William Carus Wilson

William Carus Wilson (7 July 1791 – 30 December 1859) was an English churchman and the founder and editor of the long-lived monthly The Children's Friend. He was the inspiration for Mr Brocklehurst, the autocratic head of Lowood School, depicted by Charlotte Brontë in her 1847 novel Jane Eyre.

He was born at Heversham as William Carus. While he was a child his father (also called William) inherited an estate at Casterton, near Kirkby Lonsdale in Westmorland and took on the surname Wilson (which was a condition of the bequest). His father served as one of Cockermouth's two MPs in the 1820s.

He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1815. Although refused orders that year owing to his excessive Calvinism, he was ordained the following year and returned to the Lune valley, becoming Vicar of Tunstall, a small village in Lancashire. Some years later he became Rector of Whittington on the other side of the River Lune and was succeeded by Henry Currer Wilson at Tunstall. He founded Holy Trinity Church, Casterton, in the early 1830s, donating the land on which it stands. He was also chaplain to The Prince Augustus Frederick.

In 1823 he established at Cowan Bridge the Clergy Daughters' School for low-cost education of daughters of poorer members of the clergy. This school later moved to Casterton where it continued as the independent Casterton School, and subsequently (from 2013) the preparatory department of Sedbergh School. One of Sedbergh School's three girls houses is named Carus after Carus Wilson, following the arrival of pupils from Casterton Senior School. The author Charlotte Brontë was a pupil at Cowan Bridge in 1824/25 and attended Sunday services at Tunstall church. She featured the school in Jane Eyre as "Lowood". She based her character Robert Brocklehurst on Carus Wilson. Brocklehurst is presented as a hypocrite:

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