Jane Austen and Her Times

by G. E. Mitton

Mrs. Austen was not well off, for her husband had had no private means and she herself but little, yet her son Edward was well able to help her, for Chawton alone is said to have been worth £5000 a year. There was also money in the family, for Jane some years later speaks of her eldest brother’s income being £1100 a year. She and her sister must have had some little allowance also, as it was with her own money that she paid for the publication of the first of her books. Simply as she had always lived, she does not seem to have had small ideas on the subject, the couples in her books require about two thousand a year before they can be considered prosperous, and incomes of from five thousand to ten thousand pounds are not rare. She makes one of the characters in Mansfield Park remark, on hearing that Mr. Crawford has four thousand pounds a year, “‘Those who have not more must be satisfied with what they have. Four thousand a year is a pretty estate.’”

There was apparently some question raised by her relations about the income bestowed by Jane upon the mother and daughters in Sense and Sensibility, namely, five hundred pounds a year. But having regard to all the circumstances, the style to which they were accustomed, and Mrs. Dashwood’s inability to economise, this could perhaps hardly have been made less.

We hear at the close of one year at Southampton that Mrs. Austen is pleased “at the comfortable state of her own finances, which she finds on closing her year’s accounts, beyond her expectation, as she begins the new year with a balance of thirty pounds in her favour.”

And afterwards, “My mother is afraid I have not been explicit enough on the subject of her wealth; she began 1806 with sixty-eight pounds; she begins 1807 with ninety-nine pounds, and this after thirty-two pounds purchase of stock.”

In this year, 1805, the income tax was increased from 6½ per cent. to 10 per cent. on account of the tremendous war expenditure.

At this time an amicable arrangement had been arrived at, by which Frank Austen and his wife shared the house of the mother and sisters at Southampton, Frank himself being of course frequently away. His first wife, Mary Gibson, whom he had only recently married, lived until 1823; and is referred to by her sister-in-law as “Mrs. F. A.,” doubtless to distinguish her from the other Mary, James’s wife. Martha Lloyd, whom Frank married as his second wife, long, long after, seems to have been such a favourite with the family that she practically lived with the Austens at Southampton, as her own mother had died some years before.

The country round Southampton is pretty, and the town itself pleasant; we have a contemporary description of it in 1792. “Southampton is one of the most neat and pleasant towns I ever saw ... was once walled round, many large stones of which are now remaining. There were four gates, only three now. It consists chiefly of one long fine street of three quarters of a mile in length, called the High Street.... The Polygon (not far distant) could the original plan have been completed, ‘tis said, would have been one of the first places in the kingdom.... At the extremity a capital building was erected with two detached wings, and colonnades. The centre was an elegant tavern, with assembly, card rooms, etc., and at each wing, hotels to accommodate the nobility and gentry. The tavern is taken down, but the wings converted into genteel houses.” (Mrs. Lybbe Powys.)

There does not seem to be any record of the first year spent here, there are no letters preserved, and we know that Jane wrote no more novels. Household affairs and altering clothes according to the mode must have filled up days too pleasantly monotonous to have anything worth recording. Southampton evidently did not inspire her, for it figures in none of her books, though its neighbour, Portsmouth, is described as the home of Fanny Price in Mansfield Park.

Yet in October 1805, just at the time Jane was settling into her new home, was fought the Battle of Trafalgar, which smashed the allied fleets of Spain and France, and freed Britain from any fear of invasion. As it was a naval battle, we can imagine for the sake of her brothers she must have thrilled at the tremendous news, which would arrive as fast as a sailing ship could bring it—probably a day or two after the action.

In January 1807, Cassandra was again at Godmersham, and Jane writes her several letters full of family detail as usual.