{"id":29909,"date":"2026-08-29T15:37:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T14:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.propertysurveying.co.uk\/newsletter\/?page_id=29909"},"modified":"2026-08-29T15:37:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T14:37:34","slug":"houses-with-literary-connections-5-jane-austen-and-chawton-hampshire","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.propertysurveying.co.uk\/newsletter\/?page_id=29909","title":{"rendered":"Houses with Literary Connections 5: Jane Austen and Chawton, Hampshire"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Houses with Literary Connections 5: Jane Austen and Chawton, Hampshire<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jane Austen 1775-1817<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a newsletter edition which focuses on data and \"\"<\/strong>technology, it seems ironic that this month\u2019s literary focus is Jane Austen, but there is a connection.\u00a0 \u00a0She would have smiled, wryly, at today\u2019s term \u2018Internet of Things\u2019, as defined by Cisco Systems as “simply the point in time when more ‘things or objects’ were connected to the Internet than people”, and wittily adapted her writing to explore both relationships in society and with those \u2018things or objects\u2019.\u00a0 The connection?\u00a0 Two American Electronics millionaires from Cisco Systems admired Austen\u2019s work.\u00a0 Their philanthropy transformed Jane Austen\u2019s brother\u2019s lovely but tired Chawton manor house into a fabulous centre for, guess what? The study of early female writers.<\/p>\n

Jane Austen placed her writing table strategically. \"\"<\/strong> Like pupils in school,\u00a0switching\u00a0tabs when teacher walks round the classroom, at the merest glimpse of a visitor approaching Chawton Cottage, she would blot, then shuffle her manuscript pages together \u2013 possibly cursing \u2013 and conceal them before the intruder could reach the door.\u00a0 She never did publish a book under her own name in her lifetime, simply stating \u2018by a Lady\u2019 or, \u2018by the author of\u2026\u2019.<\/p>\n

But, dear reader, unless you live under a stone, you will already know all about Jane Austen.\u00a0 Jane is everywhere.\u00a0 Even our bank notes.\u00a0 Huzzah!\u00a0 She warrants it.\u00a0 Her brilliant novels, and brilliant spin-offs from her novels, have all been dramatised to the nth degree and Colin Firth\u2019s soggy shirt (there were apparently three of them made, by the way), has done its own bit to immortalise her.\u00a0 This is not the place for lit crit, so there is a plain list of her novels at the end (which does not include her letters, juvenilia, plays and unfinished works etc).\u00a0 For more information, hit Professor Google and slide down the rabbit hole in some remote data centre to endless \u2013 and fascinating \u2013 information.\u00a0\u00a0 This is Jane Austen-Lite.\u00a0 And there\u2019s a weak pun in there for the cognoscenti.<\/p>\n

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Back to Chawton village.\u00a0 By the time Jane moved there in 1809, she was in her 30s and the \u2018best bit\u2019 of her life was over.\u00a0 Her father, George, had provided a comfortable and stimulating home for his wife and eight children on a limited income as Vicar of Steventon, Hampshire.\u00a0\u00a0 Jane had unfettered access to his library and that of his friend, Warren Hastings, later Governor of India.\u00a0 She wrote copiously from an early age, entertaining her lively and loving family with evening readings, although by 1809 nothing had been published, despite various attempts.<\/p>\n

When Rev George had abruptly decided to retire to Bath in 1801, Jane had been stunned.\u00a0 Steventon had been her only home.\u00a0 It was the anchor for her travels between periods at school, visits to numerous relatives and life growing up in a happy, intelligent and close-knit family.<\/p>\n

Then George died in 1805 and Jane, her widowed mother, spinster sister Cassandra\u00a0plus a friend, Martha Lloyd, needed somewhere cheaper to live.\u00a0 After four years\u2019 renting in Bath, then Southampton, \"\"Jane\u2019s wealthy landowner brother, Edward Austen-Knight, stepped in.\u00a0 He had been adopted as a child by wealthy but childless Austen relatives, and, having inherited at their deaths, was able to offer them use of a cottage attached to his Chawton estate (as opposed his other estate at Godmersham in Kent\u2026).<\/p>\n

\"\"It was at Chawton that Jane seems to have started writing again\u00a0after rather fallow years since Steventon.\u00a0 She revised drafts of her earlier novels and started new ones.\u00a0 In 1810, \u2018Sense and Sensibility\u2019 was accepted for publication.\u00a0 Others followed; finally, she knew success \u2013 and that the admiring Prince Regent had copies of her novels in all his residences.<\/p>\n

Tragically, she died, aged 41, in 1817, before \u2018Persuasion\u2019 or \u2018Northanger Abbey\u2019 were published or she could finish \u2018Sanditon\u2019 and \u2018Lady Susan\u2019.\u00a0 She was buried in Winchester Cathedral.<\/p>\n

Just in case a reader is not aware and cannot be bothered to Google, although Jane Austen may have lived very quietly, there was less than one degree of separation from some very dramatic (world) events.\u00a0 She made a conscious decision not to focus her writing on them. These events include:<\/p>\n