "Jane Eyre". Conditions at the school were so bad that both Maria and Elizabeth became ill with consumption (tuberculosis) which killed them in 1825. Charlotte was very close to her surviving siblings, Anne Brontë, Branwell, and Emily Brontë. The children invented the imaginary kingdoms of Angria and Gondal, and spent much of their childhood writing poetry and stories about their make-believe realms. In 1846 the three sisters published a collected work of their poetry called, appropriately enough, "Poems", and in 1847 Charlotte published her most famous book, "Jane Eyre", under a male pseudonym, Currer Bell.
Charlotte lost her remaining siblings within a brief time -- Branwell from alcoholism and Emily from consumption, both in 1848; Anne also from consumption in 1849. Charlotte was devastated, and became a lifelong hypochondriac. She resided in London, where she made the acquaintance and admiration of William Makepeace Thackeray. In 1854, she married Reverend A. B. Nicholls, curate of Haworth, against her father's wishes. Charlotte found she was pregnant not long after her marriage, and it was felt she would have a difficult pregnancy due to previous ill-health. She died on 31 March 1855.

Brontë became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness". She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, three weeks before her 39th birthday. Her death certificate gives the cause of death as tuberculosis, but biographers including Claire Harman suggest that she died from dehydration and malnourishment due to vomiting caused by severe morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum. There is also evidence that she died from typhus, which she may have caught from Tabitha Ackroyd, the Brontë household's oldest servant, who died shortly before her. Charlotte Brontë was buried in the family vault in the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Haworth.