It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is one of the most well-known and beloved writers of all time. During her short life she had completed six novels that have dazzled fans around the world for over 200 years. Even though she is more well known for her connections to Bath and Godmersham in Kent, she liked to proudly remind people that she was “a Hampshire born Austen”. We at the Hampshire Cultural Trust are fortunate enough to look after five of her objects on behalf of the Winchester City Council and Hampshire County Council, which are now available for you to look at on our online collections. You will find some of these items on display at Winchester City Museum.
Early Life in Hampshire:
Jane Austen was the seventh child of eight born to Reverend George Austen and his wife Cassandra in Steventon in Hampshire on 16 December 1775. As one of two girls, her and her sister Cassandra formed a close bond. They were both schooled in Reading and Southampton, however due to illness from a fever outbreak, the girls education continued indefinitely at home.
Alongside her studies, private theatrical productions were also performed in the nearby barn which we know Jane enjoyed. With her love of reading from a young age, she started to write at the age of 12 with the encouragement of her family. The earliest known record of her writings dates from 1787, and from then until 1793, where she wrote a variety of plays, verses, short novels and other prose which still survive. These are collectively known as the Juvenilia.
During her first 25 years of life, she frequented the nearby town of Basingstoke for social activities. Her father brought her a writing desk with a glass ink stand in Lower Church Street for her 19th birthday. Jane also frequented the town to buy books, pick up her mother from Dr. John Lyford’s house and most famously attend the Basingstoke ball. The Town Hall and Assembly Room at this time was situated in Market Square, currently on the corner at the top of the town, 2 Winchester Street.
Even though she was of the gentry class (practically the equivalent of middle class today) she had many respectable friends in high society, such as the Portals, the Bigg Withers and the Lefroys. The latter two names will be familiar to Jane Austen fans, as she was romantically linked to Tom Lefroy, which unfortunately did not work out, and to Harris Bigg Wither; the owner of the Manydown Estate just outside of Basingstoke, who she was engaged to for just 12 hours.
Regarding her other love writing, Jane went on to write First Impressions, Elinor and Marianne, and Susan near the end of the 18th century. In 1801 Reverend George Austen decided to retire, taking his wife and his daughters with him.
They settled in the fashionable city of Bath, a place which Jane was not overly fond of. During her time here she started writing The Watsons which she never finished. Her brother Henry also sold Susan to a publisher, but it never saw the light of day until after her death.
Southampton and Chawton:
In 1805, Jane’s father died unexpectantly, leaving Cassandra, Jane and her mother poor and dependent on their brothers for their support. One brother who they stayed with was Frank, who was based in Southampton. Then in 1809, her brother Edward who was adopted into the Knight family, provided Jane, Cassandra and their mother a home on the Chawton estate near Alton. This house faced onto the village street at the corner where the Gosport Road joined the main road from Winchester to London, a place that is more well known as Jane Austen’s House Museum today. Finally settled in a stable home, Jane could concentrate on her writing.
She took out her previous drafts of Elinor and Marianne and First Impressions. She updated and reworked them into her first two published novels, Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813). She also revised Susan which would become Northanger Abbey (1817). She also created new works and gained inspiration from her local surroundings. After a trip with her friend Miss Beckford to an Alton apothecary, Jane wrote a poem called I’ve a Pain in my Head. A different Alton apothecary, by the name of William Curtis, is believed to serve as inspiration for Mr. Perry in Emma (1816). She also wrote and published Mansfield Park in 1814. She then altered it ready for its next round of publication in 1816.
Jane started working on The Elliots (later published as Persuasion) during 1816. In the summer of that year, however, she started experiencing back pain, bilious attacks, recurring fever and an alarming black and white complexion, along with bouts of weakness. By April 1817 she was essentially bedbound.
Winchester:
A month later in May 1817, Jane and her sister Cassandra left their beloved home in Chawton and moved to 8 College Street in Winchester so that she could be close to her physician. After visiting both Hampshire based surgeon John White, the nephew of famed nature writer Gilbert White, and Alton-based apothecary Mr. Curtis, Jane and her family decided that it would be best to stick closer to home than attempt a trip to London. They chose Mr Giles King Lyford, the nephew of John senior, who was a surgeon based at the Winchester County hospital.
While her health was still in decline, Jane managed to make the most of her time exploring the city in a sedan chair. She also managed to write a couple of letters, and a poem called Venta, a satirical look at the Winchester Races occurring on St. Swithun’s Day (15 July). At 4:30 am on 18 July 1817, Jane Austen died in the arms of her sister at 41 years of age. She was buried in the north aisle at Winchester Cathedral on the morning of 24 July. The only mourners at her funeral were four male family members, as women weren’t allowed to attend funerals at that time. Her epitaph was composed by her brother James, which didn’t make any reference to her writing, choosing to focus on her faith and virtues instead.
Throughout her lifetime Jane was never publicly identified as an author. It wasn’t until December 1817 that she was credited in print, with the publication of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. Her legacy was further cemented in 1870 by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh, who wrote a biography on her. He also established a brass plaque near her grave acknowledging her writing in the same year.
In the centuries after her death, Jane Austen has solidified herself into the English literary canon. Her work has been adapted into various theatrical mediums, most famously in 1995 with both Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility receiving critical acclaim. She has inspired countless authors, spin-offs and reinterpretations of her work, along with various fan clubs and societies in her honour across the world. In the 200th anniversary of her death in 2017, Hampshire Cultural Trust commissioned the first statue of Jane Austen outside the Willis Museum in Basingstoke’s Market Square. Even today, as we head into the 250th anniversary of her birth, this ‘Hampshire born Austen’ is still celebrated in the county that she called home.
This page was researched as part of the Heritage Fund Data Hunters and Story Gatherers project.
