A woman who helped reveal the character of the Yorkshire Ripper through his writing has been using her skills to find out more about the Brontes.

Graphologist Diane Simpson has been scrutinising the handwriting of the authors, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, and their wayward brother Branwell. And she will reveal her fascinating findings at a special workshop at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, on Saturday.

It is the first time the Brontes’ handwriting has been examined using examples of original written work produced at different stages in their lives and now held in the museum collection.

Museum arts officer, Jenna Holmes, said: “She found that Branwell was the most wayward.

“He had the same intellectual capacity, but he didn’t know where to direct it.”

Branwell, who had a drink and drug problem, and his sister Emily died in 1848. She was 30 and he was 31.

Miss Simpson discovered that Charlotte, who died in pregnancy in 1853 aged 38, was a workaholic and her handwriting marked her as a fiercely motivated and driven person, without a particular need to be liked, Emily, author of Wuthering Heights, was less introverted than Branwell, who also had obsessive behaviour and mood swings, and not as outgoing as Charlotte, who wrote Jane Eyre.

And she discovered that Anne, who died in 1849, aged 29, the youngest and least well-known of the sisters, was intellectually superior to her siblings Had she been born 60 years later she may well have been a prime mover of the Suffragette movement.

Miss Simpson, who worked with West Yorkshire police investigating the personality of the Yorkshire Ripper Bradford lorry driver Peter Sutcliffe, said: “What I have found so far has been utterly fascinating. What I discovered were four intellectual giants, three with staying power, and one without.”

The investigation is part of the Alter Ego exhibition of paintings by artist Victor Buta, on show at the museum, which is based on Bronte handwriting and signatures.

Miss Simpson is a founder member of the British Institute of Graphologists, and has also analysed the handwriting of historical figures such as Elizabeth I and Anne Boleyn.