Sara Sheridan - The world of Sanditon

Engraving of Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra doing needlework in the rectory garden.

So where did this enduring favourite come from? We know quite a bit about Austens family. Reverend George Austen, Janes father, was known as the handsome proctor during his time at St Johns College, Oxford. After he married, he became the rector of the Anglican parishes of Deane and Steventon. Jane was born and grew up in the Steventon rectory in Hampshire. The parish was located in a sleepy valley surrounded by meadows and comprised around thirty families. Reverend Austen came from a successful wool manufacturing family but, as a younger son, he did not benefit from the familys wealth and had to earn his living. The job at Steventon was given to him by his much wealthier second cousina practice common at the time to help support less well-off relations. As well as being rector, the reverend earned extra money by farming and giving lessons to local children. This brought the family a total income of around 200 a yearover six times the average annual income for a working man, which was 30. However, it was also far less than the upwards of 1,000 that members of the aristocracy had at their disposal annually. Cassandra, Janes mother, also came from a monied family, but her father was, like her husband, a rector, and although she had a small inheritance from her mother she was not a wealthy woman.

Despite the financial pressures, the Austens created a happy home where lively debate was encouraged. They got on with their wider family and, as well as writing to each other, they welcomed their relations on visits to Steventon. This brought news of foreign travel and fashionable London society into Janes orbit from an early age. Even as a child, Jane wrote stories and often read these to her family in the evenings as an amusement. She was also a keen dancerher older brother Henry said she excelled at dancing. Dances and balls would have been held in neighbouring houses and at the local assembly rooms in the town hall in Steventon.

Women were not always educated in the Georgian era. A girls chance of getting an education depended on the outlook of her parents, particularly her father. Luckily, Reverend Austen was open-minded and wanted his daughters to learn, as well as his sons. This was an additional financial commitment for himschooling was not free. Despite this, at the age of eight Jane was sent to school with Cassandra (who was ten), first to Oxford and then to Southampton. Here, both girls caught typhus and were sent home to recover. Jane almost died and stayed at Steventon for over a year before her family found her a place at the Reading Abbey Girls School, where she studied needle work, drama, French, dancing and music. However, the school fees proved too costly for the Austens finances and both Jane and Cassandra only attended for a couple of years. Thereafter, Jane was educated at home by her father and older brothers, something that could only be a successful arrange ment in a close family, like the Austens. Young Jane was an avid reader who had free access to the family library (we know that during his university days, Reverend Austen owned over 500 booksprobably more than that by the time Jane was old enough to read). Jane also had access to the library of eminent Austen family friend and neighbour, Warren Hastings, who was de facto Governor-General of India until 1785.