Frances Fitzwilliam “Fanny” Palmer Austen
Heartily do we pray for the safety of all that travel by sea.
Jane Austen Prayer
Fanny Palmer was born in June 1790 and died September 1814, and inspired Jane to write her novel Persuasion.
She met Jane’s brother Charles in Bermuda when she was 15, and he was 12 years her senior. They were deeply in love, and married at St Peter’s Church, Bermuda on 19 May 1807.
Fanny visited England in 1811 and found that she and Jane had many things in common, including a love of the sea. Jane was inspired to write her novel Persuasion from Fanny’s experiences, and admired her strength of personality. When Cassandra first met Fanny she described her as ‘A very pleasing little woman, she is gentle and amiable in her manners, and appears to make Charles very happy.’
This charming profile masks the spirited and brave woman Fanny was, living on board the warship HMS Namur with her husband and their three daughters. She wrote many letters in her lifetime, like Jane, and they reveal a real and honest account of the challenges she faced and describes what it was like to be a naval wife and mother living at sea during the later years of the Napoleonic Wars.
There was often fighting at sea, and sometimes the families were taken off ship and sailed to safety, and other times kept below when fighting took place. Fanny’s brother Robert John was captured and held as a military prisoner of war in France for 8 years. He later accompanied Charles on his next ship, HMS Pheonix for some months, and they would sail together as often as they could.
Fanny visited England in 1811 and found that she and Jane had many things in common, including a love of the sea. Jane was inspired to write her novel Persuasion from Fanny’s experiences, and admired her strength of personality.
When Cassandra first met Fanny she described her as ‘A very pleasing little woman, she is gentle and amiable in her manners, and appears to make Charles very happy.’
Sometime after she arrived in England in 1811, Fanny’s silhouette was taken in London at the fashionable shop of Meirs and Field at 111 The Strand.
Fanny visited England in 1811 and found that she and Jane had many things in common, including a love of the sea. Jane was inspired to write her novel Persuasion from Fanny’s experiences, and admired her strength of personality. When Cassandra first met Fanny she described her as ‘A very pleasing little woman, she is gentle and amiable in her manners, and appears to make Charles very happy.’
This charming profile masks the spirited and brave woman Fanny was, living on board the warship HMS Namur with her husband and their three daughters. She wrote many letters in her lifetime, like Jane, and they reveal a real and honest account of the challenges she faced and describes what it was like to be a naval wife and mother living at sea during the later years of the Napoleonic Wars.
There was often fighting at sea, and sometimes the families were taken off ship and sailed to safety, and other times kept below when fighting took place. Fanny’s brother Robert John was captured and held as a military prisoner of war in France for 8 years. He later accompanied Charles on his next ship, HMS Pheonix for some months, and they would sail together as often as they could.
Fanny returned to England in 1812 and 1813 and spent time with her father John Grove Palmer at Southend, Essex. The following month was spent at Godmersham Park, and after sending her sister Esther and son Hamilton home to Bermuda, spent more time in England with her family.
Fanny unexpectedly died on HMS Namur when she was only 24 years old. It was after the recent birth of their fourth child, a daughter Elizabeth, who also died three weeks later.
Charles was devastated by her death, and it is thought that Jane recorded his grief in the character of Captain Benwick in Persuasion. Charles was a keen writer of diaries, journal entries, logs and letters. His diaries tell us of his loneliness at sea and dreaming of ‘my lost & ever lamented Fanny and of our poor little ones.‘
Dedication to a Wonderful Wife
Charles was devoted to Fanny and loved her dearly. You can feel this in the words etched on Fanny’s burial stone.
Sacred to the Memory of
FRANCES FITZWILLIAMS AUSTEN,
wife of
Capt. Charles John Austen, (of the Royal Navy),
who Died in Child Bed, Sept 6th, 1814,
Aged 24 years.
Stop, Passenger and Contemplate!
A Child whom Nature’s God had taught the Way,
Her Parents’ dictates ne’er to disobey;
A Sister in whom Center’d every Love,
To Charm the Angels in the Realms above,
A Loving Wife, a Parent Truly dear,
A Pious Christian and a Friend sincere,
Reader! Example take, let you and I
Live as She liv’d, and like Her learn to Die.
Sleep on dear fair One, wait the Almighty’s will,
Then rise unchang’d and be an Angel Still.
Also their infant Daughter ELIZABETH,
who Died 20th September, 1814. Age 21 days.
Fanny Palmer Austen is buried at Kentish Town St John the Baptist
Further Reading
Read about Fanny’s husband, Jane Austen’s Navy brother Charles Austen.
Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister: The Life and Letters of Fanny Palmer Austen by Sheila Johnson Kindred.
Based largely on correspondence from 1810-1814, and on Fanny’s diary, Sheila concludes that Fanny, who spent two and a half years living aboard ship with her husband, Captain of HMS Namur, was the basis for Mrs Croft, the wife of Admiral Croft in Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion.
Sheila has a wonderful website that features a blog post – Fanny, Jane and Seaside Watering Places
Watch the wonderful video put together by Chatham Dockyard that features Fanny as part of their Hidden Heroins at Sea series.
Fanny Palmer Austen, a 19th Century Hidden Heroine of Chatham Dockyard
