Narratives of Naval Wives during the Napoleonic Wars: Fanny in Fact and Jane in Fiction.

Fanny Palmer Austen was married to Captain Charles Austen, Jane's brother. Her friendship with Jane allowed Fanny to share stories about her experience of the naval world. Later, Jane created naval wives in her novel, Persuasion. How might Fanny's life story have impacted Jane's writing?

I will be giving a talk on this topic on Zoom to the Eastern Washington Northern Idaho (EWANID) Region of the Jane Austen Society of North America on Saturday, November 6, 2021, at 11:00 am Pacific Time (3:00 pm AST). All are welcome.

This is a free event but registration is necessary. To sign up, you may go to the EWANID webpage: jasnaewanid.org/events/

Tags: Fanny Palmer Austen, Jane Austen, Naval Wives, Napoleonic Wars, Persuasion

Brotherly Ties Among Naval Officers in Jane Austen’s Real and Fictional Worlds

The British Navy in Jane Austen’s time was a harsh world that officers sought to alleviate by fostering brotherly solidarity. Jane Austen understood this connectiveness, in part because her younger naval brother, Charles, experienced it. The support he received and extended as a young officer on the North American Station is mentioned in his letters and logbooks. This network of support reached beyond naval officers on a station to include their families, as Fanny Palmer Austen was to discover. Jane Austen recognized the importance of such supportive comradeship for she reflected its many aspects in her novel, Persuasion. 

Fig. 1: Charles and Fanny Austen by Robert Field

While serving on the North American Station (1805-1811),[1] Charles forged friendships with Captains Edward Hawker, Frederick Hickey and Samuel John Pechell, men like himself who were in the early stages of building their careers. Charles and Fanny Austen’s letters provide clues about the significance of these officers in their lives. Charles wrote to his sister, Cassandra, on Christmas day 1808, asking her to be a sponsor for their new-born daughter, Cassandra. He announced that “Captain Hawker of HMS Melampus [will be] your other partner in sponsorship,”[2] thus alerting the Austen family to his firm friendship with Edward Hawker.

In the summer of 1810, Fanny was alone in Halifax, Nova Scotia, while Charles transported troops to Portugal. It was comforting to encounter his colleagues Captain Hawker and Captain Pechell in port and exchange news about common acquaintances.[3] Captain Pechell, in particular, inquired “very kindly” about Fanny’s sister, Esther, in Bermuda. He sounds like a particularly valued friend for Fanny describes him as “my very great favourite Capt. Pechell.”[4] (The underlining, for emphasis, is hers.)

The third naval friend, Capt. Frederick Hickey, was first mentioned in letters in July 1808.  Hickey had seen Fanny in Bermuda where she was in good health and five months pregnant. According to Esther, writing to the absent Charles: “Captain Hickey told [Fanny] yesterday that she had grown quite plump in the face.”[5] This remark suggests he was sufficiently intimate with  Fanny and Charles to justify such personal language. Later, Hickey helped the sisters by carrying goods from to the other on his vessel, HMS Atalante (18 guns). On 4 August 1810 Fanny thanked Esther for “the straw plaits by Cpt. Hickey.”[6]

Other contextual details illuminate the nature of Charles’s relationships with Hawker, Hickey and Pechell. Charles first became friends with Edward Hawker in Bermuda in early 1805, when he was busy recruiting sailors and preparing his new sloop of war, the Indian, for her maiden voyage. Hawker, in contrast, was in port because his frigate, HMS Tartar (32 guns), had suffered extensive damage on a reef. In consequence, he was cast on shore while shipwright-caulkers sent from the Halifax Naval Yard laboured to make the Tartar seaworthy.

The Indian took an interest in the repairs to the Tartar, for when the bottom was finished and the Halifax shipwrights “gave three cheers,” their celebratory chorus were answered by “the officers of the Indian.”[7] Just before Charles and Edward sailed for Halifax in May, Hawker showed his appreciation to the “shipwrights from Halifax” by the unusual gesture of giving them “a supper and Ball.”[8] We do not know who else attended this entertainment but we can imagine Charles joining in with spirit and enthusiasm.  

Fig. 2: Edward Hawker

Charles and Edward also shared in the chase and capture of the American ship, Sally, in         July 1806. They followed with interest the progress of their claim before the Halifax Vice Admiralty Court and rejoiced when Judge Croke condemned the vessel and its cargo in their favour. Austen and Hawker anticipated the captors would receive a pay out of prize money amounting to about £992[9] but, instead, an appeal, by the owners of the vessel and its  cargo, to the High Court of Admiralty in London was successful. In consequence, Charles and Edward were stuck with the costs incurred by the prolonged court proceedings. At least there was company to share in the disappointment.

Charles and Frederick Hickey had been fellow members of the North American squadron since before 1807. They shared a unique professional connection as they were captains of ships built to the same design. Both were Bermuda class ship-sloops: Charles’s Indian was launched in 1805 and Frederick’s Atalante in 1808. The two men likely compared notes about their vessels, such as gun practice for their crews or sail settings for speed and weather. They had other connections as well. The Atalante, together with the Guerriere (32 guns, Capt. Pechell) and the Cleopatra, Charles’s next vessel, were co-captors of an American brig, the Stephen, in December1810. Prior to the cruise on which this prize was taken, the three captains agreed to a sharing arrangement. Whoever made the capture would grant the other vessels an equal claim on any resulting prize money, irrespective of whether those vessels were in sight at the time of the capture. This initiative showed their mutual concern for each other’s financial well being.

Although Samuel Pechell was part of the team which shared in the taking of the Stephen, yet, within six months, he and Charles were caught up in a difficult situation. With no warning, the Admiralty assigned Pechell to the Cleopatra and Charles was left without a ship, forcing him to go ashore in England on half pay. Although both men knew that Pechell had greater seniority than Charles and that the influence of his uncle, Admiral Sir John Warren, worked in Pechell’s favour, it must have been upsetting for one friend to replace the other without equal benefit for both.

Jane Austen was in frequent correspondence with Charles, keen for details about all aspects of his naval life, both professional and personal.  Moreover, by July 1811 Charles and Fanny reached England, where they could regale Jane and other members of the Austen family in person with narratives about their naval lives and friends made during the 6½ years Charles had served on the North American Station.  Their stories may have influenced Jane Austen’s creation of Persuasion when she came to the portrayal of the fellow officers, Wentworth, Harville and Benwick.

Fig 3: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Various resonances are detectable between what characterized Charles’s working relationship with colleagues and the attitudes of Austen’s fictional hero, Captain Frederick Wentworth. For example, the joint agreement about sharing prize money, which obligated Austen, Hawker, Pechell and Hickey, spoke to a common concern for each other’s interests.  Recall that in Persuasion, Frederick Wentworth regrets that his friend Captain Harville has not been with him as an officer on the Laconia and thus share in the richness of prize money amassed from captures in the West Indies.[10]

Fanny Austen was also the beneficiary of the naval support system. She appreciated Hawker and Pechell’s enquiries about her family, while she was alone in Halifax. Moreover, she was grateful to Captain Hickey, who thoughtfully brought her goods from her sister in Bermuda. These small acts of kindness exemplified the support that even naval wives enjoyed within the context of the naval world. Recall that in Persuasion, Wentworth speaks of his active concern for members of the naval family. He would “assist any brother officer’s wife that he could.” Such actions were “all merged in [his] friendship.”[11]

In later years when Charles most needed a friend, when he was devastated by Fanny’s sudden death in 1814, Edward Hawker was a loyal and sensitive supporter. Both men happened to be on land in England. Hawker was frequently in touch with the grieving Charles. On one occasion, his wife, Joanna, “took the children out in a carriage and gave them heaps of toys.”[12]

Similarly, there are instances of compassionate support in Persuasion. Wentworth and Harville are both sensitive to the tragedy of personal loss. Wentworth raced to be the first to tell Captain Benwick that his fiancée, Fanny Harville, has died during his absence at sea. Wentworth then stayed aboard for a week with his grieving friend.[13] Captain and Mrs Harville invited the distraught Benwick to live with them ashore in Lyme, even though their small living quarters were scarcely big enough for their own family.[14]

 The theme of naval solidarity was important for Jane Austen. She wanted to highlight the general character of the navy, “their friendliness, their brotherliness, their openness, their uprightness.”[15] What she may have known from Charles descriptions of naval life on the North American Station could indeed have proved catalytic to creating the interactions among her fictional characters Captains Wentworth, Harville and Benwick. Moreover, she began Persuasion in early August 1815, within a year of Fanny Austen’s tragic death. Perhaps her sketch of the initially grieving Captain Benwick memorialized the plight of her devastated brother Charles, whose lost love was also named “Fanny.”

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[1] Charles Austen’s career advanced considerably while on he North American Station. He captained his first vessel, the sloop of war the Indian (18 guns). He was flag captain on the Swiftsure (74 guns) for five months. He was posted into his own frigate, the Cleopatra (32 guns), in September 1810.

[2] Charles to Cassandra, 25 December 1808. See Kindred, Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister (JATS), MQUP, 2017, 2018, 21.

[3] Fanny to Esther, 12 August 1810. See JATS, 62.

[4] See JATS, 65.

[5] Esther to Charles, 26 July 1808. See JATS, 214,

[6] Fanny to Esther, 4 August 1810. See JATS, 61. Straw plaits were used to make bonnets.

[7] Journal of shipwright Winkworth Norwood, 3 July 1805, MG 13, vol.4, Nova Scotia Archives and Record Management.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Cutters Adonis, Bacchus, and Cassandra were in company at the time of the capture so would have some claim, had there been prize money.

[10] See Persuasion, ed. R.C. Chapman, 3rd ed., OUP, 1933, 67.

[11] Persuasion, 69.

[12] Charles Austen’s pocket diary, AUS/101, May 1817. See also AUS/101: 5, 13 January, 29, 30 April 1815 and AUS/109: 29 April, 6, 7, 13 May and 9 June 1817.

[13] See Persuasion, 108.

[14] See Persuasion, 97.

[15] See Persuasion, 99.

Louisa, Fanny, and Sophy: Lives of Naval Wives

Lady Louisa Hardy

Naval officers’ wives during the Napoleonic Wars have long fascinated me—both the real-life ones and those found in fiction, such as in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. While researching the life of Fanny Palmer Austen, I came upon the story of Louisa Berkeley, who married a naval officer in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the same year Fanny Palmer married Charles, Jane’s younger naval brother, in Bermuda. Comparing Louisa’s actions as a naval wife with Fanny’s gave me insights into the significance of Fanny’s relationship with Charles within the naval world they shared. In the process, I discovered how aspects of Fanny’s married life found echos in Austen’s imagining of Sophy, wife of Admiral Croft, in Persuasion. Here are profiles of the diverging and diverting sea going lives of Louisa and Fanny that afforded me a greater understanding of the character of Sophy Croft in Persuasion.

Louisa Berkeley was the eldest daughter of Admiral Sir George Cranfield Berkeley, Charles Austen’s commander-in-chief on the North American Station of the navy, 1806-08. Fanny may even have met the vivacious Louisa, and her sisters, for Sir George brought his family out with him to the North American Station. After a whirlwind courtship in Halifax, Louisa married Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy in St. Paul’s Church on 16 November 1807. Hardy had been Admiral Nelson’s close friend, and captain of his flag ship, HMS Victory, at the Battle of Trafalgar, and had recently been made a baronet, accomplishments which presumably contributed to his attractiveness as a suitor. One wonders if Louisa had any clear idea of what life as a naval wife might entail. She was soon to find out.

After the wedding, Sir Thomas was immediately sent to the Chesapeake Bay area, off the coast of Virginia, where the British navy was determined to contain French war ships already shut up in the Bay. According to a disgruntled Louisa, writing from aboard Hardy’s warship, the 74 gun Triumph, “we spent from December 1807 to April 1808 in the gloomy, desolate [Chesapeake] Bay not allowed to land as the Americans were in such an exasperated state that they might have been disagreeable” (quoted in Nelson’s Hardy and his Wife 1769-1877, by John Gore [1935]). During the whole winter the ship was kept perpetually ready for action and no fires were allowed. In these frigid and far from romantic circumstances, Louisa became pregnant with her first of three daughters. She had no regrets when “at last we were released and I returned to Bermuda where my family were, and soon after . . . [on the Triumph], we returned to England.”

It must have become very soon apparent to Louisa that sharing a naval life with Hardy would have limited attractions for her. They were mismatched in matters of personality and interests. He was a serious, unromantic and uncharismatic 38-year-old, wedded to his career in the navy, whereas she was nineteen, socially ambitious, and fun loving. She scarcely knew Hardy when she married him and their first months together on the Triumph, as she describes them, must have reduced any feelings of “fine naval fervour” that she might have originally felt. She found that she hated to be at sea and very early decided she was uninterested in her husband’s career. In subsequent years she often lived abroad with their three daughters, cultivated the friendship of foreign aristocrats and pursued a life of amusement and entertainment, unconcerned that Hardy was regularly posted on assignments at sea taking him far from England. Louisa was essentially a naval wife in name only.

Fanny held very different views and attitudes about her role as a naval wife. She had the advantage of getting well acquainted with Charles during the two years before they married. She knew him to be kind, caring, charming, entertaining, and very handsome. Beginning with their earliest days together, Fanny saw herself as Charles’s helpmate and supporter. As she lived in Bermuda, the southern base of the North American Station, she understood what the career of a serving naval officer entailed, and she willingly became a participant in naval life. She travelled with Charles on board his vessel the eighteen gun Indian between Bermuda and Halifax on a number of occasions. She experienced at least one horrific storm at sea, but this did not discourage her from sailing with him, including undertaking a North Atlantic crossing to England in 1811. She was attuned to the social role which she was expected to fulfill as flag captain’s wife in Halifax in the summer of 1810 and again during 1812-14 in England, when Charles was flag captain on the 74 gun HMS Namur, which was stationed at the Nore. During this later period, Fanny courageously accepted the challenge of making a home for their family of three daughters on board the Namur.

Some of Fanny’s naval experiences would have been known within the Austen family, and especially by Jane and Cassandra. Fanny had originally been introduced through correspondence within the Austen family and once she was in England, she and Charles paid regular visits to Chawton Cottage, where Jane and Cassandra periodically cared for their children. On one occasion when Fanny and Jane were both guests at Godmersham Park, the estate of Charles’s brother, Edward, Jane wrote to Cassandra, speaking of Fanny in familiar terms. She refers to her as “Mrs Fanny, “Fanny Senior,” “[Cassy’s] Mama”, and part of “the Charleses” (15 and 26 October 1813). She notes that Fanny appears “just like [her] own nice self,” words which suggest Jane had a warm and affectionate attitude towards Fanny. Contacts such as these allowed Jane Austen to learn about Fanny’s unique and diverse involvement as an officer’s wife in a naval world. Crucially, Fanny was able to articulate the complexities of naval life from a female point of view.

Jane’s evident sensitivities to Fanny’s life as a naval wife likely influenced her creation of Sophy Croft in Persuasion. Certainly, there are some key differences between Fanny and Sophy in terms of age and appearance, perceptions of what counts as “comfortable” living on a war ship, and the absence of children to care for and nurture. However, there are striking similarities between the two women in terms of behaviour, attitudes and practical common sense.

Both woman made voyages with their husbands. Fanny sailed with Charles between the bases on the North American station and she travelled to England with him on his frigate Cleopatra in 1811. Sophy crossed the Atlantic four times and accompanied Admiral Croft on many other voyages as well. Additionally, Sophy was familiar with Bermuda, a clue that she has been with Admiral Croft on the North American Station, just as Fanny had been with Charles. Fanny periodically lived on four of Charles’s vessels; Sophy made her home on five of her husband’s ships. Both women staved off periods of sea sickness when under sail.

Both Fanny Austen and Sophy Croft were most content when sharing their husband’s lives. Fanny’s letters speak of her very great pleasure in being in Charles’s company. She frankly admits that she is “never happy but when she is with her husband” (4 October 1813). According to Sophy, “the happiest part of my life has been spent on board a ship. While we were together . . . there was nothing to be feared. Thank God!” Likewise, Jane Austen depicts the Crofts as a “particularly attached and happy” couple. Jane Austen’s appreciation of Fanny’s strong desire to support Charles, to find a community of friends, and to be his constant and affectionate companion, may have influenced her ascription of those traits to Sophy Croft.

In his biography of Jane Austen, Park Honan suggests that she drew on some aspects of Fanny for Mrs Croft and that she admired Fanny’s “unfussiness and gallant good sense” (Jane Austen: Her Life [1997]). My research into Fanny’s articulate and candid letters written from the Namur, together with records and accounts in her pocket diary, supports this observation. They show her organizing domestic arrangements, acquiring food and necessities for her family at bargain prices and identifying books for the education of her five-year-old daughter, Cassy. In a similar vein, within her domestic sphere, Mrs. Croft proves to be practical and business-like in the matter of arranging for the tenancy of Kellynch Hall and effecting practical alterations once they are resident there.

The three naval wives in question, Louisa, Fanny, and Sophy, make up a diverse trio. Louisa proved to be largely absent from Thomas Hardy’s naval life, but Fanny supported Charles in his naval career with courage, spirit, and dedication. It is fortunate that Jane had a “sister” of Fanny’s ilk, whose richness of experience as a naval wife could contribute to Austen’s creativity when she came to draw the very likable and competent Sophy Croft in Persuasion.

Quotations are from the Penguin Classics edition of Persuasion, edited by D.W. Harding (1965), and the Oxford edition of Jane Austen’s Letters, edited by Deirdre Le Faye (4th edition, 2011).

It is likely that Jane’s sensitivities to Fanny’s naval experiences also influenced some aspects of Anne Elliot and Mrs. Harville. For a full discussion of the other naval wives and more about the resonances between Fanny and Sophy Croft, see Chapter 9 in Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister: The Life and Letters of Fanny Palmer Austen, by Sheila Johnson Kindred (2017).

First posted on http://sarahemsley.com

Growing up as a Reader: Some Literary Likes

I cannot imagine life without the magic of novels. At age four, I entered the world of Peter Rabbit. I loved the first line of The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, with its initial caution that “the effect of eating too much lettuce is soporific.” “Soporific” sounded so compelling, so strongly suggestive of a state of affairs not to be taken lightly. And the word was fun to say, to repeat for the sheer pleasure of the sounds. I found myself drawn into tales of adventurous about naughty rabbits and I was motivated to learn to read these tales for myself. The Peter Rabbit stories, with their charming illustrations, remain among the most loved books of my childhood.

As a teenager I discovered Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I immediately bonded with Lizzy Bennet, the witty, intelligent and empathetic heroine, who in the course of the novel achieves a nice balance of self awareness and insight into human behaviour. She had the courage to admit when her own opinions were ill judged which I realized was an important lesson for me to take on board. I followed her love life with fascination and rejoiced when she and Mr. Darcy are promised a happy future together. From the prospective of a teenage reader, I had discovered a compelling romance with an absorbing plot, and attractive and amusing characters. This was a book to reread and savour and it was for some time my favourite Austen novel.

My allegiance to Jane Austen remains but Persuasion has replaced Pride and Prejudice as my favourite. Persuasion bears the marks of her mature genius and introduces a sensitive, introspective yet engaging heroine, Anne Elliot, who greatly regrets breaking off her engagement to the enterprising, self assured naval captain, Frederick Wentworth, eight years earlier. I became fascinated with the subtle intricacies of Anne’s self examination of her own disappointment and her efforts to be open to the needs of others, even in the face of her own unhappiness. I was caught up in the suspense of the plot, as Austen describes Anne’s initially fragile but increasingly strengthening hope that she may yet find happiness with Captain Wentworth. I admired and continue to admire Austen’s remarkable ability to capture her characters personalities through their distinctive idiolects, their ways of speaking. This is also a book with a special place in my life: in times of trouble, of worry or uncertainty, it absorbs, it distracts and comforts me.                                                                  

Along with my fascination with Austen, I have enjoyed the rich narratives of Dickens, marvelled at the raw power of the Bröntes, and admired the clever plots and convincing characters of Penelope Lively and Maggie O’Farrell. Among other writers, Penelope Fitzgerald (1916-2000), author of Booker prize winner, Offshore (1979) and nine other novels, stands out for me. I first read Fitzgerald in the early nineteen eighties and immediately became a fan. The pleasure in reading her novels derives from her captivating and mesmerizing style of writing, highly original plots and characters, vivid and compelling settings, endings which are sometimes surprising and unexpected.

Like Austen, Fitzgerald is scrupulous about the accuracy and appropriateness of small contextual details that illuminate her narrative. One such detail surprised and delighted me. In Offshore, the Canadian heroine, Nenna, is caught off guard by an unexpected telephone call from her sister Louise. She tries to defuse the uncomfortable tone of their exchange by a seemingly innocent question about the availability of lobster sandwiches at Harris’s, a restaurant apparently well known to them both. According to Hermione Lee’s biography, Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life (2013), Fitzgerald, on her one visit to Nova Scotia must have passed through Yarmouth on her way to Halifax from where she sailed back to England. I surmise that Fitzgerald visited the real Harris’s restaurant and chowed down their signature sandwich. She tucked away her memory of it, only to use it effectively twenty-five years later in the sisterly dialogue in Offshore. As I know both Harris’s and their justly famous sandwich from personal experience, I appreciate Fitzgerald’s genius in enhancing the authenticity of her character with the inclusion of this tiny but telling contextual detail. I like to think I have had a brief glimpse into Fitzgerald’s creative process and thus made a connection with the author herself.

In my own experiences as a writer, there has been a circle back to Austen and Persuasion. Persuasion is a novel with naval theme and characters, both of which are handled with authenticity by Austen. It has been said that Jane Austen got the naval details correct in her novels because of her close connections with her two officer brothers, Captains Francis and Charles. But there is more to the story. Some years ago, I became interested in the North American phase of Charles Austen’s naval career (1805-1811), when I discovered he had spent considerable time in my home city, the port town of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Finding out about Charles eventually led me to intriguing details about his Bermuda-born young wife, Fanny Palmer Austen. Here was a story waiting to be told, a narrative about a spirited and resilient young woman who made a home for Charles and their daughters aboard a working naval vessel and developed a supportive relationship with Jane Austen. I have been excited by the discovery of this connection to explore the extent to which Fanny was a source of information and inspiration for the novelist when she created the female naval characters in Persuasion. Little did I expect, when I first came to love Persuasion that I would much later return to it with a different interest and perspective, that was in the course of writing my own book Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister: The Life and Letters of Fanny Palmer Austen.

First posted on https://bookscombined.com

Sheila introduces “Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister”

Fanny Palmer Austen by Robert Field

Just over two hundred years ago a young naval wife spent an anxious summer in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was the later years of the Napoleonic Wars. Her husband had been suddenly called away on a mission to transport troops to a war zone off the coast of Portugal. During the months that followed, she waited for his return with growing trepidation until she finally welcomed back to port her “beloved Charles.” The genteel young woman was the beautiful, Bermuda-born Fanny Palmer Austen; her husband was Captain Charles John Austen, a naval officer, then serving on the North American Station of the British navy, and the youngest brother of the novelist Jane Austen.

This vignette, derived from Fanny Austen’s own letters in 1810, has turned out to be an inspiration for me. Since 2005 I had been writing extensively about Charles Austen’s career in North American waters, about the excitement of his first command and his pursuit of naval prize. More recently I became intrigued by the evidence that his young wife, Fanny Palmer, had spent parts of two years in the place which I call home – Halifax, Nova Scotia. I wanted to find out about her personality and character, as well as about the kind of life she led in Halifax and elsewhere. There was much to explore, beginning with her formative years in St George’s, Bermuda, through her naval travels with Charles in North America to her later years in England when she came to know the rest of his family. This biography presents what I have learned about Fanny Palmer Austen in all the ordinary and extraordinary aspects of her short life during exciting times.

My investigations began with Fanny’s letters, which have proved to be a treasure trove of personal narrative and contemporary detail. By further research, I have been able to present the letters in the social and cultural context of Fanny’s life. The picture of a lively, resourceful, and articulate young woman has emerged. I discovered a wife intimately involved with her husband’s naval career and a new and significant member of the Austen family.

Charles John Austen by Robert Field

The narrative of Fanny’s life describes what it was like to be a young woman living at sea with her husband and small children in early nineteenth-century wartime. Little has been written about wives who had immediate experience of their husbands’ professional careers and naval society. Fanny Austen’s letters, along with the story which surrounds them, affords a unique insight into female life in the theatres of naval warfare on both sides of the Atlantic during this tumultuous time.

Through her marriage to Charles, Fanny became closely connected with other members of his family. In particular, Fanny developed a relationship with Jane Austen that excited my attention. Their sisterly association led me to enquire whether Fanny’s experiences may have influenced Jane in the writing of her fiction. Evidence presented in the book supports a number of parallels between Fanny’s conduct and character and Austen’s portrayal of women with naval connections, such as Mrs Croft and Anne Elliot in Persuasion. Because Fanny was with Charles both on the North American station of the British navy (1807–11) and then with him and their children aboard HMS Namur stationed off Sheerness, Kent (1812–14), she had a truly transatlantic experience within his naval world that she could impart to Jane. Hence the title of the book, Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister.

HMS Atalante, sister ship to Charles Austen's sloop of war, HMS Indian (18 guns).

Before Fanny travelled to England with Charles and their children in 1811, she sailed with him on his sloop of war, HMS Indian (18 guns), between Bermuda and Halifax, Nova Scotia on a number of occasions. It was not always smooth sailing. The North Atlantic is frequently disturbed by gale force winds and heavy seas that can readily overpower a small wooden sailing ship. Fanny learned the hard way, as the following passage from the book reveals.

The Indian cleared the harbour on 29 November [1809] for a voyage that would be fraught with danger. Fanny and [her daughter, one year old] Cassy experienced their first major storm at sea and it was terrifying. Just out of Halifax the Indian met “strong gales with sleet and snow.” By the evening the “gale increased” and “the ship was labouring and shipping heavy seas.” For the next five days, the vessel lurched and rocked in the merciless gales. The Indian became separated from the flagship HMS Swiftsure (74 guns) and the three other vessels in convoy, HMS Aeolus (32 guns), HMS Thistle (10 guns), and HMS Bream (4 guns). On 3 December when the Indian signalled the Thistle with a blue light, which is ordinarily a sign of distress, she did not reply. It was not encouraging … that they were 495 nautical miles from a navigational point identified in the ship’s log as Wreck Hill, Bermuda.

The erratic rolling of the vessel and the bone-chilling wind must have greatly distressed and alarmed Fanny, now almost seven months’ pregnant. She needed to be brave and to try to hide her trepidation, especially as she had a terrified Cassy to calm and reassure. Finally, on 5 December the wind dropped to moderate breezes. The men surveyed the damage to the vessel and repairs began. According to the logbook, “people [were] employed repairing the rigging after the gale” and “fitting a new main sail.” By 10 December, the Indian’s deck was still awash with as much as two inches of water. Imagine Fanny’s relief when land was sighted and they “made all sail” for St David’s Head, Bermuda, arriving in St George’s on 12 December after a harrowing voyage of fifteen days, almost twice the time the journey usually took.

After reaching Bermuda, Fanny settled down on shore to await the birth of their second child, Harriet Jane, a namesake for her own sister Harriet and her sister-in-law, Jane Austen. She would experience many more adventures both at sea and on land; she would survive a potentially dangerous crossing of the North Atlantic; she would get to know Charles’s family in England, and she would develop a significant relationship with Jane Austen. All this and more was yet to come.

First posted on https://mqup.ca