Fig. 1: Fanny Palmer Austen
Sometimes a small, everyday object proves to be revelatory of the owner’s activities, attitudes and values. Such is the case with a pocket diary of Fanny Palmer Austen,[1] wife of Jane Austen’s brother Charles. Although Fanny’s letters provide a profile of many aspects of her unusual life as the wife of a naval officer,[2] the notations in her pocket diary reveal interesting details about her domestic activities, including her attention to her children’s needs, her commitment to economies and her generous nature. As such, it is a valuable primary source for coming to know Fanny and telling her story.
In late December 1813 or early in the New Year, Fanny acquired a small pocket diary, bound in red leather. Bearing the impressive title, The Pocket Magnet, or Elegant Picturesque Diary for 1814,[3] Fanny was to use it as a memo book to record in pencil her household accounts and additional information in the memoranda section at the back. Unfortunately, it has suffered from extensive erasing on pages from March to the end of July, but even so, it remains an intriguing source of information about Fanny’s undertakings.
Fig. 2 and Fig 3: Fanny’s Pocket Diary.
Her pocket diary is most informative for the months of January and February, a time when Fanny happened to be largely away from the 74 gun Namur, and where since 1812 she had been making a home for Charles and their young daughters. There were several reasons for being on shore. During January 1814 the weather was brutally frigid. The Thames froze over, and a great Frost Fair was held for days on the ice. These conditions forced Fanny and her daughters Cassandra (Cassy), Harriet and Fanny, ages 5, 3 and 2, to stay on in London after a Christmas visit to her parents at 22 Keppel Street. Then in February, Fanny and Charles paid a courtesy visit to the Sheerness home of his superior, Admiral Sir Thomas Williams and his wife, Lady Willliams, followed by another courtesy call on Commissioner and Mrs Lobb of the Sheerness Naval Yard. Given these circumstances, Fanny’s January and February purchases reflect her perception of what she would need when back on the Namur, but she was also purchasing items and services for her family’s immediate well being.
Fanny carefully recorded each item and its cost. At the time British currency was denoted in pounds (£), shillings (s), and pence (d). There were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. Some items would be useful for living on board: brushes (2s 6d), bed ticking (11s 3d) and furniture cotton (£1 13s 6d). Laundry was a regular necessity. There are eight separate entries for laundry: washing in general, also specifically for her children’s clothes, items belonging to Betsy, her nursemaid, and her own silk stockings. We know that Fanny favoured white clothing as was the custom of genteel ladies of the Regency Period.[4] Such preferences of dress entailed frequent laundry. Fanny’s expenditures for washing over these two months was £2 15s 3d.[5]
Fanny also purchased items to wear. There are entries for footwear: boots, three purchases of shoes (15s 3d), and socks (1s 6d). Fanny also brought gloves (3s 6d), a gown for Betsy (12s), a waistcoat (12s 9d), possibly for Charles, and ribbons (1s 5d), probably for one of Fanny’s many sewing projects.[6] She included in her accounts the cost of binding books (17s) as well as postage (1s 7d), and packet letters (2s 1d), presumably for her letters to Bermuda.[7] These are not surprising items as this was a reading family and one who valued close communication by letters with absent members.
Fanny’s notebook has few entries concerning food other than a can of bulk tea (5s 6d), sugar (2s.10d) and butter (3s 4d). Omissions may be due to the number of weeks she stayed in other people’s houses – with her own parents in January and the Williams and the Lobbs in February. In addition, while on board she most likely shared in Charles’s standard naval rations, so confined her own purchases to better quality fresh foodstuffs, and items which were not part of naval issue.[8] She did budget for some healthy treats, namely fresh fruit (5s 2d), as well as less nutritious but tasty ones, such as cakes (1s 9d). She also bought toothbrushes (5s) in order to ensure good dental hygiene.
The catch all category of “Sundries” accounts for expenditures of 15s in January and February. What she included in this classification is anyone’s guess! Fanny’s total expenditures for January and February amounted to £20 12s 10d.
Fig. 4: List of Books for Cassandra
Fanny’s caring attitude towards her daughters is reflected in several entries. By June, it was necessary to purchase shoes for little Fan (2s 8d), her youngest daughter. Her eldest, Cassy, was funded for a trip to Kintbury, Berkshire at the cost of £2. As Cassy was very prone to seasickness, she was often onshore under the care of her Aunt Harriet in London or Cassandra and Jane Austen at Chawton Cottage in Hampshire. Presumably, Cassy had been staying in Chawton during January and had accompanied one of her aunts to Kintbury. They would most likely be visiting Rev and Mrs. Fulwar Fowle, who had close ties with the Austens.[9]
Mothers of Fanny’s class were expected to begin their children’s education at home. At an early age, a little girl was taught to read, to spell, to write grammatically, to learn plain sewing, to understand the principles of the Christian religion, and to display good manners and good sense. Fanny intended to take her role as educator seriously, even though Cassy had earlier shown the signs of a reluctant scholar.[10] Her “List of Books for Cassandra” included Mrs Trimmers Little Histories: Ancient History, Roman History and the History of England, as well as A Geographical Companion to Mrs Trimmer’s Histories, together with printed maps, keys and explanations. Fanny also had French books in mind and thus listed St Quintin’s first Grammar and Brossert’s first Grammar. Perhaps Jane Austen recommended the St Quintin volume as he had been a master at the Ladies Boarding School, Reading, which she had attended at the age of nine. Mrs Barbauld’s Hymns in Prose and Dr Watt’s Hymns in Verse could be used for religious teachings. Fanny also chose Original Poems for Children in 2 vols and Simple Stories in Verse in order to introduce literature into the curriculum. Fanny’s choices were investments as her other daughters, Harriet and Fan, would become students in due course. Another child was expected in September.
Fanny was once more in London at her parent’s home in May, some of June and July 1814 as measles had got among the children of the Namur and she did not want her three girls infected. Unfortunately, there are 19 erasures in the first section for May, although entries for shoes for a child (10s 3d), cakes (11s 6d) and washing (2s) are still detectable. Only two items are identifiable for early June: toy (6d) and cakes (6d). Late June entries are more informative: coach hire (5s 6d), washing for Captn. Austen (13s), shoes for Fanny (2s 8d), washing (4s 11d), ribbons (8d) and cakes (6d). Fanny was making the same sort of purchases as she had done earlier in the year. Based on entries which can be deciphered, her expenditures for May came to £3 0s 6d and for June, £4 18s 7d.
From the totals for January, February, May and June, we know that Fanny spent £29 5s 11 d.[11] This is a partial picture of her domestic accounts for the first half of 1814, but her choices suggest Fanny’s commitment to economies. Her expenditure for gloves is close to that spent by her sister-in-law, Jane Austen, who was a canny and careful shopper. Jane paid 4 shillings for gloves in 1811; [12] Fanny paid 3s 6d in 1814. Jane Austen purchased black ribbon (1s 1d) to trim her lilac sarsenet dress in March 1814.[13] The same year Fanny bought ribbons twice (2s 1d).
Fanny’s letter of 5 February 1814 makes explicit reference to her financial prudence. She told her sister Harriet in London that she will not be ordering “very handsome velvets [from Holland] at about 4 Guineas[14] a dress,” as she and Charles are currently cash poor.[15] Although Charles’s salary on the Namur was £500 per annum, given the Admiralty’s pay practices a portion of his current salary would likely be withheld until as late as March of the next year.[16] Moreover, his posting to the Namur would be ending in October 1814. It would be prudent to have something put aside for the future in case he did not get another ship and found himself on shore on half-pay.[17]
Irrespective of Fanny’s attention to careful spending, several entries suggest gift-giving and generosity. According to her accounts, Fanny spent £20 12s 10d in January and February. Nonetheless, during those months she bought a gift for her sister, Esther, in Bermuda, described as “Cap for Mrs. Esten” (£1 4s.), and provided a gown for Betsy, her nursemaid (12s), and she also paid for Betsy’s washing (2s). She “gave away” 17s 6d, presumably to those in need. Fanny was also diligent in her search for bargain prices for fresh foods for the London Palmer family. For example, her letters mention purchases of fish and eggs[18] and her pocket diary notes that “Miss Palmer [her sister Harriet] has settled for the ham and butter,” items that Fanny had acquired on her behalf.
A mysterious entry, which is not dated, occurs on a memorandum page. Fanny recorded that she “lent Mr. RP £4.” A possible candidate for this largesse was Fanny’s only brother, law student Robert John Palmer.[19] As far as she knew, he was still incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp in Verdun, France, where a prisoner’s level of comfort depended on his financial resources.[20] If Fanny could get money to him, even as a loan, this would be beneficial. It would also be evidence of her generosity.
Practical, caring, economical and generous: Fanny’s pocket diary records choices which suggest she had these traits. She also appears to have been a resourceful housewife. It is a great pity that so much of her diary was defaced by erasures. However, more than enough of it remains to give us an intriguing look into Fanny’s domestic and family-oriented world.[21]
[1] I am grateful for access to study Fanny’s pocket diary provided by the late David Gilson, its then owner, and Chris Viveash.
[2] The letters are transcribed and contextualized in Sheila Johnson Kindred, Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister: The Life and Letters of Fanny Palmer Austen, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017, 2018 [hereafter JATS].
[3] It measures about 10 cm wide and 7cm long.
[4] Jane Austen described Fanny as looking “as neat and white as possible this morning” See Jane Austen’s Letters, 4th ed., ed. by Deirdre Le Faye, 15 October 1813, 249 [hereafter Letters].
[5] Subsequently Fanny paid 17s 11d for laundry services in June.
[6] Alternatively, perhaps the ribbons were intended for her daughters’ hair.
[7] In 1814 two of Fanny’s chief correspondents, her sister, Esther, and her husband, James Esten, were living in Bermuda.
[8] He regularly received rations of beef, pork, biscuit, oatmeal, pease, sugar, cheese, butter and beer.
[9] Cassandra had been engaged to Rev. Fulwar Fowle’s nephew, Tom, who died of yellow fever in 1797. Fulwar’s son, Thomas (1793-1822), was already known to Cassy from his time as a midshipman aboard Charles Austen’s sloop, the Indian, and later as a Lieutenant on board Charles’s vessel, HMS Namur.
[10] In early October 1813, Fanny wrote her brother-in-law, James Esten: “Cassy begins now to read very prettily, but I have had an amazing deal of trouble with her not owing to a dullness of comprehension but a dislike to learning.” See Fanny to James Esten, 4 October 1813, JATS, 127.
[11] She spent £8 13s 1½ d in May and June, making a total for four months of £29 5s 11½ d.
[12] See Robert Hume, “Money in Jane Austen,” Review of English Studies 64, (2012), 291.
[13] See Austen, Letters, 6 March 1814, 269.
[14] A guinea was worth one pound and one shilling.
[15] See Fanny to her sister Harriet Palmer, 5 February 1814, JATS, 148.
[16] For Admiralty pay practices, see JATS, 94.
[17] Half pay was not literally half but a fixed stipend, according to rank and at a minimal amount.
[18] See Fanny to Harriet, 6 February 1814, JATS, 149.
[19] If this is so, it seems odd she would refer to her brother in such a formal way, yet such terminology was expected, even within families. Elsewhere in the diary she writes: “Miss Palmer had settled for the ham and butter.” This is a reference to her sister Harriet.
[20] See blog post, 31 December 2021, War Time Worries of Fanny Palmer Austen and Jane Austen.
[21] A version of this essay appeared in The Jane Austen Society Report for 2018, 34-39.
Tagged: Fanny Palmer Austen, Fanny Austen’s Pocket Diary, Fanny Austen’s Domestic Arrangements, Educating British Children in 1814