Cassandra Austen

Cassandra Elizabeth Austen was born January 9, 1773, two years before her famed sister Jane. In a family of 6 boys, the girls became fast and close friends.

Education was extremely important to the Austens. The girls’ father, Rev. George Austen, ran a boarding school out of their home, the Rectory, in Steventon. Jane and Cassandra went to the Abbey boarding school in Reading. This was Jane Austen's only education outside her family. Within their family, the two girls learned drawing, to play the piano, etc.

 The girls returned home and lived at the Rectory, an integral part of their community until their removal to Bath in 1800. It was also in this house that Jane first experimented with her writing and penned The History of England (By a Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant Historian) which Cassandra, ever the artist in the family, illustrated with portraits of the various kings and queens mentioned there (but who curiously resembled members of the Austen family.)

In about 1794, Cassandra became engaged to a former student of her father’s, Thomas Fowle. This engagement carried on for some time as Tom was waiting for a family living in Shropshire to become available. Eventually, he decided to join the military as an army chaplain and was sent to the Caribbean. Unfortunately he contracted Yellow Fever and died there in 1797. It was some time before the Austens heard the news and while Cassandra benefited from an annuity left in his will (she inherited Tom's savings of £1000 which yielded about £50 per year.) she never recovered from this blow and, like Jane, never married.

 Perhaps because of this connection the sisters remained each other’s closest confidant and friend. The sisters wrote each other nearly every day while apart and over 100 of these missives survive today giving us a better picture of both Jane, the author, and the sister she loved so much.

In January 1805, during their lengthy stay in Bath, the Reverend Austen died. The income due to Mrs. Austen and her two daughters, the only children still at home was considerably reduced -- since most of Mr. Austen's income had come from clerical "livings" which lapsed with his death. So they were largely dependent on support from the Austen brothers, summing to a total of about £450 yearly.

In 1806 they moved from Bath, first to Clifton, and then, in autumn 1806, to Southampton. Southampton was conveniently near to the navy base of Portsmouth and the naval brothers Frank and Charles. Jane and Cassandra lived together with Jane writing and Cassandra doing the housework. However the situation was not to last. Cassandra’s beloved Jane had fallen ill with what doctors now believe to be Addison’s disease. In early 1817, the sisters moved to Winchester, in Alton, so that she could be under a physician’s care. Jane died there on Friday, July 18th 1817, aged 41. Jane Austen was buried in Winchester Cathedral, near the centre of the north aisle. "It is a satisfaction to me to think that [she is] to lie in a Building she admired so much… I have lost a treasure, such a sister, such a friend as never can have been surpassed. She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow, I had not a thought concealed from her, and it is as if I had lost a part of myself" Cassandra later wrote. Cassandra destroyed many of her sister's letters; one hundred sixty survived but none written earlier than her twentieth birthday.

Cassandra was destined to long outlive her sister Jane. She continued on at Chawton with regular visits to her brothers, nieces and nephews. In 1827 Mrs. Cassandra Austen, the girls’ mother, died and was buried in the Chawton cemetery. Cassandra continued living alone until her death at the age of 72, in 1845. Many people blame Cassandra for the way she handled Jane Austen’s estate after her death. Most of what we know of Jane Austen today, we owe to her sister Cassandra. It was she who filled in gaps in her sister’s life for generations after, leaving an oral record to supplement the written. It was she who gave us the only two authenticated likenesses of her sister.