| JASA Home |
| What's New |
| About Jane | About JASA | JASA News |
| Sensibilities | Calendar | Conference |
| Book Reviews | Library | Writing Competition |
| Mrs Goddards | Regency Fair | Links |
Jane Austen in Perspective: An introduction to Jane Austen
Introduction | The boyfriend: Tom Lefroy |
The friend: Mrs Anne
Lefroy |
The people in Jane Austen's life -
The best friend: Martha Lloyd
What an honour to have been regarded as Jane’s best friend! And Martha Lloyd was even more than that. Her connections with the Austen family were to become a major part of her life.
Most Austen biographers confirm the sisterly and intimate friendship between Jane and Martha.
Park Honan in Jane Austen Her Life refers to Martha as a ‘keen, warm, uncritical laughing friend ... her closest friend’.1
In Becoming Jane Austen Jon Spence notes that:
After Cassandra, Martha was the person Jane was most intimate with. She respected Martha’s judgement and trusted her discretion. She could speak freely to her.2
Claire Tomalin notes the arrival of the Lloyds at Deane parsonage in the spring of 1789, and tells us that:
Mrs Lloyd was the widow of a clergyman with aristocratic connections of the kind Mrs Austen herself boasted, and she made them welcome as a congenial addition to local society.3
The Lloyds were cousins of the Fowles – Mrs Lloyd and Mrs Fowle were sisters – and when George Austen was preparing his own sons for university, he had taken in Fulwar Fowle and his brother Tom as boarding pupils. It was Tom who was later to become engaged to Cassandra, and Eliza Lloyd, Martha’s second sister, married Fulwar Fowle. Tomalin tells us that:
Mary [Martha’s youngest sister] was Mrs Austen’s favourite but although she was close to her in age, Jane never liked her. She preferred Martha, nearly ten years older but with a sense of humour. Stories and poems were dedicated to Martha and she and Jane were happy to share a bed when necessary; they would lie talking and laughing until two in the morning. From now on the Lloyds were a constant part of the Austens’ lives.
Martha was born in 1765 and was baptised at Bishopstone Wiltshire in November 1765.
Maggie Lane, in Jane Austen’s Family – Through Five Generations4 tells us that Martha’s mother taught her daughters to spin, to make lace and to knit their own everyday stockings. They were also sent to Newbury for dancing lessons once a week for seven years.
Irene Collins, in Jane Austen and the Clergy (p. 133), says that while Martha’s education had been somewhat limited – her mother taught her to read by guiding her through the psalms and daily portions of Scripture – teachers also came to the house to instruct in writing and arithmetic, and Martha became interested in reading and looked forward to discussing books with Jane.
Martha Lloyd also enjoyed fashion, theatre, dancing, cooking and long walks with Jane. She was dependable, capable and supportive to her friends and family and there seem to be almost no criticisms of her.
Jane dedicated Frederic and Elfrida5 to Martha with an authorial letter:
My dear Martha
As a small testimony of the gratitude I feel for your late generosity to me in finishing my muslin Cloak, I beg leave to offer you this little production of your sincere Freind.
The Author.
When Martha’s sister Mary married James Austen, on 17 January 1797, Mrs Austen wrote to Mary: ‘Tell Martha she shall too be my daughter, she does me honour in the request’. In later years Martha was able to provide companionship to Mrs Austen, which enabled Cassandra and Jane to visit other family members and friends.
Jane Austen, writing to Cassandra on the death of Edward’s wife Elizabeth, said of Martha: ‘With what true sympathy our feelings are shared by Martha, you need not be told … she is the friend and sister under every circumstance’.6
We know that Martha read First Impressions as Jane mentions this in her letter to Cassandra in June 1799. There are four surviving letters from Jane to Martha. That of November 1800 provides updates on local happenings and planned visits. In the November 1812 letter Jane compliments Martha, who has been helping her friends, by saying ‘you are made for doing good’. In this letter she also advises that Edward is to take the surname of Knight and that Pride and Prejudice has been sold. In February 1813 she provides news of visitors and that Mrs Austen plans to sell Deane. The letter of 2 September 1814 provides details of Jane’s outings in London and her comments on the latest fashion styles. It also refers to Martha coming into some money. ‘It gave me great pleasure to hear that your Money was paid,’ Jane wrote.
Park Honan does provide some insights into Martha’s romance and possible faults: …
once she had suffered in a broken romance, and recovered slowly: ‘I hear Martha.’ Jane had told her sister, ‘is in better looks and spirits than she has enjoyed for a long time & I flatter myself she will now be able to jest openly about Mr W’. But it seems Mr W had left a mark and Martha had become more receptive and self-effacing. Her one fault lay in her goodness or in a slavish running off to those in need, such as to Mrs Dundas, her invalid friend at Barton Court in Kintbury … She took cues in humour from Jane while meeting Mrs Austen’s standards, so seemed an ideal companion. ‘With Martha Lloyd’ Jane once wrote, ‘who will be so happy as we?’7
Susannah Fullerton tells us that Martha Lloyd seems to have been especially fearful of thieves: ‘Tell her that I hunt away the rogues every night from under her bed’, Jane teased in an 1813 letter.8
It was Martha who returned to Steventon with Jane from Ibthorpe in late 1800, to hear the news that the Austens were to move to Bath, and Claire Tomalin notes that Martha helped Jane as they ‘set to steady work sorting her father’s library of 500 volumes prior to their move’.9 Jane’s father died in January 1805, and when Martha’s mother died in the summer of that year, Martha joined the Austen household in Bath. She remained with the Austens during their move from Bath to Southampton and later in 1809 to Chawton. After Jane’s death in 1817 Martha remained at Chawton and helped Cassandra look after Mrs Austen.
|
A Carraway Cake Take 3 pd of flour, 2 pd of Butter. rubed into the flour an ounce of carraway seeds 12 spoonfuls of Milk, 12 spoonfuls of yeast, 12 yolks of eggs 4 whites, beat all these well together put them into your flour stiring it very well. let it stand by the fire side a quarter of an hour to rise. when the oven is hot strew in the carraway’s stiring it all the time. then butter your pan and put in your cake. an hour and a half will bake it. Transcription of the recipe above. |
Martha’s personal legacy to us is her Recipe Book. In The Jane Austen Cookbook we are told that: …
like many ladies of her time, Martha made a collection of culinary and household recipes; hers is in a quarto notebook, bound in white vellum and originally containing 126 pages, watermarked but not dated. She signed her name on the inside back cover, but unfortunately did not give any indication as to when she started using the notebook. The white vellum binding is now yellow-brown with age and wear, several of the pages are missing and others, especially those at the beginning of the book, are loose, frayed and heavily stained ... Some of the entries are very faded and on other pages the ink is so thick and black that it shows through to confuse the writing on the other side. In some cases Martha gives the name of the person from whom she received the recipe and in a few other cases the donor herself wrote the entry.
The book accompanied Martha to her new home at Portsdown Lodge and descended to one of the great-granddaughters of Admiral Sir Francis Austen, who sold it about 30 years ago to the Jane Austen Memorial Trust who now usually have it on display at Jane Austen’s House in Chawton … There are 135 individual recipes … The culinary recipes do not deal with the simple roasting, boiling or baking of food, but record the more complicated requirements for made dishes, or preserving, pickling and brewing tasks not done every day for which a source of reference would be needed.10
In 1827 Mrs Austen died and a year later Martha married Francis Austen – actually on the anniversary of his first marriage, 24 July. Martha was then aged 62 and was nine years older than Francis but it seems they spent a happy 15 years together.
Francis wrote of Martha:
Joined to the profession of much good sense, she possessed the blessings of a sweet temper, amiable disposition, ladylike manners, and, what is of far greater importance, a mind deeply impressed with the truth of Christianity.11
and Park Honan tells us that Martha’s cooking did much to keep everyone content at Frank’s table. They lived at Portsdown House outside Portsmouth. The 1841 census showed the occupants of Portsdown House as Francis, Martha, three children and eight servants, so it would seem that Martha, the former ‘best friend of Jane’ who is often referred to primarily as the Austens’ ‘housekeeper’, did have some help in managing her final Austen household.
On 28 February 1837 Frank was knighted and Martha became Lady Austen. She died in 1843, aged 78.
There is of course much we don’t know about Martha but at least we do have her recipe book and the many references from friends testifying to the fine qualities of her character. She was a dependable, caring and supportive person – an intimate and best friend of Jane’s for 28 years, who finally became an Austen in her own right – a well deserved ‘Lady Austen’.
Lorraine Lock
References:
- Jane Austen Her Life, Park Honan, Phoenix, 1997, p. 78
- Becoming Jane Austen, Jon Spence, Hambledon & London, 2003, p. 134
- Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomalin, Viking, 1997, p.75
- Jane Austen’s Family – Through Five Generations, Maggie Lane, Robert Hale Ltd, 1997, p. 107
- quoted in Park Honan, p. 77
- Letter dated 13 October 1808, in Jane Austen’s Letters, ed Deirdre Le Faye, OUP 1997.
- Honan, p. 231
- Jane Austen and Crime, Susannah Fullerton, Jane Austen Society of Australia Inc, 2004, p. 49
- Tomalin, p. 170.
- The Jane Austen Cookbook, Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye, British Museum Press, 1995, pp. 34-38
- Lane, p. 208.
HOME | What's New | About Jane | About JASA | JASA News | Sensibilities | Calendar | Conference | Book Reviews | JASA Library | Writing Competition | Mrs Goddard's School | Regency Fair | LINKS
FEEDBACK: info@jasa.net.au
10 April 2007