Jane Austen's life (1775-1817) spanned turbulent
times: the loss of the American colonies, the French
Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the spread of the
British influence in India. Members of her family and
friends were involved directly in these events. Her
roots were unquestionably English, her father George
originating from Kent, gaining a scholarship to
Oxford and thence becoming Rector of Steventon and
Deane, near Basingstoke, Hampshire. Her mother,
Cassandra Leigh, was born in the tiny village of
Harpsden, to the north of the Reading to Henley road.
Her father was Thomas Leigh, Rector of the village
and their home, now the Old Rectory can be seen in
the village. The parish registers reveal the history
of the family:
| Baptisms |
|
|
| Aug. 14 1734 |
Ann |
(d. 1738) |
| July 15 1735 |
James |
(d. Mar. 28 1837) |
| October 9 1736 |
Jane |
(d. October 1783) |
| October 14 1737 |
Mary |
(d. October 31 1737) |
| Sept. 16 1739 |
Cassandra |
(d. Jan. 17 1827) |
| April 27 1747 |
Thomas |
(d. 1821)
(Mentally or physically handicapped, he spent
his long life in the care of a lowly family
in Hampshire). |
The Leigh family had aristocratic and academic
ancestors: a 16th century Lord Mayor of London, the
Lord Leighs of Stoneleigh, distinguished scholars at
Oxford, as well as marriage connections with the Earl
of Berkeley and the Duke of Chandos.
Reverend Thomas Leigh retired to Bath in the early
1760's and it was here that Cassandra married George
Austen on 26th April 1764. The vicar who performed
the ceremony was Thomas Powys, a childhood friend
whose family lived in Hardwick Hall, Whitchurch, near
Pangbourne. Cassandra's sister, Jane, married the
Reverend Edward Cooper, whose family owned Phyllis
Court, near Henley. The couple settled in Royal
Crescent, Bath, and he also served as Vicar of
Southeote, now a modern suburb on the western fringes
of Reading. Even in those days of uncertain travel,
family visits were important and we discover from one
of Mrs Austen's letters, dated gth December 1770:
'We went to Southcote, where we found my
sister, Dr Cooper and the little boy quite well'
The little boy was Edward Cooper, her nephew, who
in later life married Caroline Lybbe, daughter of
Philip and Caroline Lybbe Powys of Fawley, near
Henley. (Philip was brother to Reverend Thomas Powys
and took the extra surname when he married the
heiress Caroline Lybbe). This Edward Cooper was later
Rector of Harpsden, where four of his children were
born, before moving to Hamstall Ridaware in
Staffordshire. The Reverend Edward Cooper (senior)
and his wife had a second child, Jane, who was of a
similar age to Jane Austen's elder sister Cassandra.
Between 1765 and 1779 the Austens had 8 children,
6 boys and 2 girls. Jane was the 7th child and the 2nd
daughter. It was decided that the two Austen girls
and their cousin should go away to school together.
Firstly they went to an establishment in Oxford run
by a Mrs Cawley (widowed sister-in-law of Reverend
Cooper). Soon after they went there in 1783 the
school moved to Southampton and it was there that a
'putrid sore throat' spread from the port through the
town to the school, leaving Jane Austen in danger of
her life. Jane Cooper wrote to her mother, who
immediately came with Mrs Austen to nurse them all.
Jane's life was saved but Mrs Cooper returned home to
Bath to die of the fever in October 1783. Dr Cooper,
devastated, decided to return to his roots, and took
up the living of Sonning from 1784 until his death in
1792.
After this unpropitious attempt at school the
three parents decided to send the three girls to
school again and this time they chose the Reading
Ladies Boarding School, otherwise known as the Abbey
School, or Mrs La Tournelle's School. The school was
based in the 13th century Abbey Gateway and an
adjoining house. The building, now used as the venue
for a music club, can still be seen today in its
refurbished state, after a partial collapse in 1861.1
The building overlooks the Abbey Ruins and the
Forbury Gardens (as well as the Remand Centre and
Railway Station) The head of the school Madame La
Tournelle (aka Sarah Hackitt) was renowned for her
cork leg. Banking records show that George Austen
paid £35 per pupil for the usual accomplishments of
sewing, spelling, dancing, music and French. In 1786
the girls left school and returned home.
Jane's experiences in Reading are thought to have
influenced her description of Mrs Goddard's school in
"Emma":
'A real old-fashioned Boarding School where a
reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a
reasonable price and girls might be out of the way
and scramble themselves into a little education
without any danger of coming back prodigies'
Jane's only reference to her schooling is in one
of her letters to her sister:
'I could have died of laughing at [your letter]
as they used to say at school' (Letters 1st
September 1796)
But after nearly two years in Reading, living in
its most historic area amongst the ruins of the Abbey
with its association with the monarchy (Henry I was
buried here in 1135, Henry VIII dissolved the
monastery and had Abbot Hugh Faringdon executed for
high treason and Charles I's Cavaliers fought the
Roundheads on fortifications visible today) it is
hardly surprising that Jane Austen was to produce
'The History of England by a partial, prejudiced and
ignorant historian' in 1791 and illustrated by her
sister Cassandra. Jane, incidentally, was a staunch
supporter of Mary Queen of Scots and the Stuarts.
Jane Cooper spent much time with her cousins. On
holiday on the Isle of Wight with her father, brother
and the Lybbe Powys family in 1792 she met and
subsequently married Captain, later Sir, Thomas
Williams RN. She died in a carriage accident six
years later.
George Austen, orphaned and dependant on family
charity as a young boy, had two sisters: Leonora, of
whom little is known except that she was cared for by
a succession of families with printing associations
in London until her death in 1784; and Philadelphia,
his other sister, took drastic, but not unheard of,
action to achieve financial security. At the age Of
21 she was granted permission by the East India
Company to travel out to India with the presumed
intention of marrying one of the many Britons working
there. She did get married soon after her arrival, to
Tysoe Saul Hancock, a doctor who became a friend and
trading partner of Warren Hastings, a rising star in
the company. Hastings, whose wife and daughter had
recently died in India, sent his son George home to
England in 1761, in the care of Francis Sykes, owner
of Basildon Park, near Reading (now a National Trust
property). The child was put in the care of George
Austen, then a bachelor, doubtlessly due to the
influence of Philadelphia.
The little boy did not survive long, dying in 1764
soon after the Austens' marriage. The links between
the families survived, Warren Hastings making a
particularly generous settlement of £10,000 on
Philadelphia and her daughter Eliza Hancock. George
Austen, one of the trustees, did not allow the money
to be released to her when she married a French
nobleman in 1781. Wisely, since the Comte de
Feuillide was guillotined in 1794 and all of his
property confiscated. Letters still exist between the
Austen family and Warren Hastings and in later years
Jane was to write:
'And Mr Hastings (who was pleased with 'Pride
and Prejudice) - I am quite delighted with what such
a man writes about it'
In 1771 Hastings was made 1st Governor of India,
but was later accused of corruption and was put on
trial. This was a cause of great distress to the
Austens who considered him an honourable man, but
attendance at the trial, which lasted seven years
before finding him innocent, was considered one of
the events of the season. Whilst this trial was in
progress Hastings rented Purley Hall, a few miles
outside of Reading (a fact announced in the Reading
Mercury on 4th May 1789).
Whilst Cassandra and Jane were 'out of the way' at
school, Mr Austen supplemented his income by taking
in pupils and tutoring them for Oxford. The Fowle
family of Kintbury provided four pupils. One of them,
Tom Fowle, later returned after obtaining his MA at
Oxford and being ordained to the rather impoverished
parish of Allingham in Wiltshire. He became engaged
to Cassandra Austen and in order to make enough money
to marry on, went as chaplain with his distant
relation Lord Craven of Hampstead Marshall and
Ashdown Park in Berkshire, to the West Indies with
the fleet. He died of yellow fever in San Domingo in
1797. Cassandra inherited £1000 from his will,
giving her a little financial independence, but never
entertained the idea of marriage after that. But the
families remained close and were already related by
marriages (James Austen married Mary Lloyd whose
sister Elizabeth married Reverend Fulwar-Craven Fowle).
The final and most lasting link with Berkshire was
that caused by Mrs Austen's brother James Leigh. He
led a charmed existence.
Whilst in his teens his elderly great uncle,
Thomas Perrot, bequeathed all of his Northleigh (Oxfordshire)
estates to James at the age Of 21, on condition that
he took the additional name of Perrot. This duly
done, Mr Leigh-Perrot sold the land to the Duke of
Marlborough and had the mansion'Scarlets'built on
farmland at Hare Hatch, Wargrave. In 1764 he married
Jane Cholmely, daughter of an English lawyer in the
West Indies. She had been sent back to England at the
age of six and had never seen her immediate family
again. Mr and Mrs Leigh-Perrot were a devoted, yet
childless, couple.
In 1806 after a legal settlement with two co-heirs,
he inherited a further £24,000 and an annual
allowance of £2,000 for life. The Leigh-Perrots
lived a wealthy and luxurious lifestyle, either at
'Scarlets' or at their house at The Paragon in Bath.
They were generous towards the Austens, offering them
gifts and receiving them as guests. The Austens in
return seem to have been genuinely attached to them,
although Jane makes critical references to 'my Aunt'
in her letters.
Whilst in Bath in 1799, Mrs Leigh-Perrot was
accused of the theft of a piece of lace valued at £1,
a felony punishable by death or transportation. She
was imprisoned in the house of the gaoler of
llchester gaol throughout the winter, but was finally
acquitted at Taunton in 18oo. It was revealed as a
blackmail plot, but the threat of the punishment was
very real. Family tradition saysthat Mr Leigh-Perrot
was prepared to sell up everything to accompany her
to Australia if she was found guilty.
Despite these frightening experiences, Mr and Mrs
Austen made the sudden decision, at the end of 1800,
to leave Steventon Parsonage to retire to Bath with
their two daughters, then aged 25 and 28. The Reading
Mercury, with its large circulation in southern
England, was chosen to advertise the sale of the
contents of the house. The advert appeared on Monday
4th May 18ol but, according to Jane's letters, did
not net as much money as they had expected. The
family moved to Bath in 18ol where they lived until
1806, after Reverend Austen's death. The ladies then
moved to Southampton with their brother Frank (Captain,
later Admiral) Austen and thence to Chawton, near
Alton, in 1809. It was there that Jane wrote and
revised her six novels. From 1816 she became
increasingly unwell and was also preoccupied by a
series of severe financial difficulties that beset
three of her brothers.
The final blow to her spirits and health came
after the death of her uncle Mr Leigh-Perrot on 28th
March 1817. When his will was read it was discovered
that he had left all of his money to his wife, with
some bequests to any Austen nephews and nieces who
might survive her. The Austens had been led to
believe that they would benefit from his vast fortune
and there must have been disappointment that it would
be deferred. Jane wrote to her brother Charles:
'I am ashamed to say that the shock of my
uncle's will brought on a relapse.... I am the only
one of the legatees to be so silly'
Her health declined and she died on 18th July 1817
in Winchester and was buried in the cathedral.
A classically elegant tomb to Mr Leigh-Perrot is
to be found in Wargrave churchyard with an elaborate
and effusive eulogy to him on one side. On the other
is a more concise inscription to his wife, who lived
a further 19 years. She continued to live at
'Scarlets' and spent her time favouring first one
then another potential heir. Jane's nephew Edward
Austen and her brother Frank became the front-runners.
The capricious old lady chose Edward hoping that he
and his family would love 'Scarlets' as much as she
and her husband had, but she kept him waiting to find
out until after her death in 1836.
In the years after Jane Austen's death the family
of her eldest brother James, who survived her by only
two years, kept the Berkshire connection alive. His
widow Mary had originally come from Enborne, near
Newbury and returned to that area accompanied by her
daughter Caroline and son Edward.
After her mother's death in 1843, Caroline Austen
made her "headquarters at Scarlets", with
her brother and his family, before renting a house at
Knowl Hill and then buying Wargrave Lodge, where she
lived until 186o when she moved to Sussex to act as
housekeeper for two unmarried nephews. She returned
on occasions to Berkshire visiting her half-sister
Anna Lefroy at Southern Hill, Reading and her
brother, who had sold 'Scarlets' in 1863 before
moving to Bray to act as Vicar. Caroline and Anna,
contributed her memories of 'Aunt Jane' when Edward
wrote his Memoir of Jane Austen, the first biography,
published in 1869, thus the three 'Berkshire Austens'
told the story of their Hampshire aunt.
In 'Northanger Abbey', published posthumously in
1818, the heroine Catherine Morland rejects the study
of history:
'It tells me nothing that does not either vex
or weary me. The quarrels of Popes and Kings, with
wars and pestilence on every page: the men all so
goodfor nothing and hardly any women at all - it is
very tiresome'
The history of the Austen family and their
connections with Berkshire fortunately bears little
resemblance to that description.
Sources:
Jane Austen's Letters - Deirdre Le Faye
Reading Mercurv 1801 (Reading Local Studies
Library)
1851 Census
Book of Wargrave - edited by Rosemary Gray and Sue
Griffiths
Jane Austen's Family - Maggie Lane
The Jane Austen Society - Collected reports
Reminiscences of Caroline Austen.
