Cowan Bridge: when Mrs. Gaskell's biography of Charlotte identified Cowan Bridge as her inspiration for the awful school in Jane Eyre and talked some more about how her sisters died there and she hated it till the end of her days, the family of the headmaster was indignant and published letters from grateful students to him about what a wonderful guy he'd been and how that school was just fine, and all the deaths couldn't be helped because illnesses. Which meant some people promptly went "aha, emotional woman exaggarating, typical!" But as Elsemarie Maletzke put it: you don't have to rely on Charlotte's testimony alone (or the statistics of the student death rate) - you just have to read the "educational works" of the good Reverend to understand what kind of person he was. Because he published little moral novellas, too. Featuring children who kiss the rod they've been whipped with and put flowers on it to show they understand how much they benefited from the education.

However, by the time Mrs. Gaskell published her biography, thus outing the school, the headmaster had been dead, so sadly he died in self satisfied peace and unpunished.

If you come across it anywhere, here is a recent movie about the Brontes I can reccommend, as opposed to many an earlier attempt.