A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Explanatory Notes
59 a niece of Sir Montague Cholmeley: Jane Cholmeley (1744–1836), and
according to Life & Letters, 134, he was her cousin. As Mrs Leigh Perrot
she was another of JA’s more colourful relations. In 1799 she was charged
with shoplifting–– stealing lace from a shop in Bath–– and committed to
Ilchester Gaol, facing the death sentence or, more likely, transportation,
if convicted. Her trial took place in March 1800, when she was acquitted,
though her innocence has subsequently been questioned. In Life & Letters,
the first family biography to mention the incident, W. and R. A.
Austen-Leigh include material which suggests that Mrs Austen offered
to send either Jane or Cassandra to stay with their aunt while in gaol. The
offer was declined, but they conclude with a melodramatic flourish: ‘So
Cassandra and Jane just escaped a residence in gaol and contact with
criminals’ (p. 135). None of these exciting events, occurring only a year
before the Austens moved to Bath, finds its way into JEAL’s account,
though they must have continued to hang in the air and to affect the
family’s social standing in the city. (See Fam. Rec., 106–10; and David
Gilson’s Introduction to the recent reprint of Sir F. D. MacKinnon,
Grand Larceny, Being the Trial of Jane Leigh Perrot, Aunt of Jane Austen
(1937); repr. in Jane Austen: Family History (5 vols., 1995); vols. not
numbered.)
the Master of Balliol: the Revd Dr Theophilus Leigh (1693–1785), mentioned
at pp. 11–13 above. For a possible example of Mr Leigh Perrot’s
skill with epigrams, see p. 37 and note above.
The unfinished story . . . residence in Bath: a sentence added in Ed.2,
which prints for the first time The Watsons (so-called by JEAL ‘for the
sake of having a title by which to designate it’) from the manuscript in
Caroline Austen’s possession. In Ed.1 the opening sentence of this paragraph
reads: ‘She does not appear to have had any work in hand during
her four years’ residence at Bath . . . ’, suppressing at this time knowledge
of the unfinished story.
fall of Louisa Musgrove: an incident in JA’s last completed novel, P, ch.
12. The Cobb is the large, raised, stone breakwater, broad enough for
walking on, skirting the harbour at Lyme Regis in Dorset.
then removed to Southampton: the time-scale was less compressed than
JEAL suggests. The Revd George Austen died 21 January 1805; Mrs
Austen and her daughters moved in March to No. 25 Gay Street, Bath;
but they did not leave Bath finally until July 1806 or take lodgings in
Southampton until October of that year, when they set up home with the
newly married Frank Austen.
those four years: the period spent in Bath–– May 1801 to July 1806–– was
five and not four years; but it was an unsettled time in JA’s life, with
much travelling. Letters, nos. 35–48, are recorded as belonging to this
period–– more than JEAL knew of, but still not many. Biographers have
variously interpreted these unstable years: that they contributed to a
conjectured depression which may have prevented JA from building on