Jane Leigh-Perrot
Jane Leigh-Perrot (nee Jane Cholmeley) was a maternal aunt to well-known author Jane Austen.[2][3] She is also remembered for facing a charge of theft, over one shilling, for which the usual punishment was death, or transportation to Australia.
In 1799, after leaving a shop, in Bath that sold lace, Leigh-Perrot was confronted by a clerk, who found she had walked away with a piece of unpurchased white lace, costing one pound, wrapped with her legitimately purchased black lace.[2]
She was refused bail, but, because she was wealthy, she and her husband were allowed to reside in her jailor's home, and did not have to wait the eight months until her trial, in jail.
Accounts of her trial were published in all the London newspapers.[4] During her trial her defenders asserted that it was inconceivable a wealthy individual would ever steal anything. But more recent commentators speculate that she was, in fact, guilty, and suffered from kleptomania, a concept that had not been conceived, in 1799.[2]
Jane Cholmeley married James Leigh, in 1764. James inherited a large amount of money from childless relatives, added the surname Perrot to his own name. He started building a luxurious country home, named Scarlets or Scarletts, near Bath, England.
Jane agreed to be the god-mother to her nephew Frank Austen. Like the childless couple who left James their estate, James and Jane Leigh-Perrot were also childless, and planned to leave their estate to Jane's god-son Frank. But, in 1828, Frank's second marriage triggered his aunt to change her will. The death of Frank's first young wife, at just 33, had left him with ten children to raise. His second wife, Martha Lloyd, was a trusted family friend, he had known for decades. She was 62 years old, and her face had been disfigured by smallpox, in her childhood, and she was merely the child of a clergyman - like Frank himself. Aunt Jane couldn't conceive of Martha following her as the mistress of a large estate, and changed her will to leave her estate to Frank's nephew, James-Edward Austen-Leigh, the son of his eldest brother.
When his aunt decided to change her will she gave Frank 10,000 pounds, and said she wanted nothing more to do with him. Frank's position was that 10,000 pounds, that allowed him to buy his own, smaller estate, immediately, turned out better for him than waiting until her death to inherit Scarlets.
Jane Leigh-Perrot died in 1836,[1] or 1837.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 David Pugsley (2018). "Was Aunt Jane a shoplifter?". Fundamina (Pretoria). Pretoria. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2411-7870/2018/v24n2a5. Archived from the original on 2022-01-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20220128023241/http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?pid=S1021-545X2018000200005&script=sci_arttext&tlng=es#top_fn2. Retrieved 2022-01-27.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "The Odd Trial of Jane Austen's Aunt; GRAND LARCENY: The Trial of Jane Leigh Perrot, Aunt of Jane Austen. By Sir Frank Douglas MacKinnon". The New York Times: p. 84. 1937-06-27. https://www.nytimes.com/1937/06/27/archives/the-odd-trial-of-jane-austens-aunt-grand-larceny-the-trial-of-jane.html. Retrieved 2022-01-27. "In Bath, in the year 1799, she was arrested on a charge of stealing twenty shillings' worth of lace from a haberdashery, and being committed for trial was refused bail. She was held in prison for seven months, and then, brought finally to trial, was refused bail."
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Joan Austen-Leigh (1989). "My Aunt, Jane Austen". Persuasions 11: pp. 28-36. Archived from the original on 2022-01-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20210126020821/https://jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number11/austen_leigh.htm. Retrieved 2022-01-27. "In 1837 Mrs. Leigh Perrot died. She was 92 and had survived her husband by twenty years."
- ↑ Margie Burns (2012). "Three Pamphlets on the LeighPerrot Trial: Why Austen Sent Susan to Crosby". American Physical Society. Archived from the original on 2022-01-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20220128020924/https://mdsoar.org/bitstream/handle/11603/20242/Three%20Pamphlets%20on%20the%20Leigh.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Retrieved 2022-01-27.
