London
St John-at-Hamstead church
This the was burial place for Hastings de Feuillide on 14th October 1801, aged 15.
He was laid to rest with his grandmother Philadelphia Hancock, who was buried in 1792, and would later be joined by his mother, Eliza Austen (formerly Comtesse de Feuillide) in 1813.
A walk through this graveyard transports you back in time amongst rambling paths of old tombstones from centuries gone by.
Some famous names are buried here, which you can discover on the Wikipedia page for St. John-at-Hampstead here.
24 upper berkley street
This was the home of Henry and Eliza Austen from the beginning of 1801 until 1803, and where young Hastings died on 9 October 1801.
Today it is a boutique hotel called Henry's Townhouse.
It has been modernised and decorated as a tribute to Henry Austen and his family, with themed rooms to match their individual personalities.
To browse the rooms or book a stay, you can find the website here.
cleveland court
This building in St. James's Place was the site of Henry Austen's first bank of Austen & Co. which he ran with his business partner, Henry Maunde. They worked here from 1801 to 1803.
The office was situated just along the road from St. James's Palace, which was an affluent part of the city and attracted wealthy clients.
Photo: St. James's Palace
2 Canon Row, Parliament Street.
During 1803, Henry moved his business closer to the Houses of Parliament where it would be seen by more influential patrons
Photo: Houses of Parliament, Westminster.
This was a profitable decision and the bank expanded successfully during this time.
Stationers hall Court, Ludgate Hill
Stationers Hall Court was the area of London where most of the major book printers in England were based, including Benjamin Crosby & Co. whose address was listed at the time of our novel as Number 4, Stationers Court.
Crosby bought the copyright of Susan from Jane Austen in the spring 0f 1803 for £10. This was her very first sale as an author. He advertised it as a new work in 'Flowers of Literature for 1801-2' but never actually printed the book.
It would not be until several years later that she would be in a position to buy it back from him, and even then the manuscript would not be printed until after her death in 1817, under the new title, Northanger Abbey.
The area suffered bomb damage during World War 2, but some of the historical buildings still remain of interest in relation to the beginning of the printing industry.
Spitalfields Life has an article, At Stationers Hall, on its blog that you can read here.
A further source of information is a website by Ian Mansfield called Ian's Visits, which you can read here.
Albany Court Yard
Henry Austen and Henry Maunde moved the offices of their bank again in 1804 to settle here at No. 1, Albany. Their apartment was in the south west corner.
Today the buildings are private homes and photography is not permitted inside the courtyard.
You can find information about its fascinating past on British History Online here.
Next door to Henry's bank at No. 2, was Angelo's Fencing Academy. This was a fashionable establishment as the Angelo family also taught fencing to members of the royal family. You can read Mr Angelo's manual from 1787 -The school of fencing with a general explanation of the principal attitudes and positions peculiar to the art - at archive.org , with explanations and diagrams to teach the gentlemen of the day how to fence. Click here to read it.
You will find Albany Court off Piccadilly, next to the Royal Academy of Arts and opposite the Fortnum & Mason department store.
Left: Royal Academy of Arts. Right: Fortnum & Mason department store.
Many famous residents have lived in the courtyard over the years, including Lord Byron, who resided there from 1814-15. Read more on the Wikipedia page for Albany here.
16 michael's place, brompton
Whilst the bank was based in Albany Courtyard, Henry and Eliza Austen moved to Brompton during 1804. At the time, this was a separate village from London and Henry and Eliza lived in a terraced house overlooking fields and market gardens. The introduction of the railways and expansion of the city soon meant that this village joined the larger conurbation and nothing of the original house or street remains.
The neighbourhood would have been close to the location where the Victoria and Albert Museum stands today and Jane Austen stayed here with Henry and Eliza in during midsummer of 1808.
Painting from a shop window in Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly, London.
Brompton was popular with actors and singers, as well as other prominent society figures, and so many details of life in Brompton at the time of our novel has passed down through history.
Below are links to two articles written by Dave Walker for The Library Time Machine. They include paintings of the houses that would have stood there, and information about the people who lived there.
10 henrietta street
At the start of 1806, Henry Austen moved his bank from Albany Courtyard to Henrietta Street. The bank was growing rapidly at this point, serving multiple army and navy regiments. He and Henry Maunde took took on two extra partners - Henry's brother, Frank Austen and a banker friend, James Tilson.
After Eliza died, Henry moved into the flat above the premises and there is a green plaque on the building today, signifying that Jane Austen stayed there. This was after the timeline of our current novel and so will be addressed in Book 3.
64 Sloane Street.
In the summer of 1809, Henry and Eliza Austen moved here from Brompton. They wanted to be closer once more to the centre of the town and so found a place on a long smart avenue, which boasted of financial wealth and professional success.
further reading
There are several websites and blogs that trace Jane Austen's footsteps around London, covering both her personal life and the characters in her novels. Here are some examples for further reading:
- Memoirs of a Metro Girl offers A guide to Jane Austen’s London | A walk around ‘town’ here.
- On Guide London, Ingrid Wallenborg writes Jane Austen Goes to London here.
- Exploring London provides 10 sites of significance in Jane Austen's London here.
If you would like to track Henry Austen's banking career throughout London during the time of our novel, the Jane Austen Society Annual Report for 2010 has an article by Clive Caplan entitled The Missteps and Misdeeds of Henry Austen's Bank. You will find it on pages 103-109 and can read it online on the Internet Archive here.
extract
If you would like to read an extract from The Austens of Bath where events take place in London, click here.
REFERENCES
Allen, L. (2013) Walking in Jane Austen's London. Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Caplan, C. (1998) 'Jane Austen's Banker Brother: Henry Thomas Austen of Austen & Co., 1801-1816', in Persuasions Magazine No. 20: Jane Austen Society of North America.
Find a Grave (2024) 'Philadelphia Austen Hancock'. Available at: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/204409049/philadelphia-hancock
Le Faye, D. (2013) ‘1808: May 16, Monday & June 4, Saturday’ in A Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family 1600-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.3350 & 351.