Jane Austen, the Cravens and the Leigh family
Jane Austen, the Cravens and the Leigh family.
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| DR671/56 Jane Austen is listed as receiving jewellery after the death of Mary Leigh in 1806 |
On the right hand page we find the names of three of the daughters of Elizabeth Craven, the writer who was at one time married to the 6th Lord Craven. The married daughters are "The Countess of Sefton" and "The honourable Mrs St. John" while the unmarried Georgiana is "The honourable Miss Craven". Both the Cravens and the Austen family were related to the Leigh family, and so they are mentioned side by side in this list of beneficiaries. This common link was one of several connections Jane Austen had with the family of Elizabeth Craven.
The connections are fairly distant and rather complicated as there were two branches of the Leigh family. One owned Stoneleigh Abbey, a very grand house in Warwickshire near to Coombe Abbey, and the other lived in Adlestrop in Gloucestershire.
The connections are fairly distant and rather complicated as there were two branches of the Leigh family. One owned Stoneleigh Abbey, a very grand house in Warwickshire near to Coombe Abbey, and the other lived in Adlestrop in Gloucestershire.
Stoneleigh Abbey
Through her mother, Jane Austen was related to the Gloucestershire Leighs, descended from Theophilus Leigh a century earlier. Jane Austen's maternal grandfather was the Reverend Thomas Leigh, rector of Harpsden in Berkshire. His daughter married the Rev. George Austen and among their seven children were two daughters, Jane, the writer, and Cassandra, whose pen sketch is the only portrait we have of her sister.
Mrs Austen's brother, James Leigh, inherited an estate called Northleigh through his grandmother, and added her birth surname, Perrott, to his. Mrs Austen's cousin, another Reverend Thomas Leigh, inherited the estate at Adlestrop.
Adelstrop Park
Meanwhile their more remote cousin Edward, Lord Leigh, owner of the Stoneleigh estate, was declared insane, and died in 1786. Lord Leigh's mother had been Maria Rebecca Craven, the aunt of the 6th Lord Craven, who married Elizabeth Craven.
The Stoneleigh estate then passed to Lord Leigh's sister the Hon Mary Leigh, but only for her lifetime, to revert after her death to the nearest male relative. Mary Leigh was the 6th Lord Craven's first cousin, so he, and his sons, daughters, nephews and nieces were all regarded as likely beneficiaries. Mary Leigh's first Will bequeathed the estate to her nephew by marriage, Robert Augustus Johnson who had married a sister of Lord Craven. There was an entail so that in the event of his death the estate would pass to Lord Craven, But in 1803 she was persuaded to make a new Will leaving the bulk of the estate to the Rev. Thomas Leigh, the cousin of Jane Austen's mother Cassandra Leigh.
When we look at the list in the Will, only three of Elizabeth Craven's daughters are there. This is because the eldest, Elizabeth who married John Maddocks, died in 1799, some years prior to the Hon. Mary Leigh making this Will. The three remaining Craven sisters are bequeathed something to the value of £50 each, and beside the name "Hon. Miss Craven" are written the words "Brilliant broche" indicating an item chosen as being to that value.
The values specified for each of the Austen daughters are far less generous, only £5 5s each. Even in 1806, five guineas was a paltry sum in view of the size of the fortune of Lord Leigh and it was a small fraction of what was left to the far richer Craven girls. Miss Leigh's system seems to have been to leave the largest bequests to those who were rich already. The word "Rings" written vertically on the page suggests that each beneficiary got one worth five guineas. Mrs Austen's name is listed on the right-hand page and she got something to the value of ten guineas. There were many things the Austen ladies needed more than jewellry.
In 1806, when Mary Leigh died, Mrs Austen had been left widowed at Bath. She and her daughters were left with a very inadequate provision and forced to apply for help from Jane's brothers and other members of the family. In the summer of 1806 they went to stay with various Leigh relatives, including their cousins at Adlestrop. There they received the startling news that the Rev. Thomas Leigh had inherited the Stoneleigh estate, a splendid property comparable to Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice. The Rev. Thomas was kind enough to invite the Austens to stay at Stoneleigh as his guests for about five weeks, during July and August. Jane, her mother and her sister enjoyed the visit very much, although they must have felt like poor relations - rather like the Dashwoods at the beginning of Sense and Sensibility.
A letter of 1806 written by Jane Austen's uncle, James Leigh-Perrott, mentions the Leigh family inheritance and Lord Craven. Lord Craven was said to have met in London with his relative "Col. Dalrymple who married Mrs Johnson's daughter". James Leigh-Perrott was rather annoyed at not inheriting the Abbey himself, and Jane Austen wrote that his wife was disappointed at not becoming "mistress of Stoneleigh". Mrs Leigh-Perrott is listed as a beneficiary of the Will on the right-hand page but she only got an item worth ten guineas, the same amount as Mrs. Austen.
It is sometimes said that while they were in Warwickshire the Austens visited Coombe Abbey, Warwick Castle and Kenilworth Castle. But I have looked at the letters written by Mrs Austen from Stoneleigh in 1806, and although she mentions Warwick and Kenilworth Castles, I cannot find any allusion to Coombe, which was by this time owned by Elizabeth Craven's son. The letter Mrs Austen wrote from Stoneleigh has been published ( in R. A. Austen-Leigh, ed., Austen Papers 1704-1806, London 1942,244-247.)
By 23rd August, Jane and her mother and sister were staying at Hamstall in Staffordshire with another cousin the Rev. Edward Cooper. How nice it would have been if she had visited Coombe too, and met Elizabeth Craven while she was there.
Sources:
Kearsley's Complete Peerage, of England, Scotland and Ireland, Volume 1 By George Kearsley
The Leigh Peerage: Being a Full and Complete History of the Claim of George Leigh, Esq .to the Dormant Title of Baron Leigh, of Stoneley, in the County of Warwick: Comprising a Report of the Evidence Taken Before the Lords' Committee for Privileges, with Notes, Analytical and Explanatory: and Certain Additional Evidence, Forming the Ultimatum to this Very Mysterious Case ...H. K. Causton, 1832…
p 27 Will of the Honourable Mary Leigh 1786.
Gaye King "The Jane Austen Connection", Stoneleigh Abbey: the house, its owners, its lands ed. R. Bearman.
https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/jane-austen-200/
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