Chawton House. - Jane & me: my Austen heritage

References

Austen Leigh, W. and M.G. Knight, Chawton Manor and its Owners:
A Family History (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1911).

Grover, C., Edward Knights Inheritance: The Chawton, Godmersham, and Winchester Estates [online article], 1997, Jane Austen Society of North America. accessed March 2017.

Grover, C., Pride, Prejudice, and the Threat to Edward Knights Inheritance, [online article], 1997, Jane Austen Society of North America. accessed March 2017.

Slothouber, L., Another Letter by Cassandra Austen: A Little Nostalgic Humor from Jane Austens Sister, Jane Austen, Edward Knight, & Chawton: Commerce & Community [web blog], 20 July 2015, accessed March 2013.

F or the purposes of consistency, the following sources have been used for the exact wording of Janes work, letters and other family letters:

Brabourne, E. Letters of Jane Austen (London: Bentley, 1884). The Republic of Pemberley [website] accessed March 2017.

Le Faye, D., Jane Austen: A Family Record (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

Le Faye, D., Jane Austens Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Jane & Me: My Austen Heritage

Published by

The Greyfriar Group

852 Canterbury Road

Box Hill South

Victoria 3128

Australia

www.austenheritage.com

First published in 2017

Copyright Caroline Jane Knight 2017

Written by Caroline Jane Knight

Cover and text design by Susannah Low

Additional photographs by Dr Julia Grantham

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any way or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Printed and bound in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group,
Maryborough, Victoria

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Creator: Knight, Caroline Jane, author.

Title: Jane & me : my Austen Heritage / Caroline Jane Knight.

ISBN: 978-0-648-08051-0 (paperback)

ISBN 978-0-6480805-2-7 (eBook)

Subjects: Knight, Caroline Jane.

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817--Influence.

Austen, Jane, 1775-1817--Homes and haunts

For my family

FOREWORD

Caroline Knights Jane & Me: My Austen Heritage is not a work of fandom or fantasy. It is the authentic and extraordinary story of a life interwoven with Jane Austens in many compelling ways. Caroline grew up in Chawton House, the sixteenth-century manor inherited in 1798 by Jane Austens brother Edward Austen KnightCarolines fourth great-grandfathera home that had been in Carolines family for many generations. But when Carolines grandfather died, it was no longer possible to maintain the family home of four hundred years, and Caroline was forced to leave it behindshe was seventeen, and she didnt want to hear anything more about Chawton or Jane Austen. How Caroline came to terms with the troubling heritage she was left with and eventually founded the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation is the arresting personal narrative running through these chapters.

This book is a major contribution to the now vast library of works about Jane Austen. It sheds a great deal of light on country-house life in England in the early twentieth century, as well as on the Knight and Austen families, and includes much information that will be thrillingly new to Jane Austens readers and scholars. The last of the close family memoirs, Caroline Austens My Aunt Jane Austen , was published in 1867. How wonderful it is that in the twenty-first century those family recollections are now being complemented and transformed in this contemporary and dramatic story.

John Wiltshire

INTRODUCTION

I have spent most of my adult life trying to forget Chawton and avoiding all reminders of my heritage, my ancestors and Chawton House, which I miss so dearly but which can never again be my family home. For more than twenty years, I chose not to tell my colleagues or friends that I am Jane Austens fifth great-niece and the last descendant of the Austen family to grow up in Chawton House, the ancestral home of the Knight family for four centuries and fifteen generations. But in 2013, the widely celebrated bicentennial of the publishing of Pride and Prejudice started a chain of events in my life that would take me back to my roots and reunite me with my very great great-aunt, Jane Austen. It was difficult at first, for the loss of Chawton still weighed heavy on my heart.

In Melbourne, where I now live, I talked to a group of women at the local Jane Austen Society and a packed crowd at a National Trust event, and I was astounded by the level of interest in me and my family. Jane Austen fans wanted to know every detail of my connection with the world-famous author and my life at Chawtonfrom the rooms, furniture and crockery in Chawton House to the local walks and family traditions I shared with Jane. Historians were interested in my memories of the last years of Chawton House as a family home. The demise of the Knight familys ancestral estate is typical of the demise of many English country manors, but Great Aunt Janes extraordinary literary talent and her increasing popularity globallyparticularly over the last twenty yearshas ignited a special interest in Chawton. Many people suggested I write a book about my memories, but I dismissed the ideaI had no idea where or how to start.

I am often asked what it was like to live at Chawton House, why I had chosen not to tell anyone about my family connections and famous relative, and why I started the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation. These are all difficult questions to answer in just a few sentences, for I find it impossible to talk about Chawton without sharing storiesso many storiesof the most notable of my Knight and Austen ancestors, of working in Grannys tea room, of hosting community events, of the family library and bookplates and of my relationship with my grandfather Edward Knight IIIthe fifteenth squire of Chawtonwho rarely spoke to me. It is difficult to explain why my heart had ached for Chawton, why the mere mention of Jane Austen had been more than I could bear, and why I had jumped at the chance to move to the other side of the world, as far away as possible, to be anonymous. And it is difficult to articulate why I now feel so compelled to honour Janes legacy by harnessing the Austen community to increase literacy rates in the worlds poorest communities.

Many writers and historians have documented the history of Chawton House and the Austen and Knight families, but little is known about the last decades of Chawton House as my familys home. Montagu Knight, the thirteenth squire of Chawton, was the last family member to write a book about the house, and that book was published more than one hundred years ago. During a short visit home to my parents house in 2014, I read a copy of Montagus book and savoured every wordI had not seen the book for years. I wished then that I had an original version of my own and that Montagu had written about his own life. By the end of my visit, I had decided to write this book, adding my memories to the rich history of the Knight family of Chawtonwith my branch, the Austens.