thumb|right|250px|'''Les sœurs Brontë'''<br> <small>Tableau peint par Branwell Brontë vers 1834 : Anne, Emily et Charlotte (Branwell, qui figurait en haut du tableau, s'est lui-même effacé)</small>.
'''Patrick Branwell Brontë''' est un peintre et écrivain britannique né le Thornton (Yorkshire) et décédé le Haworth. Il fut l'unique frère des romancières Charlotte, Emily et Anne Brontë.

== Jeunesse==
Quatrième de six enfants, Branwell Brontë est l'unique fils de Thornton et s'installe avec sa famille à Haworth, quand son père est nommé à la cure perpétuelle en 1821.

Des quatre enfants Brontë à avoir atteint l'âge adulte, Branwell semble avoir été regardé dans sa famille comme le plus talentueux, au moins pendant son enfance et sa jeunesse. Tandis que quatre de ses sœurs sont envoyées au pensionnat de Cowan Bridge (conduisant à la mort de ses deux sœurs aînées Maria et Elizabeth), Branwell demeure à la maison où il bénéficie de l'enseignement dispensé par son père, qui lui donne une éducation classique propice à l'admission à Oxford ou à Cambridge.

Branwell collabore aux travaux d'écriture de ses sœurs durant l'enfance et l'adolescence, créant des mondes imaginaires. Les vestiges de ses œuvres juvéniles montrent qu'il collaborait plus particulièrement avec Charlotte à leur monde imaginaire Angria.

== Adulte==
thumb|left|180px|Branwell Brontë
Jeune homme, Branwell Brontë est formé comme portraitiste à Haworth et exerce ce travail à Bradford en 1838 et en 1839. Son portrait le plus célèbre est celui de ses trois sœurs (sur lequel il semble s'être fait figurer dans un premier temps). Il veut devenir peintre et part à Londres pour étudier les beaux-arts. Mais il ne parviendra jamais à vivre de son art ni même à terminer une grande partie de ses tableaux.

En 1840, Branwell devient précepteur de jeunes garçons dans une famille à Broughton-in-Furness, mais il est congédié au bout de six mois. Pendant ce temps, il a réalisé une traduction d'Horace. Par la suite, il est employé à la station de chemin de fer du Luddenden Foot en 1841, mais il est renvoyé en 1842, à cause d'un déficit découvert dans les comptes (attribué à son incompétence). Durant cette période, où il travaille comme précepteur, puis dans les chemins de fer, il entretient des ambitions littéraires et publie des poèmes sous divers pseudonymes dans la presse du Yorkshire.

thumb|right|Branwell Brontë, self portrait, 1840
'''Patrick Branwell Brontë''' (; Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

==Youth==
Branwell Brontë was the fourth of six children and the only son of Thornton, near Bradford, Yorkshire, and moved with his family to Haworth when his father was appointed to the perpetual curacy in 1821.

Of the four Brontë siblings who survived into adulthood, Branwell Brontë seems to have been regarded within the family as the most talented, at least during his childhood and youth. While four of his five sisters were sent to Cowan Bridge boarding school (resulting in the death of his two oldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth), Branwell was kept at home to be privately educated by his father, who gave him a classical education suitable for admission to Oxford or Cambridge.

Brontë collaborated as a writer with his sisters in childhood and adolescence, creating fictional worlds. His surviving juvenilia shows that he collaborated most closely with Charlotte on their imaginary world Angria.

==Adulthood==
As a young man, Branwell Brontë was trained as a portrait painter in Haworth, and worked as a portrait painter in Bradford in 1838 and 1839. His most famous portrait is of his three sisters (he seems to have painted himself out).

In Luddenden Foot railway station in 1841 but was dismissed in 1842 due to a deficit of eleven pounds in the accounts attributed to incompetence rather than theft. During his period of employment both as a tutor and on the railways he harboured literary ambitions and published poetry under various pseudonyms in the Yorkshire press.

In 1843 Brontë took up another tutoring position in Thorp Green, appointed as the tutor to the Robinson family's young son. He gained this position through his sister Anne, who was the governess to the Robinsons' two older daughters. During this time he corresponded with a number of old friends about his increasing infatuation with Lydia Robinson. He was dismissed on unspecified charges in 1845. It is thought, according to his account to his own family, the Robinson family's silence on the reason for his dismissal, and subsequent gifts of money from Mrs. Robinson through her servants, that he had an affair with Mrs. Robinson and that the affair had been discovered by her husband.

Brontë returned home to his family at the Haworth parsonage, now known as the alcoholic and was thought to be addicted to laudanum. His behaviour became irrational and dangerous as he developed delirium tremens. Charlotte's letters from this time demonstrate that she was angered by his behaviour, but that her father was patient with his broken son. Although it was at this time that his sisters' first novels were being accepted for publication, it is not known whether he was even informed.