The diaries which form the bulk of the collection are of the simplest kind: brief day-to-day records of social and church occasions in the life of a young girl in the Yorkshire village of Thornton in the 1810s and 1820s. Their principal interest lies in the references to members of the Bronte family with whom Elizabeth was acquainted, and the collection includes a letter from Charlotte Bronte to Elizabeth Firth.
Miss Elizabeth Firth lived at Kipping House at Thornton, near Bradford, to which village the Bronte Family moved in 1815 when Patrick Bronte became curate there. Elizabeth was then 18 years old; her father, John Scholefield Firth, was a doctor; her mother had died in an accident the previous year. A friendship rapidly developed between Elizabeth and Maria Bronte, and both father and daughter were asked to become godparents to the Brontes' daughter Elizabeth. In 1820 the Brontes moved to Haworth, and the following year Maria died. In December 1821 Patrick Bronte proposed marriage to Elzabeth Firth, a proposal which is thought to have led to a rupture in her relations with the Bronte family of almost two years before the relationship was resumed. Elizabeth married the Rev. James Clarke Franks in September 1824.
The collection also includes a pedigree of descendants of Elizabeth Firth (Mrs. James Clarke Franks), the Moore Smith and Franks families, compiled by George Charles Moore Smith, her grandson, who became Professor of English Language and Literature from 1896 to 1924, successively at Firth College, University College, and the University of Sheffield as the institution progressed to full university status in 1905.
From the guide to the Elizabeth Firth Manuscripts, 1812-1857, (University of Sheffield Library)
