Please excuse my tongue-in-cheek title, for this is reference made by Jane Austen, who associated Southampton with the smells of its "stinking" fish market situated close to Jane Austen's home. In her early work, Love and Freindship, Jane writes, "Beware of the unmeaning Luxuries of Bath and of the stinking fish of Southampton." (Letter the Fourth)
You may remember my tour of Jane Austen's Southampton from a few years ago. I was excited to return to Southampton again this year to participate in some of the Jane Austen 250 events that are taking place in the city where Jane Austen resided briefly with her brother Frank's family.
My first port of call (please excuse the pun!) was the Sea City Museum, which is more famously known for its wonderful Titanic exhibit, which I recommend seeing if you are interested in the history of the Titanic. However, this year the museum is also hosting a small exhibition called "A Very Respectable Company - Jane Austen and Her Southampton Circle", which discusses Jane Austen's association with the city. In the exhibition, you can learn about some of the people who Jane Austen associated with during her stay in Southampton.
Jane visited Southampton to stay with her cousin, Elizabeth Harrison, in 1793, whose husband, John Butler Harrison, was mayor of Southampton.
During her stay in Southampton, Mrs Harrison gave birth to her daughter, Elizabeth Matilda, and made Jane her godmother.
Jane returned to Southampton from Bath in 1806 following the death of her father, as her naval officer brother, Frank, rescued Jane, her mother and sister Cassandra and their friend Marth Lloyd from genteel poverty. Frank was looking for a place to live, and Southampton was close to Portsmouth where Frank was stationed at the time; Frank found a home here and invited the ladies to stay with his growing family. Jane came to Southampton" with happy feelings of escape" and stayed until 1809 when Frank started having financial difficulties and could no longer support them.
There is a household book on display at the museum, which belonged to the Austen family and may have been used here alongside Martha Lloyd's household book. The book was started by Jane Austen's great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Weller, in around 1700 and was passed down the female line in the family. This page shows recipes such as Indian curry and black pudding.
From the exhibition I learnt that, in 1800, Southampton was an elegant town with 8000 inhabitants. It was quite a small town, contained within its medieval walls, and had a narrow network of medieval streets. There was also a pretty seaside boulevard where Jane Austen enjoyed walking, but sadly this no longer exists. The town was heavily bombed in the Second World War and no longer looks the same, but some of these medieval and Georgian buildings still exist. After the museum visit, I participated in a guided walking tour around Jane Austen's Southampton, as I wanted to learn more about the history of this area.
The tour started from God's House Tower by the seaside that was used to protect the city in the medieval times and was used a prison in Jane Austen's times. The worst criminals such as murderers and debtors were kept in the tower of this building.
On the other side of the building next door, there is a plaque explaining Jane Austen's connection to this area. It was wonderful to see so many plaques for Jane Austen in various parts of the city, which I will share in this post. This plaque talks about how Jane used to promenade here by the seaside, and her brother, Frank, ice-skated here in the winter.
Walking up the road from here, we come to the site of the Sugar House where sugar was refined. Jane Austen went to boarding school somewhere in the vicinity with her sister Cassandra and cousin Jane Cooper in 1873. Typhus broke out in the Sugar House, and this affected Jane, Cassandra and Jane, too, who all became very unwell and Jane herself was severely affected by the disease. Thankfully, Jane survived the illness, but her cousin passed away. However, it is believed that Jane's early illness might have shortened her life later on.
We walked up the road towards Jane Austen's home, following the medieval city wall.
Jane stayed with her brother, Frank's family at No 2 Castle Square. There is new plaque on the wall of Juniper Inn, the site of the Austens' former home, which was sadly demolished in 1903.
No 2 Castle Square was a tall, three-storey building, and the Austens rented the building from their neighbour, John Petty, 2nd Marquis of Lansdowne. The house was in what had been the centre of the medieval town and probably used to belong to a medieval merchant and later given a Palladian makeover.
Across the square, there was a gothic style castle built by The Marquis around the ruins of the medieval castle. This was pulled down after a decade, but the Georgian style Lansdowne House where Lady Lansdowne lived during her widowhood still stands.
From the photo above, you can see a tall building behind the city wall and Juniper Berry on the right. The tall building is where the Marquis' gothic castle stood when Jane stayed here.
We then walked past Holyrood Church where Jane's neighbour, Hugh Hill, preached. This was not the church where the Austens worshipped, as they preferred All Saints Church, but there is a plaque for a famous composer of the time, Charles Dibdin, who was babtised here. His music was very popular, and Jane owned copies of his work; in fact, she copied his song, Soldier's Lament, for the pianoforte, amending the title to Sailor's Lament!
We also stopped in front of Ansbach House next to Westgate, where the author, Lady Elizabeth Craven, lived during Jane's stay here. She was a flamboyant personality who had affairs and travelled extensively around Europe. Her life was not without scandal, and she would certainly deserve an interesting post of her own!
I thoroughly enjoyed my guided tour of Jane Austen's Southampton and learnt a lot from the knowledgeable guides here. If you would like to participate in a similar tour, you can book it through here.
To see my previous tour of Southampton, click here: https://austenised.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-tour-of-southampton-with-happy.html
References and further reading:
Butler, C. (2017). Jane Austen and Southampton Spa. The Diaper Heritage Association.
I enjoyed this article Anna. It sounds as though you are getting really acquainted with Southampton. It’s not a bad place.😀
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment! I feel like I know a lot more about Southampton after the tour and the exhibition. There's more to Southampton than most people think! Are you going to visit any time soon?
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