Jane Austen's House Museum

Would you have ever heard of Chawton if it was not where Jane Austen (1775–1817) created her work? Just as well I adored Austen novels during my young teenage years, devouring Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma in the first four years of high school.

Jane Austen's father, the Rev George Austen, was rector of the Anglican church in Steventon in Hampshire where his six sons and two daughters were raised. He died suddenly in 1805, and as was the custom of the time, left nothing to his daughters. Since his wife and daughters were also not allowed to work, Jane, Cassandra and their mother were left dependent on the good will of the men in the family. Fortunately Jane's brother Edward had been adopted by his cousin, inheriting the cousin's estate called Chawton House and becoming financially secure himself.

By 1807 Edward moved the three women into an old steward/estate manager’s cottage in Chawton village that was next to, or part of his own estate. It might not have been been a palace, but this two storey red brick home provided a happy, peaceful and productive period of Jane Austen’s life. As long as Edward gave the property as a gift, the women’s home was secure. Apparently it was - Austen lived at Chawton until she moved to Winchester just before her death in 1817, and the other two women also remained there till they died (in 1827 and 1845 respectively).

The old steward's cottage in Chawton,

given to Jane and Cassandra Austen and their mother

Each day Jane’s day included looking after mother, writing at the small table (right side of dining parlour photo), enjoying family meals, playing with the nieces and nephews, playing the piano, sharing long walks, going to church and sharing sewing with Cassandra in the evening. Convivial yes, but relentlessly mind-numbing I would have thought.

Much of what is known about the novelist's domestic routine comes from the niece Caroline Austen who in later life recorded the daily routine at Chawton. “Aunt Jane began her day with music – for which I conclude she had a natural taste; as she thus kept it up – ‘though she had no one to teach; was never induced to play in company; and none of her family cared much for it. I suppose that she might not trouble them, she chose her practising time before breakfast – when she could have the room to herself. She practised regularly every morning. She played very pretty tunes, I thought and I liked to stand by her and listen to them; but the music would now be thought disgracefully easy. Much that she played from was manuscript, copied out by herself and so neatly and correctly, that it was as easy to read as print”. Caroline’s brother James Edward Austen-Leigh also remembered Aunt Jane in his Memoir of Jane Austen 1870.

Their dining parlour. Jane's writing desk, ink well and quill have been pushed away from the fire and protected behind perspex.

Can we tell from the Austen House Museum, plus the garden near the centre of Chawton Village, what the house looked like in the early 19th century? Possibly yes. The kitchen, with its huge brick fireplace, was separate from the house. In the house itself, visitors can also see the family furniture, dinner set, Jane’s writing table, her jew­ellery, piano, family portraits, a patchwork quilt made by the three women, her wonderful music books and the letters from Jane Austen that were not later destroyed. But the star objects are her three novels, already written at least in draft form when Jane arrived at Chawton: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. In addition it was here that Jane wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. These works can be found in pride of place in the Hepplewhite bureau.

It is not clear what happened to the house after sister Cassandra died in 1845. I do know that Jane Austen's House Museum was estab­lish­ed soon after World War Two ended and is still being run to advance the study of English literature, especially the works of Jane Austen. Regular events are held at the museum, to listen to Jane Austen’s writing and to hear other people play her music.

2013 marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. So the Museum suggests we mark the occasion by visiting the place where the novel was completed. Austen fans will also want to locate the book Jane Austen in Chawton by Kathryn Sutherland, Professor of English at Oxford.

Steventon and Chawton are both in the county of Hampshire.