Catharine had the misfortune, as many heroines have had before her, of losing her parents when she was very young.
Jane Austen – Catharine, or The Bower (From Juvenilia)
Philadelphia Austen Hancock, born 15 May 1730, died 26 February 1792
Jane rather admired her Aunt Philadelphia, the elder sister to her father Revd George Austen. She died when Jane was 16 years old, and there must have been many discussions about her life and travels that fascinated a young Jane. It is thought that she wrote her aunt Phila into her Juvenilia, and you can see the beauty of the Austen family in this portrait painted onto a ring.
At a youthful 22 years old, Phila set out for Calcutta, India, to find a husband of her own. Her siblings were early orphans, and with no dowry to speak of nor family connections, she knew she had to marry well to secure her future.
On that long crossing, she made friends with Margaret Maskelyne who was also seeking a husband. They agreed that the East India Company was the place to find single men, and a few months after her arrival on 22 February 1753, Phila married a surgeon Tysoe Saul Hancock.
Margaret met and married his colleague Robert Clive, who eventually became the Commander in Chief of British India. The two couples later befriended another East India couple, Warren and Marian Hastings, and for a short time all three couples shared a home together.
Phila and Tysoe remained childless for nine years until December 1761, when her daughter Eliza was born. It was therefore speculated that Hastings and not Hancock was the father of her only child. To add to the rumours, Hastings gave Eliza, known as his godchild, a huge fortune of ten thousand pounds to secure her future and ensure that Phila would also live comfortably the rest of their lives.
To England
In 1765, the Hancocks returned to England aboard HMS Medway, accompanied by their Indian servants. They arrived in London in the summer of 1765. Struggling financially, Hancock returned to India where he hoped to increase his fortune for his family. He would never return, and died in Calcutta on 5 November 1775 at the age of 51.
To Europe
Philadelphia was worried about her future after her husband’s death, as their income would now be restricted and not enough to live in the city of London. With the intention of finding a finishing school for Eliza, they left for Europe in 1777.
Mother and daughter first visited Germany, Belgium and then France, where they settled in Paris. Often attending royal events that included the French Queen, Marie Antoinette, they moved in wealthy circles. It was then in 1781 that Eliza met and married Jean Capot, Comte de Feuillide, who became a French count.
It was on a visit to England that Phila became a grandmother when Eliza gave birth prematurely to a son at Calais on 25 June 1786. The new baby boy was given five impressive names, Hastings-François-Louis-Henri-Eugène.
They returned to France who was at war with England, and decided it was no longer safe to stay. The family returned to England in 1789, around the same time that the French Revolution broke out.
It was also during this time that the first signs of breast cancer appeared. Eliza wrote to her cousin Phylly about her mother’s illness in June 1791,
Dear Cousin, … I wished to have it in my power to inform You of some change for the better; My Dear Mother’s general health continues, Thank God, pretty good and her Breast I trust is in a more promising state than when You quitted Town.
By October Phila’s condition was much worse, and she consulted a surgeon who told her there was no hope. She wrote out her will, and was under his care when she died on 26 February 1792, with her daughter and son-in-law by her side.
She is buried in the churchyard of St John-at-Hampstea in London, where her gravestone reads,
In memory of Philadelphia Wife of Tysoe Saul Hancock whose moral excellence united the practice of every Christian virtue she bore with pious resignation the severest trials of a tedious and painful malady and expired on the 26th day of February 1792 aged 61.
Further reading:
This blog post was inspired by a new book by Jan Merriman titled Jane Austen’s Remarkable Aunt, Philadelphia Hancock: ‘A Girl of Genius and Feeling
Meet Jan and find out more about her research at a special author’s event in April at the Jane Austen House Museum
Read more about Phila’s daughter Eliza and her dalliance with the Austen family in the blog post For the Love of Eliza
Deirdre Le Faye (1979) a paper titled Jane Austen and Her Hancock Relatives
Thank you to Rowan and Rowan for their photographs of Philadelphia Hancock‘s Jewellery found through Geri Walton, who has written a more in-depth blog post that contains excerpts from her own book, Jane Austen’s Cousin: The Outlandish Countess de Feuillide.
