Fanny Palmer Austen at the Halifax Naval Yard

For a woman of genteel birth, Fanny Palmer Austen lived in a number of unusual places. One of these was inside the British Naval Yard in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In May 1810 she sailed from Bermuda to Halifax in the company of her husband Charles, who was flag captain to the Admiral commanding the North American Station. Fanny, Charles and their young daughters were offered accommodation as guests of Admiral Sir John and Lady Warren within the Admiral’s quarters, which was an apartment in the hospital building within the Naval Yard. Shortly after her arrival, Fanny described her living arrangements to her sister Esther. She wrote: “Lady Warren has kindly given us the room Mrs. Sedley [Lady Warren’s daughter] used to have, which is on the same side as the Drawing Room, so that we are not at all inconvenienced by the noises of the hospital which you have heard Mrs Territt [niece of Admiral Warren]  complain of” (2 June 1810).[1]                       

Fig. 1: The Halifax Naval Yard seen from above.[2]

Fig. 2: Detail from Fig.1: Buildings in the Yard, from the Hospital (far left) to the Commissioner’s house (far right).[3]

Once Fanny had settled, she found her new location had many distinctive features. The hospital, which was situated at the far northern end of the Yard, benefited from a pleasing rural setting, close to pasturage and small crop fields. The building also had some architectural merit. Constructed “of wood and finished with clapboard, with a shingled roof, it had a graceful colonnade at the west front entrance”[4] and a porch. The Admiral’s apartment, which occupied the most southern section of the structure, faced towards the harbour. Thus, it was well located for observing the continuous marine activity close at hand, a pastime of interest for Fanny and her young daughter, Cassy.

However, the immediate surrounds of the hospital also included a ‘lunatic house”, a morgue and the hospital’s burial ground.  Although these facilities were out of Fanny’s sight, their existence could hardly enhance the ambiance of her location. Moreover, as time went by, there was no escaping the fact that only a thin partition separated the Admiral’s apartment from the working hospital. No doubt the sounds coming from distressed patients and drunken convalescents were all too audible.

Fig.3: View of the hospital from the harbour.[5]

Furthermore, Fanny could not ignore the proximity of the busy working Yard and its unmistakable noise and smells: the ringing of the Yard’s bell to regulate the work hours, the turning of the capstans at the Sheer Wharf, the thumping of hammers, the clanging of anvils and caulking irons, and the smells of pitch, hot metal, wood, paint, saltwater, rope and oily smoke.

Fanny’s family circumstances changed markedly on July 1st when Charles, as captain of HMS Swiftsure (74 guns), sailed in a squadron charged with transporting the first Battalion of the 7th Fusiliers from Halifax to the Rock of Lisbon. Once off loaded, the men would proceed to join other British regiments fighting in the Spanish Peninsular War. Fanny knew the squadron faced many dangers. In addition to the threats posed by enemy vessels cruising on the North Atlantic, the weather at sea could be fierce and destructive of wooden sailing ships. Moreover, should hostile warships locate the squadron in the waters off Portugal, they would be a stationary target while transferring troops and their equipment to landing craft.

Fig. 4: HMS Swiftsure (74 guns) in Halifax harbour [6]

Fanny was left behind with her children to endure her isolated situation and to manage her anxiety about Charles’s well being as best she could.  Her happy times at the local balls and entertainments in Halifax with her beloved husband were now a thing of the past, and although she was comfortably placed in the Warrens’s apartment, her freedom of movement became more restricted. She would need an escort to venture into the town in order to fulfill shopping commissions for friends or for herself.

Fanny was also expected to fit in with the activities of her host and hostess during Charles’s absence. Her relations with the vigorous and forceful Lady Warren on occasion tested her resolve to be diplomatic. She was at Lady Warren’s beck and call, sometimes reluctantly accompanying her on a continuing round of official visits or attending her ladyship on outings to satisfy her hostess’s curiosity about local life in Halifax.[i] But as Sir John had recently promoted Charles to the rank of post captain, Fanny knew that the Admiral had a good opinion of Charles, which could prove valuable as his career advanced. Thus, Fanny was ever mindful not to displease Lady Warren.

Even so, Fanny counted some events at the Admiral’s apartment as pleasing distractions. Her letters record her pleasure when “General Hodgson and family dined at the Admiral’s” (4 August). Mrs Hodgson, recently arrived in Halifax from Bermuda, was able to bring Fanny news of her Bermuda family, especially tidings concerning her sister Esther and her brother-in-law, Chief Justice James Christie Esten.

Another memorable dinner guest was Col James Orde, who was, by reputation, socially accomplished and generally charming. Fanny seemed pleased to see him, telling Esther that she had “never found him more agreeable” (4 August). However, Orde’s behaviour subsequently came under serious question. In 1811 he eloped with Margaret Beckford, daughter of the richest man in England. At the time of their marriage, Jane Austen voiced her suspicions to her sister Cassandra, writing that “she thought too well of an Orde, to suppose that she [Margaret] has not a handsome Independence of her own.”[ii] But if Orde’s marriage to Margaret was really to court her money, as Austen implied, he was to be sorely disappointed for when William Beckford learned of their elopement, he promptly disinherited his daughter. The following year James Orde was court martialed upon a charge of tyrannical use of flogging while commanding the 99th Regiment in Bermuda. He was found guilty but excused from punishment only because the Prince Regent intervened.

Fig. 5: Captain John Inglefield by Robert Field

While Fanny was resident at the Yard, she could expect invitations to entertainments hosted by the Warren’s nearest neighbour of rank, Commissioner Captain John Inglefield, the chief administrator of the Yard. She may have even known the Commissioner from an earlier visit to Halifax.In 1809 a local observer spoke enthusiastically of dining at the Commissioner’s, who he describes as “the gayest of gay.”  It is known that Inglefield gave a dinner on 18 October 1809 when Fanny and Charles were on shore while the Indian was being repaired at the Naval Yard. His parties regularly included visiting naval officers and their wives and could well have included Fanny and Charles as guests on this occasion.

The Commissioner’s parties were held at his elegant official residence, which included a fine ballroom. Yet, a little of his company may have gone a long way as he was apparently “pompous, flowery and indolent.” [iii] Fanny may have found Inglefield’s company a mixed blessing and his chequered marital history may have made Fanny uncomfortable. In 1786, he demanded a separation from his wife on the grounds that she was making advances towards a nineteen-year-old man servant. Ann Inglefield denied this accusation, sued her husband for desertion and won.

By living at the Yard, Fanny had an intimate view of the landward life of the navy.  As part of the Warrens’s household, she was close to sources of information about the squadron’s progress on its mission to Portugal. Not surprisingly, she was much relieved when Admiral Warren told her that the Swiftsure had been sighted by American vessels near the Azores on 12 July (12 August). Thus she knew that the squadron had safely crossed the Atlantic. Through her stay, Fanny also learned more about the shore side activities required to maintain a squadron of war ships.[10] In consequence, she was able to better appreciate the Yard’s role in keeping Charles’s vessels in safe working condition. In addition, the complexities of Fanny’s relationship with Lady Warren gave her a fuller understanding of the scope of the social obligations and duties expected of her as she continued to support Charles in his career. Fanny Austen was gaining greater insight into the naval world she was committed to share with Charles.        

Fig.6: The Commissioner’s House at the Halifax Naval Yard.[11]

[1] Fanny’s letters to her sister Esther in Bermuda are fully transcribed in my book Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister, (JATS), MQUP, 2017, 2018.

[2] George Parkyn titled this aquatint, “View from Fort Needham near Halifax” (Art Gallery of Nova Scotia).

[3] Fig. 2 and 3 are details from illustrations in Julian Gwyn, Ashore and Afloat, The British Navy and the Halifax Naval Yard Before 1820, University of Ottawa Press, 2003.

[4] See Julian Gwyn, Ashore and Afloat, 44.

[5] Detail from George Parkyns’s aquatint, “Halifax from Davies Mill”.

[6] “Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, The Swiftsure …” by Alexander Croke (Art Gallery of Nova Scotia).

[7] See JATS, 55-58.

[8] Jane Austen, Jane Austen’s Letters, ed. Deirdre Le Faye, 4th ed., 2011,196.

[9] See JATS, 67.

[10] Fanny had been with Charles in Halifax in the Fall of 1809 when the Indian was under repair at the Yard for several months. Thus she already had some understanding of the Yard’s purpose when she arrived in Halifax the next year with Charles on the Swiftsure. However, she was not resident at the Yard in 1809, but lived somewhere in the town of Halifax. Thus, her earlier observations about the Yard’s buildings and services would be less comprehensive than those made in 1810. See my blog “Captain Charles Austen and HMS Indian at the Halifax Naval Yard,” posted on 31 January 2020.  

[11] From the Naval Chronicle, February 1804.

[i] See JATS, 55-58.

[ii] Jane Austen, Jane Austen’s Letters, ed. Deirdre Le Faye, 4th ed., 2011,196.

[iii] See JATS, 67.