Henry Austen - Jane's Favourite Brother and the Farnham Connection

A Personal Introduction to Henry Austen

We are delighted to welcome this guest blog by Christopher Herbert, Patron of Farnham Castle Trust and the acclaimed author of biographies of both Henry Austen and Bishop Charles Sumner. Rather than a conventional historical article, Christopher invites us to imagine Henry Austen telling his story in his own words. Through this engaging first-person narrative, we follow Jane Austen's brother from his Hampshire childhood and London banking career to the chapter of his life that brought him to Farnham Castle and the town he came to serve.

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My name is Henry Austen. Of course, I appreciate that you won’t have heard of me, but you will certainly have heard of my sister, Jane, and you might well have read some of her novels.

My Earliest Years in Steventon, Hampshire I was born in Steventon in 1771, a small village near Basingstoke where my father, George, was the rector. Jane and I grew up in the rectory with our five brothers and one sister. We had a happy and noisy childhood, not least because my parents took in boarding-school pupils…and so were quite an extended family. My father taught all of us.

Jane and  I loved the books in his study which, when we were small, he or my mother read to us. As we grew up , one of our favourite pastimes was acting in plays. We would rig up one of the barns as a theatre, put on  our costumes, and tread the boards on our makeshift stage. And those plays became even more special when our older cousin, Eliza, came to stay. She had been born in India and when she came to our house we loved her stories about her exotic life. And, if I’m being really honest, I have to admit that both my older brother, James, and I were half in love with her. She was full of life.

The Rectory at Steventon which was demolished in 1823

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From Oxford to the Militia

Well, those childhood days could not last forever, and following family custom, I was sent to St John’s College, Oxford. James was already there when I arrived and it was not long before we created a new magazine which we named ‘The Loiterer’. It was so popular with our friends that we got it published by Thomas Egerton, a London editor. Once Oxford was over I had to think about what I wanted to do with my life. 

I wondered about becoming a parson, but as my brother, James, had already followed that path I decided I would do something else. It was the time of the Napoleonic wars and so I joined the Oxfordshire militia. I loved the uniform and the chat, and even the exercises. My Commanding Officer noticed me and invited me to become the Assistant Paymaster of the Regiment, work I wasn't the least bit familiar with. It involved ordering the  uniforms and food and paying the officers and men but, to my surprise, I loved it though I didn’t care for the times when harsh discipline was imposed upon the men. There was one occasion when some of the soldiers had been involved in riots in Newhaven in Sussex in 1795 and I had to watch as two of them were executed by firing squad and the others were punished by being lashed. I found that quite frightful. Sometimes, I  still hear in my mind the gunfire and the sound of the whips cutting into the men’s backs. But fortunately there were other happier times when I could get home, or go to see my brother Edward, in Kent

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My Marriage

In those happy days I frequently daydreamed about my cousin, Eliza. She was living in France with her husband, a French Count,  and their little handicapped son, Hastings.During  the French Revolution, she and Hastings fled to London. Her husband stayed behind, but was captured and subsequently guillotined. As you can imagine, Eliza was devastated…as we all were. Three years after her husband’s death, I plucked up courage and proposed. To my great joy, she accepted, and on  New Year’s Eve,1797 we were finally married. 

At the time of my marriage,  I was still in the militia and had been promoted, but I realised this was not the career I really wanted to pursue. Rather, I wanted to do something on my own. Strike out. Break the mold. 

Elizabeth de Feuillade, Henry's beloved wife who is sometimes credited as the model for the character of Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park.

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My New Career

I left the Regiment, setting up my own office near St James’ Palace in London  to look after the finances of not one, but several regiments.  Over the next few years, along with my partners, the business grew into a bank. Jane used to come and stay with us up in London.

My new life suited me. Eliza and I were very happy. We lived in Upper Berkeley Street and had our own horse and  carriage. I was quite the man about town. All was going well, but sadly, little Hastings, my stepson died. He had been unwell for a while. Eliza was quite grief-stricken. 

However, my banking business was growing rapidly. And then something very special happened. In 1811 my sister Jane had finished her first novel, Sense and Sensibility and because of my existing connections with Thomas Egerton I was able to get it published. You can imagine how proud we all were of Jane…a real author at last… my sister. And from then on, I dealt with all her books and got every single one of them published.

Credited simply as “Sense and Sensibility: A Novel. By a Lady” to protect Austen's social standing, the work was issued in three small volumes.

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1816: my annus horribilis.

in 1813 my beloved wife Eliza was taken ill and died. I was utterly overwhelmed and now on my own. By now, I  had developed banks in country towns like Alton and Petersfield and was becoming increasingly successful, even to the extent of being being invited to parties  by the Prince Regent. Jane continued to come to London to stay with me. We loved each other's company. She was witty and kind, and people adored her.

But what she didn’t realise was that my banks, like many others at this time,  were getting into financial difficulties. This was in part as a result of the end of the wars in Europe - peacetime, ironically, was less lucrative for businessmen like me, but also, if I am to be honest, my own lack of due diligence and a tendency to be overly optimistic in my dealings with both debtors and creditors played their part in my business failure.  I was declared bankrupt. It was a terrible time. I had lost my stepson, my wife, and now my career was in tatters. The bailiffs moved in and took virtually all my possessions.

Banking was for a time profitable, but unwise lending led to the collapse of Alton bank, followed by the collapse of Henry’s London bank and his bankruptcy in 1816. Depositors in these banks, including Jane Austen herself, were left out of pocket.

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New Beginnings

I didn’t know what to do; it seemed all was lost. In November 1816,  I penned a long letter to the Bishop of Winchester, Brownlow North, in which I confided in him that I had often thought of being ordained, indeed perhaps it had always been my true calling? I travelled to the bishop’s residence at Farnham Castle to meet him in person. Without further ado he agreed that I should be ordained as an Anglican minister.

And so in due course I became curate of Chawton where I earned very little …fifty guineas per year, just enough to allow me to keep a horse, but it allowed me to live in close proximity to Jane.

As I walked the muddy lanes of Chawton, rather than the pavements of Mayfair in my previous existence, I often reflected how my world had been turned upside down. But this was nothing compared to the sorrow of losing Jane just three short years later. I promised myself that I would make sure that two of her novels that had not yet been published should be brought out. And, thank goodness, I managed that- Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously by John Murray.

Bishop Brownlow North agreed to Henry Austen's ordination request at Farnham Castle in 1816

And so to Farnham

In August 1822, I moved here to Farnham, where I became the Perpetual Curate on £75 p.a. The following year, I was appointed Master of the Grammar School and am therefore, to all intents and purposes, the Vicar of the town. So, from mixing with royalty in London, I now care for all the people of Farnham…and when I gaze at the Castle from my house on West Street, I become aware of how far my life has come. I am no longer in the milieu of the Prince Regent and London's high society nor do I dine with the great landowners of Hampshire. Most of the land in the vicinity of Farnham is owned by the Bishop of Winchester. This is a small workaday market town whose wealth is based on hops and brewing.

As I prepare to leave Farnham this year, 1827, I have cause to reflect on a life which, as you can see, has had its share of ups and downs and I leave you with these words by St Paul

"I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." 

Philippians 4:12-13