“We have this comfort, he cannot be a bad or a wicked child,” George Austen writing about his second son, George
George Austen, Jane’s second oldest brother is an enigma, rarely glimpsed and hardly known to the world. No image exists of him, which is why the image I used for this post has no face to speak of. George Austen was thought to be mentally or physically impaired, or suffering from an infirmity. Nearly ten years older than Jane, Claire Tomalin wrote that he still lived in Steventon village in 1776 (See Boris’s comment in the comment section) and that the very young Jane knew him.
“He could walk, and he was not a Down’s Syndrome child, or he would not have lived so long, lacking modern medication. Because Jane knew deaf and dumb sign language as an adult— she mentioned talking “with my fingers” in a letter of 1808— it is thought he may have lacked language; it would not have stopped him joining in the village children’s games.” – Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen, A Biography
The Austens produced remarkably hardy children, for all survived their childhood. At forty-one, Jane was the youngest to die. George, who survived to a ripe old age, was cared for along with his Uncle Thomas (a mentally defective person), by Francis Cullum, who lived in Monk Sherborne, a nearby Hampshire village. Although George was not mentioned in Austen family letters, he was not totally forgotten, for the family contributed to his upkeep. The wildly sentimental film, Becoming Jane, shows George as an active member of the family, walking with Jane in the woods and attending church with them, but an article in JASNA rightly states, “It is not likely that he attended church with the Austens, as depicted in the movie.”
Jane, George, Rev. Austen, Eliza de Feuillide and Cassandra after church service in Becoming Jane.
After Jane’s death, mention of George disappeared from several family sources. John and Edith Hubback in Jane Austen’s Sailor Brothers wrote: “In a family of seven all turned out well, two rose to the top of their profession, and one was—Jane Austen.” Their math is obviously wrong. In the Memoir of Jane Austen, her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh mentions that James was the first brother and Edward the second. This historical oversight has outraged some authors, David Nokes in particular, whose reaction is described in a Washington Post review of his book, Jane Austen: A Life:
A second “family secret” hitherto little mentioned is the existence of Jane Austen’s brother George, 10 years older than Jane, who “never learned to speak” and was boarded out for the rest of his life in another Hampshire village along with Thomas Leigh, Mrs. Austen’s mentally defective brother. This George Austen (perhaps the origin of “poor Richard” Musgrave in Persuasion) long survived his sister Jane and lived on into his seventies. David Nokes devotes an indignant last chapter to “poor George” and contrasts the Austen family’s ruthless jettisoning of him — apart from payment of a small, regular fee for his upkeep — with their family’s rather sickening adulation, after Jane’s death, of their “dear angel” Aunt Jane — whose propensity for satire and malice was almost entirely played down, while her simple religious beliefs were elevated into near-canonization.
The Loiterer cautions us about first-hand accounts, saying they can be wildly inaccurate:
“There were eight children in the family and the second brother was George and not Edward who, in fact, was the third brother. George, apparently, was epileptic and may have been deaf and dumb as well. He simply was not allowed to join the family in their home. None of Jane’s existing letters mentions him—not one single time. (In spite of his infirmities, he outlived Jane by at least ten years!) Now, there is something to give one perspective on “first-hand accounts”. – The Loiterer
Another source of outrage for David Nokes was Mrs. Austen, who died in 1823. In her will she had divided the money from her South Sea Annuities equally among the surviving Austen children, with the exception of George.
“He, as usual, was excluded and forgotten. It was Edward Knight who, as an act of kindness, made over his share of the money ‘for the use of my brother George, being his full share of the £3,350 old South Sea Annuities. – David Nokes, p. 525
Francis Cullum, George caretaker, died in the spring of 1834. After his death, his son George took over the responsibilities of caring for George Austen, who died of dropsy in 1838. Once again, David Nokes writes with melodramatic flourish about the loving way in which Jane’s memory was perpetuated by her family, even as they neglected poor George:
“Less than twenty miles away [from Jane’s grave], Jane’s brother George was laid to rest in an unnamed grave in the churchyard of All Saints church, Monk Sherborne. In death, as in life, he was to be forgotten, his remains unmarked by any stone. Only George Cullum was in attendance at George Austen’s death. It was he who noted for the death certificate that George Austen was ‘a gentleman’. – Nokes, p. 526
I cannot express how much I disagree with David Nokes in this instance. The Austens arranged to have George and Cassandra’s brother, Thomas Leigh, looked after by a caring family, and supported these two family members financially. One imagines that with eight children, a boarding school, a small plot of land to tend to with chickens and a cow, and two livings as a clergyman, that the two elder Austens had their hands full overseeing their burgeoning household. The addition of a special needs child who required constant care would have added a great strain to their living situation.
Bedlam inmate shackled in irons, Bethelehem Royal Hospital, London
This was an age where few asylums for the mentally disabled or the physically disabled existed. People with infirmities were looked upon as defectives and many became sideshows at fairs or carnivals, or as beggars on the streets. It was a custom at this time to visit Bedlam and stare at the people in the lunatic asylum. In fact, there were very few institutions available during this era for people of special needs and very few places that could take them in. Bedlam was the only hospital of its kind in London during Jane’s lifetime. Workhouses and almshouses were the only other places where the physically and mentally handicapped could be deposited, and these were places that people strove to avoid at all cost. In addition, there has been a history since the beginning of time in almost all cultures that looked the other way when parents left their defective babies in the wild to die. (This situation still exists today.) Unlike David Nokes, my conclusion is that, given the era the Austens lived in, the family behaved in a remarkably responsible manner towards George, who lived a quiet life of peace and relative comfort for 72 long years. As for the inaccuracies in later biographies written by Austen family members, one wonders how effectively George had been hidden from view. Out of sight is out of mind, and these mistakes of omittance may well have been the natural result of – as David Nokes accused the Austens of doing – the extended family forgetting that George had ever existed.
Gentle reader: In honor of JASNA’s annual meeting in Philadelphia this week, this blog, Austenprose, and Jane Austen Today have devoted posts to Jane Austen and her siblings. This is the last of seven articles devoted to her brothers and sisters. Tomorrow, Laurel Ann and I will recommend several biographies on Jane Austen.
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Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Barontage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one – Persuasion
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