A previously unpublished Charlotte Bronte manuscript hailed by scholars as “significant and exciting” has gone on display today at the Haworth museum where the legendary literary sisters once lived.

The document, a homework essay written by Charlotte, has been bought for £50,000 by the Bronte Society following a public fundraising appeal.

Society members were told of the acquisition during this afternoon’s annual general meeting.

The single-page manuscript, written in French on both sides, was assigned as homework by Charlotte's teacher, Monsieur Constantin Heger, at the Pensionnat Heger school he and his wife ran in Brussels.

Heger has added his corrections to the work, “L’Amour Filial”, which deals with the subject of love for parents.

“We know Charlotte had a deep love and respect for her father Patrick Bronte but lost her mother at the age of just five - when she died from what is now believed to have been ovarian cancer,” said Bronte Society executive director Professor Ann Sumner.

“This new and exciting window on her love for her father, written at a time of great turmoil, is of incalculable value to our understanding of Charlotte’s interior life and will form the focus of much new scholarship.”

The society was told in December of the previously unknown piece, which was in private ownership.

The subsequent appeal raised over £3,000 in contributions from the public and grants included £20,000 from the V&A Purchase Fund and £5,000 from the Friends of National Libraries.

Bronte Society chairman Sally McDonald said: “The response was magnificent. To all donors we offer our heartfelt thanks that we can now preserve this significant manuscript for the nation as part of our unparalleled collection of Bronte manuscripts and artefacts here at the museum.”