Christmas Theatricals at Steventon

Jane Austen loved the theatre!

She was about seven years old when family theatricals first began at Steventon Rectory, circa December 1782. Dr Thomas Francklin’s Matilda was seemingly the first play performed, probably in the dining-room. Jane’s big brother James penned some additional verses to accompany the performance.

George Austen taught fee-paying scholars at home, so the plays only took place during the summer and Christmas holidays, when his pupils were away. At some point some stage scenery was painted to accompany the Austens’ theatricals, which must have added to the fun.

In 1787, Jane’s cousin Phila Walter wrote in a letter that Eliza de Feuillide (another cousin of Jane and Cassandra’s) was planning to visit Steventon at Christmas and that the family 'mean to act a play, Which is the Man? and Bon Ton. My uncle's barn is fitting up quite like a theatre, and all the young folks are to take their part. The Countess is Lady Bob Lardoon [sic] in the former and Miss Tittup in the latter. They wish me much of the party and offer to carry me, but I do not think of it. I should like to be a spectator, but am sure I should not have courage to act a part, nor do I wish to attain it.' (Phila sounds amazingly like Fanny Price in this letter!)

Eliza wrote to Phila to ‘assure you we shall have a most brilliant party and a great deal of amusement, the house full of company, frequent balls. You cannot possibly resist so many temptations, especially when I tell you your old friend James is returned from France and is to be of the acting party’.

But Phila was not keen, so Eliza wrote to her again, begging her to come for a fortnight to Steventon, provided she could bring herself to act, 'for my Aunt Austen declares "she has not room for any idle young people'.

Jane’s recollections of these family theatricals clearly influenced the Bertrams’ performances in Mansfield Park – but surely none of the Austen brothers acted like that ‘ranting young man’ Yates, who was ‘almost hallooing’ as he rehearsed his part?

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all Janeites everywhere!

Images

 ‘ Hints to managers, actors and authors / G.M. Woodward, del.1790, courtesy Library of Congress. 

Hugh Thomson illustrations for Mansfield Park. 

Dinner Time!

Dinner in the 1780s.

In Jane Austen’s day, dinner was a moveable feast, depending on whether you kept fashionable hours; country hours where normally earlier than in London. The haut ton did not dine until at least five or six o’clock, or even later. When Lady Newdigate (Hester Mundy) stayed at Stansted Park in 1795, she commented that: ‘The hours of ye family are what ye polite world w’d not conform to viz. Breakfast at 8½, dine at 3½, supper at 9 and go to bed at 10, but Everybody is at Liberty to order their own Breakfast, Dinner or Supper into their own Rooms and no questions ask’d.’

The Austen family dined at half-past three when living at Steventon Rectory in the 1790s. However, over Jane’s lifetime, their dinner hour changed. While staying with the Bridges family at Goodnestone in 1805, Jane mentions dining at four o'clock, so that they could go walking afterwards. Three years later, when the Austen ladies lived in Southampton, Jane noted in a letter, ‘We never dine now till five.’ During a visit to her brother Henry’s new residence in Henrietta St, London, Jane wrote to Cassandra (15 September 1813) that soon after five o’clock, shortly after her arrival, the family sat down to ‘a most comfortable dinner of soup, fish, bouilée, partridges, and an apple tart.’

Dessert time at the Ashmolean.

Following dinner, tea and cakes were normally served around seven, and the day ended with a light supper and wine (unless one had dined fashionably late). As the dinner hour got later and later, some people had a snack, perhaps some cold meat, in the early afternoon to fill the gap. By 1817 Sir Richard Phillips noted in his Morning’s Walk from London to Kew that the dinner hour of the polite world had ‘shifted to the unhealthy hours of eight or nine’ at night. 

Image © Sue Wilkes: A table set for dessert in the 1770s at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Happy Birthday Jane Austen!

Jane Austen was born on a snowy winter’s night at Steventon Rectory at Hampshire, on 16 December 1775. She was the daughter of clergyman George Austen and Cassandra Leigh, who had eight children: James, George, Edward, Henry, Francis (Frank), Cassandra, Jane and Charles.

The rectory at Steventon had a front door which opened into a small parlour, where Mrs Austen sat busily making and mending clothes. A dining or common sitting-room was at the front of the house, and George Austen had a study overlooking the garden. 

Steventon Parsonage.

Jane was very happy living at Steventon. She had the run of her father’s extensive library (over 500 volumes), and her family encouraged her to write - Austen’s juvenilia and early satirical works are full of fun. Early versions of her novels Sense & Sensibility (Elinor and Marianne), Pride and Prejudice (First Impressions), and Northanger Abbey (Susan) were all written at Steventon. 

Jane shared a bedroom with her sister Cassandra upstairs, where there was another small sitting-room or ‘dressing-room’ which, Jane’s niece Anna Lefroy recalled, ‘opened into a smaller chamber in which my two aunts slept. I remember the common-looking carpet with its chocolate ground, and painted press with shelves above for books, and Jane’s piano, and an oval looking-glass that hung between the windows; but the charm of the room with its scanty furniture and cheaply painted walls must have been... the flow of native wit, with all the fun and nonsense of a large and clever family’ (W. & R.A. Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters, Smith, Elder & Co., 1913). 

'All Great Novel-Readers'

In Jane Austen's day, new books were expensive - a three volume set of Sense & Sensibility cost 15s when first published in 1811. Her father George had a large library of his own (500+ volumes) at Steventon Rectory but it was sold when he retired to Bath.

So families hungry to read the latest 'horrid' novels, travel guides and biographies joined a circulating library.  

However, many well-meaning people thought that novels were trashy and immoral tendency.  On 18 December 1798, Jane Austen wrote to Cassandra from Steventon: ‘I have received a very civil note from Mrs Martin, requesting my name as a subscriber to her library... My mother finds the money... Mrs Martin tells me that her collection is not to consist only of novels, but of every kind of literature, etc. She might have spared this pretension to our family, who are great novel-readers, and not ashamed of being so; but it was necessary, I suppose, to the self-consequence of half her subscribers ’.

In Pride & Prejudice, Mr Collins was horrified when Mr Bennet asked him to read aloud to the ladies: ‘On beholding it (for everything announced it to be from a circulating library), he started back, and begging pardon, protested that he never read novels’. Instead Mr Collins chose Fordyce’s Sermons to entertain the girls.

Images:

Portico Library, Mosley St, Manchester. This beautiful building was built by Thomas Harrison. It opened to subscribers in 1806. © Sue Wilkes.

A Halifax Circulating Library ticket, c.1790-1800. Author's collection.

Hugh Thomson illustration of Mr Collins for Pride & Prejudice.