George Austen (cleric)
{{Short description|Father of novelist Jane Austen}}{{Infobox person
| birth_date = 1731
| death_date = 21 January 1805
| education = {{Plainlist|
}}
| spouse = Cassandra Leigh
(1764-1805, his death)
| children = {{Plainlist|
}}
}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
George Austen (1731 – 21 January 1805) was a cleric of the Church of England, rector of Deane and Steventon in Hampshire. He is known as the father of Jane Austen.{{cite book |last1=Feldman |first1=Paula R. |title=British Women Poets of the Romantic Era: An Anthology |date=2001 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=9780801866401 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cg6Jn410aCIC&q=George%20Austen%20reverend%20Deane&pg=PA16 |accessdate=20 December 2019 |archive-date=20 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210620175018/https://books.google.com/books?id=Cg6Jn410aCIC&q=George+Austen+reverend+Deane&pg=PA16 |url-status=live }}
Early life
Austen was the son of William Austen, of Tonbridge, Kent.{{alox2|title=Austen, George (1)}} He and his sister Philadelphia{{cite book |last1=Amy |first1=Helen |title=Jane Austen |date=2013 |publisher=Amberley |isbn=9781445615738 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-2ioAwAAQBAJ |accessdate=20 December 2019 |archive-date=20 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210620175023/https://books.google.com/books?id=-2ioAwAAQBAJ&q=George+Austen+reverend+Deane |url-status=live }} were orphaned when George was nine years old, and he was taken under the wing of his wealthy uncle Francis Austen.{{cite book |last1=Austen-Leigh |first1=James Edward |title=Memoir of Jane Austen |date=1871 |publisher=Richard Bentley and Son |location=London |edition=Second |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17797/17797-h/17797-h.htm |accessdate=20 December 2019 |archive-date=19 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191219215300/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17797/17797-h/17797-h.htm |url-status=live }} He attended Tonbridge School and St John's College, Oxford.{{cite book |last1=Collins |first1=Irene |title=Jane Austen and the Clergy |date=5 February 2003 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-1-85285-327-3 |page=20 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MvPUAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA20 |language=en}}
After matriculating at St John's on 2 July 1747, aged sixteen, Austen graduated BA on 12 February 1751, promoted to MA by seniority in 1754. He was a proctor in 1759 and graduated as a Bachelor of Divinity in 1760.
Career
In 1764, the living at Deane was purchased for Austen by his uncle Francis. The living at Steventon was "given to him by his cousin Mr. Knight".
Toward the end of 1800, Austen retired and the Steventon living was transferred to his son James. With his wife and daughters Cassandra and Jane he went to live in Bath, Somerset, and died there in 1805.
His granddaughter Anna Lefroy later recalled:
{{Quote|I have always understood that he was considered extremely handsome, and it was a beauty which stood by him all his life. At the time when I have the most perfect recollection of him he must have been hard upon seventy, but his hair in its milk-whiteness might have belonged to a much older man. It was very beautiful, with short curls about the ears. His eyes were not large, but of a peculiar and bright hazel. My aunt Jane’s were something like them, but none of the children had precisely the same excepting my uncle Henry.Constance Hill, Jane Austen: Her Homes and Her Friends (London: John Lane, 1904), [https://books.google.com/books?id=kTJnDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA31 p. 31]}}
Marriage and family
File:EdwardAustenPresentation.gif
Austen met Cassandra Leigh while he was a student at Oxford. They married on 26 April 1764 and began their married life living in the rectory at Deane; in 1771 they moved to Steventon Parsonage, the birthplace of their daughter Jane. They had eight children:
- James Austen (1765–1819)
- George Austen (1766–1838)
- Edward Austen Knight (1767–1852)
- Henry Thomas Austen (1771–1850)
- Cassandra Austen (1773–1845)
- Sir Francis Austen (1774–1865)
- Jane Austen (1775–1817)
- Charles John Austen (1779–1852)
Their second child, George Austen, suffered from severe epilepsy, and did not grow up in the family home.
Austen's wife came from a clerical family, with links to St John's College, Oxford, and was able to claim descent from one of the college founders, giving her sons the right to attend the college without paying for tuition, as founder's kin. James and Henry Thomas Austen both attended St. John's College.{{alox2|title=Austen, James}}{{alox2|title=Austen, Henry Thomas}}
References
{{reflist|refs=
{{cite news
| url = https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-904
| title = Austen, Jane: (1775–1817)
| doi = 10.1093/ref:odnb/904
| work = Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
| author = Marilyn Butler
| date = 2010-01-07
| isbn = 978-0-19-861412-8
| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20201112021625/https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-904
| archivedate = 2020-11-12
| accessdate = 2021-02-20
| url-status = live
| quote = The boys qualified, on Cassandra's side, as 'founder's kin' at St John's College, which entitled them against competition to free tuition.
}}
}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Austen, George}}
Category:Alumni of St John's College, Oxford
Category:People educated at Tonbridge School
Category:18th-century English Anglican priests
Category:People from Steventon, Hampshire
Category:People from Deane, Hampshire