Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters | Page 4

Austen family. Francis left
a son, John, whose son was another John. This last John settled at
Broadford (while his father remained at Grovehurst), and, when quite
young, married Elizabeth Weller. He seems to have been a careless,
easy-going man, who thought frugality unnecessary, as he would
succeed to the estate on his father's death; but he died of consumption
in 1704, a year before that event took place. One of his sisters married
into the family of the Stringers (neighbours engaged in the same trade
as the Austens), and numbered among her descendants the Knights of
Godmersham--a circumstance which exercised an important influence
over the subsequent fortunes of the Austen family.
Elizabeth Weller, a woman happily cast in a different mould from her
husband, was an ancestress of Jane Austen who deserves
commemoration. Thrifty, energetic, a careful mother, and a prudent
housewife, she managed, though receiving only grudging assistance
from the Austen family, to pay off her husband's debts, and to give to
all her younger children a decent education at a school at Sevenoaks;
the eldest boy (the future squire) being taken off her hands by his
grandfather.[6] Elizabeth left behind her not only elaborately kept
accounts but also a minute description of her actions through many
years and of the motives which governed them. It may be interesting to
quote one sentence relating to her move from Horsmonden to
Sevenoaks for the sake of her children's education. 'These
considerations with y^{e} tho'ts of having my own boys in y^{e} house,
with a good master (as all represented him to be) were y^{e}
inducements that brought me to Sen'nock, for it seemed to me as if I
cou'd not do a better thing for my children's good, their education being
my great care, and indeed all I think I was capable of doing for 'em, for
I always tho't if they had learning, they might get better shift in y^{e}
world, with w^{t} small fortune was alloted 'em.'

When the good mother died in 1721, her work was done. Schooldays
were over, the daughter married, and the boys already making their way
in the world.
The young squire and his son held gentle sway at Broadford through
the eighteenth century; but much more stirring and able was the next
brother, Francis. He became a solicitor. Setting up at Sevenoaks 'with
eight hundred pounds and a bundle of pens,' he contrived to amass a
very large fortune, living most hospitably, and yet buying up all the
valuable land round the town which he could secure, and enlarging his
means by marrying two wealthy wives. But his first marriage did not
take place till he was nearer fifty than forty; and he had as a bachelor
been a most generous benefactor to the sons of his two next brothers,
Thomas and William.
His second wife, who became in due course of time godmother to her
great-niece, Jane Austen, was the widow of Samuel Lennard, of West
Wickham, who left her his estate. Legal proceedings ensued over the
will, and Mrs. Lennard took counsel of Francis Austen, who ended by
winning both the case and her hand. Francis's son by his first wife
(known as Motley Austen) rounded off the family estate at Sevenoaks
by purchasing the Kippington property. Motley's third son, John,
eventually inherited the Broadford estate. Francis's two most
distinguished descendants were Colonel Thomas Austen of Kippington,
well known as M.P. for Kent, and the Rev. John Thomas Austen, senior
wrangler in 1817.
Both the two next brothers of Francis Austen adopted the medical
profession. Thomas, an apothecary at Tonbridge, had an only son,
Henry, who graduated at Cambridge, and, through his uncle's interest,
held the living of West Wickham for twenty years. His descendants on
the female side are still flourishing.
William, the surgeon, Jane Austen's grandfather, is more immediately
interesting to us. He married Rebecca, daughter of Sir George
Hampson, a physician of Gloucester, and widow of another medical
man, James Walter. By her first husband she had a son, William
Hampson Walter, born in 1721; by her second she had three daughters,

and one son, George, born in 1731. Philadelphia--the only daughter
who grew up and married--we shall meet with later. Rebecca Austen
died in 1733, and three years later William married Susanna Holk, of
whom nothing is known except that she died at an advanced age, and
did not mention any of the Austens in her will; neither is there any trace
of her in any of the family records with which we are acquainted; so it
is hardly probable that little George Austen (Jane's father), who had lost
both his parents when he was six years old, continued under the care of
his stepmother. However, all that we know of his childhood is that his
uncle