Character guide

Mary Lowther

major

Also known as Mary, Miss Lowther, Miss Mary Lowther, cousin Mary, Dearest Mary

Mary Lowther arrives in Bullhampton as the woman Harry Gilmore loves and cannot win, and as the cousin Walter Marrable remembers as the loveliest little girl at Dunripple. When Walter's inheritance collapses, she faces Aunt Sarah's blunt arithmetic — a man going out to India on an officer's pay cannot afford a wife — and answers that marriage is like death, common to all. Her stubborn loyalty sets the romantic and moral weather of the novel's middle chapters.

Mr. Fenwick

major

Also known as Fenwick, Frank Fenwick, the Rev. Frank Fenwick, Francis Fenwick

Frank Fenwick has spent years keeping the Methodist Mr. Puddleham in parochial amity — feeding him cabbages and peaches until the old poacher of souls has nothing left to bite. When the Marquis's new Bethel threatens to rise on the vicar's own ground, Fenwick's instinct for a quarrel is roused. His chivalrous, quixotic friendships — with the Brattles, with Sam, with the fallen Carry — make him the moral engine of the parish and the target of every Puddlehamite whisper.

Harry Gilmore

major

Also known as Harry, Mr. Gilmore, Gilmore, Henry Gilmore, poor Gilmore

Gilmore is the Vicar's nearest neighbour and steadiest friend, a man whose opinions are worth having — except during the winter when Mary's absence made him morose and useless. The news that she is coming in early summer throws off his sadness so visibly that Mrs. Fenwick is almost frightened by his elation. His hopefulness and his vulnerability make him the novel's most sympathetic loser, and his recovery of spirits lets him re-enter the parish's troubles as a working friend again.

Captain Walter Marrable

major

Also known as Walter, Captain Marrable, Walter Marrable, cousin Walter, Marrable

Walter Marrable comes to his uncle Parson John's rectory fresh from a rupture with Colonel Marrable — a man of debts, arrests, and broken promises whom the whole family has spent its interest on. He remembers Mary from Dunripple as the most beautiful little girl in the world, and warns his uncle he has no heart left for kind words to anyone. His loss of the fortune he expected turns an idle visit into a reckoning with what he can and cannot offer the woman he comes to love.

Sam Brattle

major

Also known as Sam, Brattle, Young Brattle, Samuel Brattle

Sam Brattle is a young man the Vicar once had high hopes for, hopes that have grown fainter over eighteen months of trouble. When Fenwick catches him in the parsonage garden and smashes his shoulder, Sam refuses to name the friends he was with, and the mystery of that night hardens into the parish's belief that the Vicar knows more than he will say. His mother and sister are among Fenwick's favourites, which is precisely why the Vicar is so reluctant to hand him to the constable.

Carry Brattle

major

Also known as Carry, poor Carry, Caroline Brattle

Carry Brattle has gone where her father will not name her, and the Vicar's attempt to bring her home through her mother ends in a silent, wretched drive back to Bullhampton when the girl slips away rather than face respectability. Her letter from London — half apology, half defiance, signed with love she dares not send — leaves Fenwick sick at heart and doubting his own enthusiasm. She is the novel's sharpest question about whether fallen women can be reclaimed, and whether the attempt is worth the cost.

Miss Marrable

supporting

Also known as Miss Sarah Marrable, Sarah, old Miss Marrable, Sarah Marrable

Miss Marrable presides over the delicate business of disentangling Mary from Captain Marrable, then writes to Mrs. Fenwick in terms carefully pitched to reach Harry Gilmore without seeming to. She is shy of the subject, repelled by any hint of scheming, yet she understands exactly what her letter will do once it leaves her hands. Her discretion shapes the courtship's slow tempo, making her the quiet hinge on which the novel's central romance turns.

Fanny Brattle

supporting

Also known as Fanny, Fan, Fanny Brattle, Poor Fanny Brattle

Fanny Brattle moves between the mill, the Vicarage, and the troubles of her disgraced sister Carry, acting as the family's practical conscience. She comes to Mr. Fenwick for help on Sam's behalf and later bears the weight of her mother's failed errand. Dutiful without being passive, she embodies the Brattle family's stubborn decency and gives the novel its most grounded view of what scandal costs ordinary people.

Mr. Puddleham

supporting

Also known as Puddleham, poor Puddleham, dear old Puddleham

For years Puddleham has been disarmed by Fenwick's peaches and cabbages, robbed of the righteous quarrel that gave his ministry its edge. When the Marquis offers to build him a Bethel facing the Vicarage gate, he seizes the chance to become a somebody again. His rivalry with Fenwick is comic on the surface and corrosive underneath, driving the parish feud that shadows the novel's gentler plots.

Janet Fenwick

supporting

Also known as Janet, Dear Janet

Janet Fenwick feels the insult of Puddleham's chapel so keenly that she will not pass through her own gate, yet she is the one who carries Miss Marrable's letter to Harry Gilmore and counsels him to wait. She teases her husband about plums and perseverance, but she reads the human heart more clearly than he does. Her steady judgment anchors the Vicarage against the parish's quarrels and the Brattles' sorrows.

Sir Gregory Marrable

supporting

Also known as Sir Gregory, Gregory, the late Sir Gregory Marrable, the present Sir Gregory

Sir Gregory is the great man whose shadow reaches into Bullhampton, the landlord whose displeasure the builder Grimes fears and whose patronage Mr. Puddleham hopes to enjoy. His wealth and title make Walter's position precarious and his suit for Mary uncertain, since the heir's expectations depend on an uncle's goodwill. He never appears on the page directly, yet his presence shapes the marriage market that governs the novel's central courtship.

Mrs. Brattle

supporting

Also known as old Mrs. Brattle, George I

Mrs. Brattle accompanies Mr. Fenwick on the errand to reclaim Carry, only to watch the girl flee the moment she learns her family knows where she is. She comes home to a husband who tells her there is no use in scouring the country, and she can only sit on the bed and cry. Her silent endurance of shame and reproach gives the Brattle subplot its deepest pathos and tests the Vicar's own confidence in his charity.

Mr. Jay

supporting

Also known as Jay, Jacob, Our Vicar

Mr. Jay moves through the novel's clerical orbit as a visiting clergyman whose path crosses Mary Lowther's, offering the kind of steady, unremarkable ministry that throws the ambitions of men like Mr. Puddleham into relief. Where Trollope's other churchmen scheme, fret, and poach, Jay's presence reminds the reader what ordinary pastoral work looks like. He matters less for what he does than for the contrast he quietly supplies to the parish wars around him.

Aunt Sarah

supporting

Also known as aunt Sarah, Dear Aunt Sarah, Sarah

Aunt Sarah is the elderly relative whose opinion carries weight in the Marrable family circle, and she has decided views about what a young woman ought to do with her life. She approves of Captain Marrable as a Marrable but not as a husband for a penniless niece, and her eloquence on the subject shakes Mary more than Mary likes to admit. Her blend of affection and hard practical sense makes her one of the forces Mary must reckon with as she weighs love against prudence.

Edith Brownlow

supporting

Also known as Edith

Edith Brownlow is the eligible bride Sir Gregory Marrable has in mind for his nephew, and her name alone is enough to wound Mary Lowther when it reaches her at Loring. She is described as pretty, gentle, good, and certain to receive whatever Sir Gregory can give — a package of virtues that makes her, in the family's eyes, the expedient choice. Whether Walter actually turns to her becomes one of the anxious questions Mary turns over in her own mind as she tries to decide what is right for her to do.

Mr. Chamberlaine

supporting

Also known as the Rev. Henry Fitzackerly Chamberlaine, Harry

Mr. Chamberlaine is the senior clergyman whose sober view of pastoral rescue — that it is no good to take up special cases — the Vicar angrily concedes after Carry Brattle vanishes back into London. He is also the uncle pressing Harry Gilmore toward a more reasonable frame of mind about Mary Lowther, and a guest at the Bullhampton dinner where the chapel quarrel is dissected. His worldly prudence stands as the measured alternative to Fenwick's impulsive charity, and the novel keeps testing which of the two is right.

Mr. Quickenham

supporting

Also known as Quickenham, Richard Quickenham

Mr. Quickenham arrives at the Vicarage with his hands in his pockets and his head on one side, pacing the disputed plot and asking pointed questions about common land, building leases, and whether anything was ever properly advertised. He is the man of law whose presence makes Mrs. Fenwick declare herself in awe of him and puts even the Vicar on his guard. His cool professional eye on the Marquis's petty persecution gives the parish quarrel a legal edge, and his verdicts shape how the Fenwicks decide to fight or swallow the insult.

Lord St. George

supporting

Also known as St. George, George, Lord Saint George

Lord St. George is the heir whose father's feud with the Vicar over the Bethel chapel gives the parish its running grievance, and whose family name carries weight in every social calculation around Bullhampton. He moves in the same genteel circles as the Marrables and the Gilmores, and his presence keeps the question of rank and consequence alive in the novel's marriage plots. As the Marquis's son, he embodies the aristocratic shadow the Vicar must decide whether to defy or placate.

Lord Trowbridge

supporting

Also known as the Marquis of Trowbridge, the Marquis, Marquis

Lord Trowbridge is the local magnate whose wealth and title make him a force in the parish, but whose judgment is governed by pride rather than reason. When he becomes convinced the Vicar is a wicked man, he writes to the bishop demanding Fenwick's removal, only to be quietly rebuffed. His son St. George serves as the only check on his mischief-making, and the old man's inability to see past his own assumptions drives much of the conflict that unsettles Bullhampton.

George Brattle

supporting

Also known as old Brattle, Brattle, the miller, Mr. Brattle

George Brattle is a respectable tradesman whose family has been shadowed by scandal: his daughter Carry has left home and his son Sam is entangled in trouble. He is a man of stern principle and deep feeling, caught between his sense of shame and his buried love for his children. His reluctance to forgive and his pride in his position make him a quiet but persistent source of tension in the parish, and his dealings with the Vicar over Carry's fate test both his patience and his conscience.

Parson John Marrable

minor

Also known as John Marrable, Parson John, uncle John

A clergyman and relative of the Marrable family.

Mrs. Stiggs

minor

A poor woman in the parish who receives charity.

Mr. Cockey

minor

Also known as Cockey

A local tradesman or constable involved in the plot.

Grimes

minor

Also known as Mr. Grimes

A constable or police officer in the story.

Mrs. Brownlow

minor

Also known as a Mrs. Brownlow

Edith Brownlow's mother.

Colonel Marrable

minor

Also known as The Colonel

A military relative of the Marrable family.

Head Constable Toffy

minor

Also known as Constable Toffy, Toffy, Mr. Toffy

A police constable involved in the investigation.

Mr. Packer

minor

Also known as Packer

A local man, possibly a farmer or tradesman.

Mr. Boothby

minor

Also known as Old Mr. Boothby

An older gentleman in the community.

Farmer Trumbull

minor

Also known as Trumbull, poor old Trumbull

An elderly farmer, possibly the same as Mr. Trumbull.

Agnes Pope

minor

Also known as Pope

A servant or young woman in the story.

Jack the Grinder

minor

Also known as the Grinder, Jack, Grinder

A criminal associate of Sam Brattle.

Mr. Trumbull

minor

Also known as Trumbull, poor Mr. Trumbull, old Trumbull

An old farmer in the neighborhood.

Lawrence Acorn

minor

Also known as Acorn, Larry Acorn, Larry

A young man who associates with Sam Brattle.

Sir Thomas Charleys

minor

Also known as Sir Thomas

A baronet mentioned in the story.

Sir Walter Marrable

minor

Also known as Walter

An earlier Sir Walter, ancestor of the Marrable family.

Mrs. Gilmore

minor

Also known as Gilmore

Harry Gilmore's mother.

Flo

minor

Also known as II Flo

A child character, possibly the Fenwicks' daughter.

Trotter

minor

A builder or landlord of a tenement.

Bone'm

minor

Also known as XII Bone'm, Poor Bone'm

A horse or a character associated with Mr. Fenwick.

Mr. Curling

minor

Also known as Curling

A lawyer or professional man.

Mr. Jones

minor

Also known as Jones

A minor character, possibly a servant or tradesman.

Squire Greenthorne

minor

Also known as Greenthorne, The Squire

A local squire and landowner.

Miss Brownlow

minor

Possibly a sister or relative of Edith Brownlow.

Mrs. Quickenham

minor

Mr. Quickenham's wife.

Richard Burrows

minor

Also known as Richard, Burrows

A man involved with Carry Brattle.

Lady Sophie

minor

Also known as the Lady Sophie

A noblewoman, possibly related to the Marquis.

John Burrows

minor

Also known as Burrows

A relative of Richard Burrows.

Mr. Bolt

minor

A minor character, possibly a constable.

Mr. Hickbody

minor

A local man, possibly a farmer.

Mr. Balfour

minor

A lawyer or professional acquaintance.

Mrs. Bunker

minor

A woman who provides lodging.

Mrs. Jay

minor

Mr. Jay's wife.

Ambrose

minor

A servant or minor character.

Carolina Stowte

minor

One of the Ladies Stowte.

Little Captain Boodle

minor

A minor military figure mentioned in passing.