Would Charlotte Bronte have known about the dinosaurs?

by oldviolets
woofiegrrl

I'm betting this gets sent to short answers, but:

Charlotte Bronte lived from 1816-1855. She was educated in both England and Belgium, and although she mostly lived in Yorkshire, after publication of Jane Eyre she spent time in London society. So we know that she was educated and aware of current events generally; for more on Charlotte, Harman's biography is a good place to start.

Now, the dinosaurs: discoveries in England date to 1850 and even earlier. Richard Owen did a lot of this work and even gave us the name dinosaurs. In the early 1850s, he created sculptures of what he speculated they looked like, based on fossil discoveries; several of these were exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851.

Charlotte Bronte attended the Great Exhibition twice and wrote about it in letters. She did not mention the dinosaurs in particular, but she says "its grandeur does not consist in one thing, but in the unique assemblage of all things." She must certainly have seen them as she walked around.

So yes, Charlotte Bronte knew about the dinosaurs. The sculptures she saw are still on display today; see the sources at the bottom of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs Wikipedia page for articles about them.