The Reverend Patrick Brontë (,
commonly ; 17 March 1777 – 7 June 1861) was an Irish-English priest and author who spent most of his adult life in England and was the father of the writers
Charlotte,
Emily, and
Anne Brontë and of
Branwell Brontë, his only son. Patrick outlived all his children and his wife, the former
Maria Branwell, by forty years.