James Austen

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James Austen
Born 1765
Died 1819 (aged 53–54)
Nationality United Kingdom
Occupation clergyman
Known for Jane Austen's eldest brother

James Austen was an English clergyman, best known for being the eldest brother of celebrated novelist Jane Austen.[1] His father's living had been in Steventon, Hampshire, and James succeeded him in this position, in 1801.

Austen's mother, formerly Cassandra Leigh, was a member of a promient Oxford family, and was a descendant of one of the founders of St. John's College.[2] Cassandra's family connection entitled her sons to be legacy students, who did not have to compete for admission, and who were entitled to attend tuition free. Austen attended Oxford University and his younger brother Henry both attended, and shared accommodation.[3]

LIke his more famous sister, Austen was a writer.[4] According to Felicity Day, writing in The Telegraph, for a year in the 1790s, he published a weekly periodical called The Loiterer, and wrote much of its content. He published several pieces by his brother Henry, and Day speculated that he may have published one piece by his teenage sister Jane.[3] Day says the satirical pieces in The Loiterer resembled the unpublished juvenilia the teenage Jane wrote for her family.

James and his brother Henry were both romantically interested in their cousin, Eliza Hancock.[3] Eliza married Henry.[4]

At 27 Austen married Anne Matthew, the daughter of General Edward Matthew.[5][6] Anne was well-connected, her father, an Army officer, having been Commander in Chief of the Windward and Leeward Islands, and Goveror General of Grenada. Her maternal grandfather was the 2nd Duke of Ancaster. General Mathew gave James 100 pounds a year. Some scholars assert James's father-in-law, General Mathew, inspired his sister Jane's character of the avaricious and unpleasant General Tilney in her novel Northanger Abbey.[7]

He was a widower when he was 30.[4] His first wife Anne bore him a daughter, Anna.[8]

His second wife Mary Lloyd, had been a family friend. since childhood, her father also being a nearby clergyman.[9] George Austen, James's father, had rented the Deane parsonage, to his widow, and she and her children lived there, for over a decade. The two homes were about 2 kilometers apart, and the Austen and Lloyd children regularly visited each other.

She bore him at least two more children, James Edward and Caroline.

References

  1. Meredith Hindley (January/February 2013). "The Mysterious Miss Austen: Two hundred years ago, Pride and Prejudice was anonymously published.". Humanities 34 (1). Archived from the original on 2020-12-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20201217010057/https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2013/januaryfebruary/feature/the-mysterious-miss-austen. Retrieved 2021-02-20. "James, the eldest, succeeded his father as the parson of Steventon.". 
  2. Marilyn Butler (2010-01-07). "Austen, Jane: (1775–1817)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Archived from the original on 2020-11-12. https://web.archive.org/web/20201112021625/https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-904. Retrieved 2021-02-20. "The boys qualified, on Cassandra's side, as ‘founder's kin’ at St John's College, which entitled them against competition to free tuition." 
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 J. David Grey (1984). "Henry Austen: Jane Austen's 'perpetual sunshine'". Persuasions Occasional Papers, Jane Austen Society of North America (1): pp. 9-12. Archived from the original on 2021-01-26. https://web.archive.org/web/20210126124559/http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/opno1/grey.htm. Retrieved 2021-02-20. 
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 Felicity Day (2020-01-20). "Why did Jane Austen’s talented brother end up forgotten by history?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2020-08-12. https://web.archive.org/web/20200818210400/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/did-jane-austens-talented-brother-end-forgotten-history/. Retrieved 2021-02-20. "I’ve always felt sympathy for one of Jane Austen’s brothers. James, the so-called writer of the family, was not the author’s confidant like Cassandra, not her favourite brother, not even the most professionally distinguished. He was, like Mary, outdone by his siblings on almost every count." 
  5. Marek Blaszak. "A Nautical Reading of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and Persuasion". University of Opole. https://czasopisma.uni.opole.pl/index.php/s/article/download/3732/3187/. Retrieved 2021-08-15. "We need to explain that Admirał Gambier was distantly related to the Austen family: his wife Louisa was a niece of General Edward Matthew whose daughter Anne, in tum, was the wife of Jane Austen's eldest brother James (he was born ten years before Jane and became a priest)." 
  6. Rory Muir (2019). Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune. Yale University Press. pp. 4-5. ISBN 9780300244311. https://books.google.ca/books?id=gmawDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=gentlemen+of+uncertain+fortune&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=gentlemen%20of%20uncertain%20fortune&f=false. Retrieved 2022-12-02. "James Austen had the prospect of inheriting a fortune from his maternal uncle, and would certainly inherit his father's living at Steventon in a few years time. But when he married he had only a meagre income, which General Mathew supplemented with an allowance of 100 pounds a year." 
  7. "Jane Austen 200th anniversary". history.ac.uk. 2017-07-18. Archived from the original on 2021-04-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20210413073415/https://blog.history.ac.uk/2017/07/jane-austen-200th-anniversary/. Retrieved 2021-02-20. "Jane Austen, Dominic Serres, Princess Olive of Cumberland, Graf von Moltke: Unexpected encounters of an interesting kind is an article by Chris Birch in Geneologists’ Magazine (32:4), which charts a surprising family history that traces the author’s heritage from sugar plantations in St Kitts back to James Austen, Jane’s eldest brother. It is thought that the character General Tilney in Northanger Abbey was based on James’ father-in-law, General Edward Mathew." 
  8. "Jane Austen's Brothers and Sister". Archived from the original on 2020-11-27. https://web.archive.org/web/20201127013726/https://pemberley.com/janeinfo/janelife.html#janesibl. Retrieved 2021-02-20. 
  9. Zöe Wheddon (2021). "Jane Austen's Best Friend: The Life and Influence of Martha Lloyd". Pen and Sword History. ISBN 9781526763822. https://books.google.ca/books?id=LP0hEAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=zoe+wheddon&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjRobHv2dL1AhWRmGoFHV8wAiAQ6AF6BAgZEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2022-01-27.