The Austen Papers: Steventon, the world into which Jane Austen was born

Steventon: an old print of a drawing of the rectory in which Austen grew up

Dear friends,

We move from Jane Austen’s defiant great-grandmother, a housekeeper in a great school, Elizabeth Weller Austen, and one of her sons, Henry’s very rich attorney-banker uncle (Chapter 1 of the Austen Papers), to the world of her parents in the years they were having their babies, Jane and her siblings, at Steventon (Chapter 2). Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh’s second chapter consists of 9 letters written between 1770 and 1775, from George and Cassandra Austen, to Susannah Weaver Walter, wife of William Hampton Walter, half-brother to George. The value of this blog is I link in the texts of these letters as uploaded to Ronald Dunning’s useful website. RAAL found these letters in a footnote to an article by Sidney Grier, in Temple Bar, entitled “A God-daughter of Warren Hastings.” In other words, they are saved as connected to Hastings’s probable biological daughter, Elizabeth Hancock de Feuillide Austen by George Austen’s sister, Philadelphia Austen Hancock. They were owned by Mr Guy Nicholson, a great-great-grandson of William Hampton Walter and were owned by RAAL in 1941. I offer what comments I can. To my mind Claire Tomalin in her biography and Claire Harman in her Jane’s Fame have offered the most perceptive readings of these letters.

The chapter introductions fascinating and tantalizing: Eliza Hancock is referred to as “Bessy:” was this a family nickname? She is just then living with her mother, Philadelphia, in a cottage with two servants, “perhaps coloured ones,” Peter and Clarinda. Given all the connections with India, by “perhaps colored” RAAL means possibly Indian–I would love to know more about why he thought that. How frequent it was for servants to be brought to England from India? Did Jane Austen know these servants as a child? It is not surprising that most of the letters were found in the hands of a descendent of Hastings, a remembered powerful man. Most of the letters are by Eliza and if you count in Henry’s both of them. Eliza was the child of Hastings. His family would want to get their hands on them and eliminate anything which gave this away. We should recall that the letters represent a version of what was left after censorship and destruction; they are a later equivalent of Lord Brabourne’s kind of work with a new attitude brought in: that what texts one has one should not combine with texts of other letters; that what one does publish, publish it straight.

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A useful readable Austen family tree (click to enlarge)

1 & 2. Rev. George Austen to Mrs (Susanna Weaver) Walter, Steventon to Bolton Street, 2 May 1770 & 8 July 1770

Jane’s father invites his half-brother’s wife to come and stay with him and his wife at Steventon, and to bring her daughter. By 1770 he and Cassandra Leigh had been married 6 years and she had given birth three times. She is probably pregnant with Henry. (I am using Maggle Lane’s Jane Austen’s Family through Five Generations for family trees and dates of birth, order of children and so on.)

Mrs Austen has now gone to visit her half-sister-in-law in London. Claire Tomalin is insightful about the second letter. She discerns (rightly I now think) that George is anxious about his wife’s having gone off, leaving him with three babies. Tomalin guesses Mrs Austen was seeking some form of escape and rest and using the pregnancy of her step-sister-in-law as her socially acceptable excuse. Tomalin sees a determination in George to stop his wife from doing this again – next time he is going to come. Tomalin goes so far as to suggest the renewed incessant pregnancies were George’s way of making it impossible for Mrs Austen to up and go away. She cites letters by other relatives (among them Tysoe Hancock, Eliza’s legal father, whose letters form the center of Chapter 3) saying to George that he has little money for this size family and should at least slow down (use a separate bedroom for now). I find this psychologically persuasive. The modern over-emphasis on extended breast-feeding ends up nailing women down as the easiest if not most comfortable thing to do — not that Mrs Austen practiced that; she breast-fed minimally and then put each child into a near-by foster home. The second son, George, is already seen as a disabled child — he sees no improvement. We can compare Eliza years later insisting on seeing “improvement” in her little Hastings. She did not put him away; clearly very frail he would not have lived long had someone not determined truly to care for him taken over.

3. Mrs George Austen (Cassandra) to Mrs Walter, Steventon to a Parsonage near Tunbridge, Kent, August 26, 1770

Now Cassandra’s voice. She is writing to a woman she is close friends with, Susanna Weaver Walter, who has just given birth: she voices pious dislike of London; the sister she speaks of is Philadelphia Austen Hanock and her child Eliza or Bessy (or Betsy). She still has George with her and has been attempting to teach James to write. On Clarinda and Peter, Clarinda is still mentioned when Eliza writes when she is much older to Susannah’s daughter, her cousin, Philadelphia Walker (later Mrs Whitaker). We hear of Philadelphia Austen Hancock’s misadventure — coaches were dangerous and we have here an understandable loss of poise. She has been through a lot this woman, determined not to return to India with Hancock, basically left on her own by Hastings (it’s clear from other letters he never led her to expect otherwise but she might have hoped, her daughter and later son-in-law kept hoping for personal contact). She almost loses her Indian letters the way Jane Austen almost lost her precious (to us too) manuscripts. (Imagine carrying your life’s work about with you

A family tree for Philadelphia Austen Hancock and Eliza Hancock de Feuillide Austen (omitting Warren Hastings)

4. Mrs George (Cassandra) Austen to Mrs (Susanna) Walter, Steventon, Dec 9, 1770 

Four months later Mrs Austen hCassandra is sorry Susanna lives so far off ;she wishes Susanna were removed from the parsonage but as to herself, she will not be bothered by the neighbors. (Were they vulgar?) Bill is Mrs Walters’s baby. She has also been to visit her own sister Jane Cooper but did not take Edward. Too young? Then they are off to the Leigh-Perrots. She is not keen to stay at Steventon, Alderney cow or no. Then she’ll take Neddy (Edward, the third son) and Jemmy (James). An in-the-midst of life letter. Little Neddy (Edward) was well enough that she could get away, to Southcote to her sister, Jane Cooper and her little boy. She had not seen them since last July. She now hopes to visit her brother, James Leigh-Perrot and his wife in Bath for Christmas, taking two of her boys. She wishes Susanna were closer so she could come too. She wishes Susanna were not stuck in the parsonage with unfortunate neighbors but assures Susanna when she visits she cares nothing for them. She is glad another child is well (Bill). Two neighbors fighting over a house — Harwood is talked about in Jane’s letters later on. 

She has already handed George over to a caretaker – he is brought to see her. She does feel bad about it but does not register she is depriving him of a life. The association of sickness makes her remember Philadelphia Austen Hancock – she does not care for the damp of her winter house; Mrs Austen says it’s a bad place. Philadelphia would eventually take herself and daughter to France.

The letter ends on a note which suggests a companionable friendships between the two families.

5. Mrs George (Cassandra) Austen to Mrs (Susanna) Walter, Steventon, Nov 8, 1772

Cassandra can now travel nowhere — Henry is born and come from nurse. A stout little fellow. In the previous letter we heard how the Coopers were settled in Bath, no going there (where the Leigh-Perrots are) are or Kent. In this letter all Jane Austen’s main fictional places are mapped. Susannah has relatives trying to make it in Jamaica (off slavery let’s remember) and Mrs Austen glad to hear all well. Her sister-in-law Philadelphia will come this time to help her through the coming birth (it will be Cassandra).

6. Mrs George (Cassandra) Austen to Mrs (Susanna Walter), Steventon, June 6, 1773

This letter seems to have been written as an apology for Mr Austen’s having gone somewhere on business near to the Walters’ home and yet not visited them. An account of all Mrs Austen’s children in good health, now Cassy is weaned from Mrs Austen and put out to nurse. One wonders the origin of this practice was to teach boys especially to endure less love. Mr Austen has started his boy’s school as Lord Lymington is there. People are visiting her: Jane Cooper, husband and children’ she has two, and maybe she will have no more. And Mr and Mrs L-P come tomorrow. Mrs Austen can show off her dairy, all her riches.

The lack of any notes is a hindrance; LeFaye did provide something.

7. Mrs Cassandra Austen (called Cassy I see)to Susanna Walter, Steventon, Dec 12, 1773:

Cassandra now has 4 young children at home to care for: James and Edward somewhat older and toddler Henry and baby Cassandra. The Sr George Hampson who has hurt his hand is probably 6th Baronet who would be the son of the eldest line of Hampsons (found in LeFaye’s Family Record, p 298) who died in the following year. The nephew George who will accompany him could be one of Susannah’s sons (though they seem too young as yet) or his nephew (the 7th baronet). Mrs Austen says it is “high time” for the young man to have employment (we would say get a job, train for a job) but do not get how he is the other man’s brother. I find a real feeling of regret, of sympathy for Susanna that’s why I surmise some close relationship. We can at least feel that if Mrs Austen utterly acquiesced in sending Francis and Charles away at age 12, she did feel the dangers, the risks, the loss of the boy. Another boy has joined the school and Lord Lymington had begun to stammer so he is being taken to London. This shows that in this era parents worried about this kind of manifestation of nervousness. The boy was perhaps removed too young from his parents.

George Morland (1763-1804), a much idealized depiction of children playing blind man’s bluff (1787-88)

8. Mrs George (Cassandra) Austen to Mrs (Susanna) Walter, Steventon, 20 August 1775.

We break in upon this family when Francis, Jane’s directly older brother, the fifth son, was born well over a year ago, and Mrs Austen is pregnant with Jane. She’s glad to hear George (see above) arrived safely in Jamaica — for many weeks she had wanted to hear of this. If it’s the same George as above, it took time before George was actually sent. They thought about it. Weaver is Susanna’s second child, first son,and as such he is sent to Cambridge. Meanwhile Francis is 16 months and runs about — very active. Henry no longer in skirts (breeches), and we see vies with his older brothers, makes much of his height. He was tall and Edward not. There were tall and short Austens in this nuclear family. Henry would learn he could not overcome that 3 years. One of the little boys she mentioned last time was ill, went home and back and now gone again for summer holidays. Hay matters, it’s money.

She would have liked to see her friend-as-sister, but must not think of it. When Tomalin suggested Mr Austen began again to impregnant Mrs Austen continually, it was after that 2 year and 1/2 break when she began to travel to London and visit her sister in Bath. He won if you think this winning as he must support all these children. Hancock did not think it winning, but then in the countryside and with not too much ambition Mr Austen could have seen this differently.

I don’t know who the orphans were but someone in Mrs Walter’s vicinity died and some group of children cut off. The Freemans were cousins on the Hampton side of the Walters and might be called upon to take orphans in.

9. Rev George Austen to Mrs (Susanna Walter), Steventon, 17 December 1775

I take this letter to be the equivalent of a phone call. Announcement of new baby and 3 business items. The more general interest of this often-quoted letter is it shows the inter-workings of the patronage system from which lower people were shut out. The immediate interest is the birth of Jane Austen on a cold snowy day in late December. Mr Austens says how he and Cassy in their old age have mistimed this one, and how Jenny will make a nice “plaything” for her sister Cassy.” The new baby is a doll for the little girl. Looking at this from a later perspective, that phrase can be taken to have some ominous resonance: when Cassandra turned herself into a non-widow widow, and then Jane didn’t want the marriage offers that came her way, Cassandra maintained her status as older sister, an authority of figure of sorts, and made herself essential to Jane in many ways. Jane was “the younger sister” (as perhaps the first title of The Watsons points to) and in this era this kind of status mattered. The Austens at any rate put the girls together as a pair, and one sees this kind of treatment of women sisters in novels.

Mr Freeman who was to adopt those orphants might be “Cope” — he is in a poor way. Susannah has been inquiring whether George can do anything for her son for a fellowship perhaps, but he has not been able to find anything out. This is the reality of networking and patronage systems; endless secrets. A plowing match — so physical amusement out of farming life noted.

Mr Austen does not want to deal with a Mr Collis unless he comes with some reference. Steedman says in this world these character references were ways of controlling lower class people’s behavior.

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I conclude with two poems by Mrs Austen, one written a few, and the other 20 years later as they give a sense of the tone and circumstances of the world Jane Austen grew up in. In the first Mrs Austen parodies her husband’s pupils, not altogether kindly; she is teaching them to accept their uncomfortable bedroom. In the other she enjoys an assembly at the Town Hall in Basingstoke, the kind of dancing affair Jane Austen would have gone to regularly

Thomas Gainsborough: a depiction of his two daughter chasing butterflies

The humble petition of R4 Buller &
W. Goodenough

A somewhat unusual complaint from two of the rectory pupils is
turned by Mrs Austen into a petition on their behalf to her husband.

Dear Sir, We beseech & intreat & request
You’d remove a sad nuisance that breaks our night’s rest
That creaking old weathercock over our heads
Will scarcely permit us to sleep in our beds.
It whines & it groans & makes such a noise 
That it greatly disturbs two unfortunate boys
Who hope you will not be displeased when they say
If they don’t sleep by night they can’t study by day.
But if you will kindly grant this their petition
And they sleep all night long without intermission 
They promise to study hard every day
And moreover as bounden in duty will pray etc., etc

An Assembly Dance by Wm Hogarth

I send you here

Assemblies were held in the Town Hall at Basingstoke; the Austens
and their friends were regular attenders.
Steventon 17~

I send you here a list of all
The company who graced the Ball
Last Thursday night at Basingstoke;
There were but six & thirty folk,
Although the evening was so fine;
First then, the couple from the Vine, –
Next Squire Hicks, & his fair spouse;
They came from Mr Bramston’s house,
With Madam, & her maiden Sister;
(Had she been absent who’d have missed her?)
And fair Miss Woodward, that sweet singer,
For Mrs Bramston liked to bring her.
With Alethea too, & Harriet;
They came in Mrs Hicks’s chariot;
Perhaps they did, I am not certain.
Then there were 4 good folk from Worting:
For with the Clerks there came two more;
Some friends of their’s, their name was Hoare.
With Mr Mrs, Miss Lefroy
Came Henry Rice, that pleasant Boy.
And least a title they should want,
There came Sir Colebrook, & Sir Grant
Miss Eyre of Sherfield, & her Mother;
One Miss from Dummer, & her Brother.
Her Mother too, as Chaperon.
Mr & Mrs Williamson.
Charles Powlett, & his Pupils twain:
Small Parson Hasker, great Squire Lane.
And Bentworth’s Rector, with his hat,
Unwillingly he parts from that.

Two Misses Davies; with two friends;

And thus my information ends

P.S. It would have been a better dance
But for the following circumstance;
The Dorchesters, so high in station,
Dined out that day, by invitation,
At Heckfield Heath, with Squire Le Fevre;
Methinks it was not quite so clever
For one Subscriber to invite
Another, on the assembly night;
But ’twas to meet a General Donne
His Lordship’s old companion;
And as the General would not stay
They could not fix another day –

Ellen