No Dreaming Spires for Jane!

My latest feature for Jane Austen's Regency World Magazine discusses the limited education available for girls and women in late Georgian times. Jane and her sister Cassandra could not go to university like their father George, and brothers James and Henry, who went to St John’s College, Oxford.

Radcliffe Camera, Oxford. 

Girls’ education was designed to prepare them for the marriage ‘market’ and their future lives as wives and mothers. Authors like Mary Wollstonecraft and Catherine Macaulay argued passionately that girls should have as good an education as boys - but no higher education colleges were open to women until over three decades after Jane Austen's death.

Cartoon: ‘Farmer Giles & his wife shewing off their daughter Betty to their neighbours, on her return from school. Gillray, 1809. Courtesy Library of Congress LC-USZC2-3803.

Update 7 March: For some reason none of my replies to comments are showing online - so many thanks to Tony for all the informative comments!

Bath Abbey

Bath Abbey, 1833.

One of the odd things about Austen's novels, letters and diaries is that she seemingly never mentions Bath Abbey, even though she must have walked past it many times, and perhaps even attended divine service there.
Visitors today don't see the Abbey as Jane would have known it; the building was re-modelled by George Manners in the 1830s, and restored in the 1860s and 1870s by that serial 'improver' of ancient churches, George Gilbert Scott.
The Abbey, also known as the church of St Peter and St Paul, may have been founded as early as 675; there's a
timeline here on the Abbey website. 

The Abbey in the 1890s. 

During Jane Austen's day, services were held daily at 11am; the tower had a peal of ten bells. In 1785 (when Jane was ten years old), several Sunday Schools were set up in Bath; one was attached to the Abbey Church. Within a few years, over 500 children attended the schools (they had to be recommended by a subscriber to be able to attend).

Jane Austen Festival, Louisville

This festival sounds like great fun! The largest Jane Austen event in North America will take place 14-16 July at Louisville, KY, to celebrate the novelist's enduring legacy. It's sponsored by the Jane Austen Society of North America, Greater Louisville Region.
Dr Cheryl will give a talk on 'The Eulogy Jane Austen Should Have Had', and there will be tours of a Georgian home.
Visitors can enjoy delights including a Regency fashion show, a Grand Ball, afternoon tea, an Emporium, duelling gentlemen, bare-knuckle sparring, bobbin lace-making, archery and a Punch & Judy show.
On the Friday, Lord Nelson and Napoleon will attend, along with an encampment of His Majesty's Royal Navy.

Full dress for February 1805.

For more information, contact Bonny Wise, festival chair at wises496@gmail.com.
You should attend in Regency dress - I look forward to seeing the photos for this amazing event!
If you can't make it to the festival, there's an updated list of Jane Austen bicentenary events in the UK here on the Jane Austen 200 website.

Ladies of Llangollen

The foaming River Dee at Llangollen. 

Many thanks to Austen Authors for hosting my guest post on the Ladies of Llangollen's Romantic friendship this week! You can read my blog post here, and there are lots more interesting goodies to explore here on Austen Authors!
There's some more photos of the Ladies' home, Plas Newydd, here on the Llangollen website.

Upcoming Highlights!

January fashions for 1805, Lady's Monthly Museum.

I hope you all had a lovely peaceful Christmas and New Year with family and friends. It's back to normal now after the break - I have got a lot of work to get through in the next few weeks, so my blog may be quiet for a little while. But watch out for my feature on Jane Austen coming soon in the Discover Your Ancestors bookazine, and we have got all the Jane Austen 200 celebrations this year to look forward to, in honour of the bicentenary of her death. Upcoming and ongoing events are listed here.

Merry Xmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope you all have a peaceful break with family and friends.
'The road is gay now'. Hugh Thomson illustration of a frosty scene for Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village, Macmillan & Co., 1893.

Treasures on Display: Jane Austen Among Family and Friends

Exciting news for Janeites, especially if you live in, or plan to visit, London in the New Year! To mark the bicentenary of Jane Austen's death, the British Library will stage a new display in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery.
For the first time in four decades, the three notebooks which Austen kept of her teenage writings, plus family letters and memorabilia, will be reunited and on display to the general public.
Volume the First includes short plays and stories such as 'The Beautiful Cassandra'; Volume the Second includes Austen's wonderful 'History of England By a partial, prejudiced, & ignorant Historian', 'Lesley Castle', and 'Love and Freindship'; and Volume the Third includes 'Effusions of Fancy' and 'Catharine'.
Austen's writing desk will also be on display with these treasures from the British Library and Bodleian Library collections.
'Jane Austen Among Family and Friends' will be on show from 10 January 2017 – 19 February 2017.
Image from Austen's 'History of England', with illustrations by Cassandra Austen, courtesy of, and copyright, the British Library.