Roe Head's headmistress was a trusted confidante to Anne and Charlotte
Margaret Wooler was headmistress and part-owner of Roe Head School, Mirfield, where Charlotte began studying in 1831. After the privations of the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, it seemed a haven for Charlotte, and she met her great friends Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey here, as well as her lifelong friend Miss Wooler.
In 1835 she returned to Roe Head as a teacher, accompanied by first Emily (who became a pupil there), then, when she got so homesick that she had to return to Haworth, by Anne. Anne won a good-conduct medal, bearing the inscription: 'Prize for good conduct presented to Miss A. Brontë with Miss Wooler's kind love, Roe Head. Dec.14th. 1836.'
The daughter of a wealthy maltster, Miss Wooler was a dedicated and gifted teacher, who, according to Elizabeth Gaskell, could encourage her pupils to 'feel interested in whatever they had to learn'; an accomplished linguist, she was also a gifted storyteller and had a beautiful singing voice.
When Miss Wooler discovered in 1849 that Anne Bronte was due to visit Scarborough in an attempt to combat her tuberculosis, she offered her own house in the North Bay for the invalid's use. Anne preferred to stay in the South Bay, however - and sadly Miss Wooler was there as one of the few mourners at Anne's funeral at the end of May.
In June 1854 she gave Charlotte away at her wedding to Arthur Bell Nicholls at the parish church in Haworth.
She died in 1885 at the age of 93.