Abbey conservator Lucky Ackland at work on the memorial

JUSTICE has finally been served to the literary Brontë sisters, a memorial that depicted their names incorrectly has finally been rectified 85 years after it was installed.

The Brontë memorial in Westminster Abbey has been amended to include the dots (diaereses) over the ’E’ of the names of the Charlotte, Emily and Anne, following a request from journalist and Brontë historian Sharon Wright.

The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle agreed with Ms Wright, editor of The Brontë Society Gazette, that they should be added after she alerted him earlier this year that they were missing.

Ms Wright was visiting the abbey to research a new book about the Brontës when she noticed they were not on the memorial.

The work to put the diaereses on has been completed by an abbey stonemason tapping the dots in and an abbey conservator painting them.

Ms Wright said: “As soon as I saw the tablet I wanted to know why the famous name was spelled incorrectly.

“Also, why no one had ever pointed this out before.

“I am immensely proud that the correct, unique and immortal name of Charlotte, Emily and Anne is finally complete in Poets’ Corner.

“It is a Brontë story with a happy and timely ending.”

The Brontë memorial is a rectangular tablet of Huddlestone stone, in Poets’ Corner near other famous writers, including Jane Austen, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. It was installed on October 8 1939, soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, having been sponsored by the Brontë Society, one of the oldest literary societies in the world.

A letter in the abbey archive from Donald Hopewell, president of the Brontë Society, to the Dean of Westminster, dated May 1 1939, clearly gives instructions for the wording of the memorial, which includes the diaereses.

But the puzzle of the misspelled Brontë tablet remains.

Dr Hoyle said: “I am grateful to have this omission pointed out and now put right.

“Memory is not a locked cupboard, but an active thing and the Brontë Society have given us a glimpse of their commitment to a lively remembering.”