JANE AUSTEN: 08/01/2021

dinsdag 31 augustus 2021

Jane Austen House - Room by Room Tour - Chawton Hampshire - Life of Jane...

maandag 30 augustus 2021

Martha and Mary Lloyd.

Martha Lloyd (1765 – 24 January 1843) was Jane Austen's dearest friend after Austen's sister Cassandra, and is now known also as a collector of recipes.

The Lloyd family had much in common with the Austens and from an early time, visits between the two families were frequent.
Though no one knows quite how they met, the Austens and Lloyds shared many mutual friends and when the Reverend Lloyd died in 1789, his widow and her two oldest, single daughters were happy to move into the unused Deane parsonage, a mile and a half from Steventon, offered by Reverend Austen.
Although Jane Austen was ten years younger than Martha, the oldest Lloyd daughter, they were, as Jane's cousin Eliza de Feuillide remarked, "very sensible and good-humored." Austen considered Martha to be a second sister, as her letter of 13 October 1808, written to Cassandra, shows: "With what true sympathy our feelings are shared by Martha, you need not be told;—she is the friend & Sister under every circumstance.
After three years (1792), when Jane Austen's brother, James, married and assumed the parish of Deane, it was necessary for the Lloyds to move, this time to a home in Hurstbourne, called Ibthorpe. Though only 15 miles (24 km) from Steventon, this separation must have seemed cruel to Jane, who had few friends nearby and no mode of transportation. It is clear from Jane Austen's correspondence that her friend Martha was privy to her great secret—her writing.
In 1805 changes abounded for the Austen and Lloyd families. Many years had now passed since James Austen's first wife had died and he had remarried again, choosing the younger Miss Mary Lloyd to be his second wife.
It was while they were living in Bath, Somerset that Mr. Austen finally succumbed to his long illness and not too many months later that Mrs. Lloyd also died. The women, being in a delicate financial state, decided to combine housekeeping and all four (Mrs. Austen, Cassandra, Jane and Martha Lloyd) moved to Southampton to be with Jane's younger brother Frank and his wife, Mary. As an officer in the Navy, Frank was often away from home and this joining of households not only helped him look after his widowed mother, but provided constant companionship for his soon pregnant wife. It seems to have been, by all accounts, an excellent arrangement.
On 7 July 1809, Jane Austen moved to a cottage in Chawton, together with her mother, her sister Cassandra, and their friend Martha Lloyd, at the invitation of her brother Edward Austen Knight, on whose estate it lay.
Martha Lloyd's contribution to what is now known of Austen's life is significant. Letters survive from Jane to Martha, as well as Martha's collection of recipes used at Chawton, which were later compiled into A Jane Austen Household Book by Peggy Hickman, David & Charles, Ltd. 1977, and in The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye, British Museum Press, 1995
The Austen family remained at Chawton Cottage, even after Jane Austen's death in 1817. Martha Lloyd took on many duties as housekeeper for the family, though the work was divided among the three surviving women. Frank, by now Sir Francis Austen, had lost his wife in 1823 after the birth of their 11th child. In 1828 he and the 62-year-old Martha Lloyd were married, making her Lady Austen.

zondag 29 augustus 2021

Alton.

janeausten/ Alton in her days

Jane Austen Regency Week is a celebration of the time the author Jane Austen spent in Alton and Chawton and is held in June each year
LANSDOWNE HOUSE (74 High Street) 5 The home of Mr. Newman, apothecary and surgeon whom Jane visited with a friend in 1811 and afterwards wrote some humorous verse about the visit.
HIGH STREET 4: Home of William Curtis, Jane Austen’s doctor whom she called her ‘Alton Apothy’.
6: Home of James Battin Coulthard whose father had been a tenant of Chawton House prior to his death in 1811. The family were mentioned in Jane’s letters.
10: Site of the Bank of (Henry) Austen, Gray and Vincent between 1806 and 1812. Henry Austen was one of Jane’s brothers and the Bank handled some of Jane’s letters.
1 HIGH STREET (Hill House) Jane Austen’s sister-in-law records dining here with Jane and Rebecca Parker Terry after their friend’s husband William died.
GEALES ALMS HOUSES 9 In 1653 Thomas Geale gave these cottages for the use of eight poor people who were born in Alton. They had changed little by the early 19th century and are now administered by the Alton United Charities
ST. LAWRENCE’S CHURCH & CHURCHYARD 8 Jane’s brother Henry and Benjamin Lefroy, the husband of her niece Anna, both officiated here between 1817 and 1818. Several babies belonging to family and friends of Jane were baptised in the old font
40 & 42 HIGH STREET 40: Home of Richard Marshall who leased Wyards from Winchester College and sub-let part of the house to the Lefroys, Jane’s niece and her husband. 42: Home of Clement family who were acquaintances of the Austens & related by marriage to Gilbert White’s family.

zaterdag 28 augustus 2021

Who Was The Real Jane Austen? | Behind Closed Doors | Timeline

Chawton House, Hampshire: Virtual Garden Tour

The gardens

The gardens are open to the public, with access to a tearoom. The restoration programme for the gardens was extensive, and focused in particular on the restoration of the walled garden.

Edward Knight had the idea to build a new walled garden during Jane Austen's lifetime. In 1813, she wrote to her brother Frank, "He [Knight] talks of making a new Garden; the present is a bad one & ill situated, near Mr Papillon's; — he means to have the new, at the top of the Lawn behind his own house."

Knight's original walls are mostly still intact, but the glasshouses and potting sheds, had to be rebuilt. The gardens have been restored using Edward Austen Knight's original planting scheme.

The central space is used for the production of vegetables, soft fruits, herbs and flowers. Chawton House is registered with the Soil Association, and is now certified as an organic producer.^{[citation needed]} Everything grown in the walled garden is for use by the Library, with any surplus being sold locally in aid of the charity.

The park and gardens of Chawton House are Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Reading Abbey Girls' School.

Reading Abbey Girls' School, also known as Reading Ladies’ Boarding School was a girls' boarding school in Reading, Berkshire open from at least 1755 until 1794. Many of its pupils went on to make a mark on English culture and society, particularly as writers. Most famous is Jane Austen, who used the school as a model of "a real, honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school".^[1]

The Abbey Gateway was originally the inner gateway of Reading Abbey, which today is a large, mostly ruined abbey in the centre of the town of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire.

Eventually the palace was demolished and new houses were built alongside the gateway. In the late 18th century one of them was home to the Reading Ladies’ Boarding School, attended amongst others by the novelist Jane Austen. The school used the room above the gateway as a classroom.^[1]^[4]^[5]^[6]

The room above the gateway is now used by Reading Museum as part of its learning programme for local schools, whilst the arch below is available for use by pedestrian and cycle traffic. wikipedia/Abbey_Gateway,_Reading

See more photo's austenised/inside-jane-austens-school

vrijdag 27 augustus 2021

Edward Knight’s Inheritance: The Chawton, Godmersham, and Winchester Estates - CHRISTINE GROVER

READ: jasna/ ChristinaGrover/ Knights family :

The story of the Knight family’s involvement in Winchester begins with the mother-in-law of Sir John Lewkenor, Anne Mynne. Sir John was the nephew of Sir Christopher Lewkenor and a cousin of William Woodward and Elizabeth Martin. Anne’s husband, George Mynne of Woodcote Park, Epsom, was described as a merchant, draper, clothier, royal servant, politician, ironmaster, moneylender, clerk in Chancery, and extortionist (Malden 271-78).³ Following George’s death in 1648, his trustees managed his estate on behalf of his widow, Anne. In 1649 Anne purchased the reversionary interest of the Manor of Steventon in Hampshire from Thomas Brocas (Page 171-74). In 1650 she purchased the manor belonging to Edward Darcy in Epsom.

So how did the Abbey Farm (the home farm and site of Hyde Abbey) and Abbots Barton (the grange farm) end up in the hands of the owners of Chawton?⁴ After Hyde Abbey was dissolved in 1538 by Henry VIII, Hyde Abbey’s farms were separated and sold to different owners.

In 1650 Anne Mynne purchased Abbots Barton from the financially-ruined owner. On Anne Mynne’s death in 1663 her estates passed to her daughters: Elizabeth (wife of Richard Evelyn⁵) and Lady Anne (wife of Sir John Lewkenor of West Dean, Sussex).
The Epsom estate passed to Elizabeth, Abbots Barton to Lady Anne, and Steventon was shared between them. Under the law at that time, Sir John was seen as the owner of all Lady Anne’s wealth and property. Lady Anne was well-connected. Her husband’s uncle was Sir Christopher Lewkenor, MP for Midhurst (1628) and Recorder of Chichester (1640). Sir John died in 1669 (aged 46) and Lady Anne (then aged 35), as was common for a young widow, soon married again. Her second husband, Sir William Morley of Halnaker, Sussex, was also a rich and respected member of the gentry (Page 171-74).⁶ (The family trees of the Lewkenors and Knights are given in the Appendix.⁷)
When Lady Anne died in 1704, all her estates, including Abbots Barton, passed to her son John, who, like his father, also served as MP for Midhurst. John died in 1706 with no legitimate heirs, and Abbots Barton passed to Elizabeth Martin, a distant cousin, through her parents Michael and Frances (née Lewkenor). Elizabeth already owned extensive property, inheriting lands at Chawton in 1702 after the deaths of her brothers, Richard and Christopher. The Knight family had owned Chawton from 1524 when William Knight had taken on the lease of the manor place and farm. When his descendent, Sir Richard Knight died in 1679 without heirs, the estate passed to the grandson of his aunt, Dorothy. (See Appendix, Table 2.) The eldest grandson, Elizabeth’s brother Richard, died of smallpox in 1687 while at Oxford. Their brother, Christopher, also died young. (Page 171-74).⁶ (The family trees of the Lewkenors and Knights are given in the Appendix.⁷)
Elizabeth Martin was a strong woman with a sense of duty and took an active part in managing her estates (Austen-Leigh and Knight 124). Her detailed accounts have survived at Hampshire Record Office.⁸ As a requirement of her inheritance, Elizabeth changed her name to Knight as her brothers in their turn had done. When Elizabeth married her cousin William Woodward (son of Elizabeth Lewkenor, her mother’s sister), he too changed his name to Knight, thus perpetuating the Knight family name even though the last direct heir had died in 1679 (Burke 442-44; Austen-Leigh and Knight 122-24, 127-29). Four years after William Knight (né Woodward) died in 1721, Elizabeth married Bulstrode Peachey, who was at one time MP for Midhurst. Her second husband also relinquished his family name, becoming known as Peachey Knight; such was the power of the inheritance conditions.
The marriage settlement between Elizabeth Knight and Bulstrode Peachey was used to protect the rights of Elizabeth’s heirs once Bulstrode had rights over his wife’s property.⁹ If such an agreement had not been reached, the future of Chawton and Abbots Barton would have been very different. Elizabeth was not entirely happy with the settlement, but “she accepted for the sake of peace.”¹⁰ There is some doubt whether Peachey was happy to go through the legal process to separate out the two interests to ensure the profits from Elizabeth’s estates went to her and for her lands to be passed to her heirs rather than to his family. In a somewhat complaining tone, Bulstrode noted in his will that he had laid out “considerable sums of money in repairs and lasting improvement of Mrs Knight’s separate estate and of her other estates all with repairs and improvements.” Bulstrode died in 1735, and as his brother had pre-deceased him, his lands were left to his nephew Sir John Peachey for his life.¹¹Elizabeth died in 1737, leaving no surviving heirs and no immediate relatives.
Elizabeth had no children or close relatives, and so her two Hampshire estates passed in tail-male to a distant relative, in this case a second cousin related three generations back. The will set up an entail naming Thomas May of Godmersham, William Lloyd of Newbury, and the Rev. John Hinton of Chawton and their descendants successively as the heirs. A proviso or condition was that Thomas May, his sons, and the heirs of their respective bodies who came into possession of the premises, were to change their surnames to Knight.
Thomas was the son of Anne May and William Broadnax. His mother’s aunt Mary and her husband, Sir Christopher Lewkenor, were the grandparents of both Elizabeth Knight and her first husband, William Woodward. Thomas Knight, the new owner of Chawton and Abbots Barton, was well-respected, highly educated, and active in politics. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, studied law, acted as High Sherriff of Kent, and became MP for Canterbury. Born a Broadnax, Thomas had changed his name to May in 1727 after inheriting the estates of Sir Thomas May of Rawmere, near West Dean in Sussex. Thomas married Jane Monk in 1729: they had many children, but only five survived to adulthood, a son and four daughters, who died spinsters. On Elizabeth’s death, Thomas once again was compelled to change his name as a condition of inheritance―this time to Knight. Each change of name required a private and expensive Act of Parliament, and one MP commented, “This gentleman gives us so much trouble that the best way would be to pass an Act for him to use whatever name he pleases” (qtd. in Nokes 34).
After his inheritance of the Knight estates, Thomas Knight took the opportunity to expand and consolidate his landholdings. He sold Rawmere, the ancestral home of the Mays, and in 1744 he exchanged some of Lewkenor’s West Dean estate with land close to Chawton, now in the ownership of Sir John Peachey. As the two estates had almost identical values, Sir John Peachey and Thomas Knight for “their mutual convenience and accommodation and for the improvement of their several estates in two counties have proposed to make exchange.”¹³
When Thomas (Broadnax May) Knight died in 1781, his son, Thomas, inherited the three estates. The younger Thomas did not appear to have such a concern for the Winchester estate or indeed history. In 1785, he sold the site of Hyde Abbey, the burial place of the Saxon King Alfred the Great, his wife, and son to the County for the Bridewell—a House of Correction.¹⁴ He also sold other land nearby. To be fair, these plots were not productive, so there was no financial benefit in retaining them (Grover 103, 119).
Thomas Knight died in 1794. In his will he left Godmersham and his other estates, which included Abbots Barton, to his widow, Catherine, for her life and confirmed Edward Austen as his adopted heir. He added the clause that if Edward did not have any children, then the estates should pass to Edward’s brothers in succession. Thomas Knight’s estates had been tied up in trust between William Deedes (the elder and younger) and Nicholas Cage, of whom only William Deedes (the younger), was still alive.¹⁵ Four years after her husband’s death, Catherine decided that the estate was better passed over to Edward and his family to run, rather than for him to wait for her to die before inheriting.

Catherine Knight out of her love and affection for Edward Austen and in order to advance him to their present possession of the estates which were settled on him and his issue in remainder under the will agreed to convey all the estates unto and to the use of Edward Austen during the joint lives of him and her Catherine Knight subject to a rent charge or clear annual sum of £2,000 clear of all deductions and taxes to be reserved and made passable.¹⁶

janeausteninvermont/jane-austen-genealogy-the-knight-family-name-by-ronald-dunning/

jasna/

M Edward Austen Knight.

George Austen 1731-1805
Cassandra Leigh 1739-1827

Spouses and children

Married in 1791, England, to Elizabeth Bridges 1773-1808 with

geneanet

zaterdag 7 augustus 2021

360° virtual tour Chawton Cottage.

New 360° virtual tour, janeaustens.house/jane-austens-house-from-home/ From the picturesque red brick country cottage in the small Hampshire village of Chawton. Follow in Jane Austen’s footsteps as you explore the rooms, visiting objects she knew and loved, including the small, unassuming 12-sided table where she wrote and revised all her novels. Each scene includes detailed information that allows you to learn more, and audio to bring the experience to life.

The beautiful virtual tour was created by Pan 3Sixty Limited working with illustrator James Robinson, whose charming illustrations welcome you to Chawton, and summon up some of Austen’s most beloved characters.

Families and younger visitors will also enjoy the 360° Cat’s Eye Audio Tour, in which the Museum cat leads a tour of the gardens and outbuildings, peppering its desciptions with quotes from Jane Austen’s teenage writings.

This charming tour was created by the team from Jane Austen’s House, working with Living Connections.

Amongst the other virtual resources on offer are two online exhibitions: Jane Austen’s Artful Letters, exploring the importance of letters in Jane Austen’s life and work and A Choice Collection of Curiosities, a witty exploration of Jane Austen’s Teenage self and writings, through objects in the Museum collection.

There are also a number of virtual events to enjoy, including Austen Wednesdays, our new digital programme of talks and in-conversation events, in which we interview some of our favourite Austen experts! janeaustens.house/jane-austens-house-from-home/

JANE AUSTEN