Block 21: West Wind for Tom Fowle

Block 21: West Wind for Tom Fowle by Becky Brown

Illustration by William C. Cooke  from Emma, 1892

Jane’s sister Cassandra fell in love with a boarder at her father’s school. Three Fowle brothers attended the school, becoming close to James Austen and his sisters. When Cass was in her early twenties she and Tom Fowle agreed to marry but, as a minister in the Church of England, Tom had to wait to marry until he secured a living. Through an eminent cousin, the Earl of Craven, Tom was promised a position in Shropshire when it opened up. Until then marriage was postponed and their engagement remained private.

Lord Craven by Francis Cotes

The Fowles named Tom’s brother Craven

 Fowle to honor the family patron.

Tom’s options changed when the King’s brother Frederick Duke of York, Army Commander-in-Chief, began to worry about the Army’s moral and political health. Hoping representatives of the Church of England would keep soldiers from sin and ungodly radicalism, the Duke ruled chaplains must accompany regiments into the field. 

Sailors Carousing by Cruickshank

The change of duty inspired many chaplains to retire on their pensions, thus opening the field to younger men like Tom Fowle. Tom sailed to the West Indies as a chaplain, not so much for the money, but as a favor to a cousin who might return the favor by patronage.

Capture of Trinidad by Nicholas Pocock

Lord Craven led his troops under Sir Ralph Abercromby, engaged in empire building against the Spanish who were allied with the French enemy. Poorly-defended Spanish colonies in the Caribbean were too tempting to ignore and Abercromby captured the island of Trinidad, declaring it a British colony in February, 1797.

The arrow at right points to Trinidad; 
the other to Santo Domingo southeast of Cuba.

"The North Sea" is the Caribbean.

Craven’s chaplain Tom Fowle probably did not live to see that victory. He died in early February in Santo Domingo in what we call the Dominican Republic, an island north of Trinidad.

Yellow Fever (Yellow Jack) traveled beyond the 

tropics with ships and sailors.

He succumbed to a fever, perhaps yellow fever, malaria, encephalitis or any of the diseases transmitted by the mosquitoes that actually ruled the tropics. The threat of dying on duty in the West Indies was so great that Lord Craven wrote he’d never have asked Tom to join the troops had he known he was engaged.

West Wind by Georgann Eglinksi

Ashdown Park

Jane and Cass continued to visit the Fowle family after Tom’s death and they gossiped about Lord Craven, Lord of the Manor at Ashdown House. In 1801, Jane wrote her sister that cousin “Eliza has seen Lord Craven …. She found his manners very pleasing indeed. The little flaw of having a Mistress now living with him at Ashdown Park seems to be the only unpleasing circumstance about him….”

West Wind by Bettina Havig

Cassandra never married. We can recall her lost fiancé with West Wind, given the name by the Nancy Page quilt column in the 1930s.

BlockBase #1393

Cutting a 12” Block

A - Cut 5 squares 4-7/8”. Cut each in half with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

You need 5 triangles.

B - Cut 2 squares 8-7/8”. Cut each in half with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

  

You need 2 triangles.

Sewing:

West Wind by Becky Brown

Block 20: Best Friend for Martha Lloyd

20 Best Friend for Martha Lloyd by Becky Brown

Martha Lloyd, Lady Austen (1772-1843) 

The Chawton Cottage museum owns this photo of Martha and a favorite dog.

Mary’s sister Martha Lloyd became an Austen sister too, first as a companion and affectionate friend to the neighbor house of adolescent Austens and later as Cass’s sister-in-law after Jane died.

In 1805, after Martha's sister married and Mrs. Lloyd died, Martha was faced with an awkward future. As a single woman in her thirties, she could not continue to live alone at Ibthorp. Even if she could afford it, a woman just did not live alone.

Ibthorpe House has changed little since Jane visited the Lloyds here.
I just read that their last name Lloyd was pronounced Floyd.

In Jane Austen’s England, a young- to middle-aged single woman had to guard her reputation by finding a home with relatives. Martha’s friends, the Austens, invited her to merge households with them, brother Frank and his young wife in Southampton. When the Austen sisters and their mother moved to Chawton, Martha went with them.

Daumier pictured the intellectual woman

 (Bluestocking) preferring books to cuisine. 

Martha took over the kitchen in the Austen/Lloyd household.

Best Friend by Georgann Eglinski

Martha read (and probably commented on) Jane’s manuscripts, which prompted a typical joke in a letter to Cass. When Martha asked to read the early Pride and Prejudice one more time Jane asserted that Martha “was very cunning , but I see through her design;-she means to publish it from memory & one more perusal will enable her to do it.”

The Austen Patchwork at Chawton Cottage

"My dear Cassandra, have you remembered to collect pieces for the Patchwork? -- We are now at a standstill," wrote Jane in 1811, reminding her sister they were working on a bedcover at Chawton Cottage. We must remember that Martha also lived at Chawton and likely had a hand in the group project.

Chawton Cottage, photo by Bettina Havig

After Jane died in 1817, Cass, Martha and Mrs. Austen remained at Chawton. Ten years later Mrs. Austen died and Martha married brother Frank when both were in their early sixties. At that point the widowed Frank had 11 children ranging in age from 5 to 21 years old.

Best Friend by Bettina Havig

The 1841 census found them living at Portsdown Lodge (Martha’s age was recorded as a generous 50—a typical white lie), with three girls still living at home and eight servants. Martha died two years later at about 70 in actual years.

Sir Francis Austen, Admiral of the Fleet

Both Sir Francis and Lady Austen lived long enough to be photographed. Frank died in 1865 in his nineties.

Best Friend by Dustin Cecil in silk

Read more about the Austen quilt in a post I did two years ago. I didn’t then think of Martha as one of the seamstresses, the “we” Jane wrote about, but she was always there.

http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2012/04/austen-quilt.html

Fashion plate, three women, 1810

We’ll celebrate the friendship of the Austens and Martha Lloyd with Best Friend, a block published in 1932 by a batting company that designed patterns under the name of Grandmother Clark.

BlockBase #1885

Cutting a 12” Block

A-    Cut 20 squares of various shades 2”.

B - Cut 16  squares  of various shades 2-3/8”. Cut each in half with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

You  need  32 triangles.

C - Cut 4 rectangles 5” x 3-1/2”.

D – Cut 1 square 3-1/2”.

Sewing:

And on the subject of Jane Austen and needlework (called just "work" in Jane Austen's England):

Her niece Caroline Austen recalled Jane's mornings at embroidery.

"I think she generally sat in the drawing room till luncheon: when visitors were there, chiefly at work---She was fond of work---and she was a great adept at overcast and satin stitch---the particular delight of that day…."

Best Friend by Becky Brown

Block 19: Cross Patch for Mary Lloyd Austen

Block 19: Cross Patch for Mary Lloyd Austen by Bettina Havig

Mary Lloyd Austen (1771-1843)

Mary Lloyd was an Austen family neighbor in Steventon. After her father died in 1789, young Mary moved with her mother and older sister Martha to the parsonage at Deane, a house rented out by Reverend George Austen.

The house at Deane

When Mary married James Austen in 1797 she became Jane’s sister-in-law, although those were not the words commonly used for the relationship in Jane Austen’s England. Jane would have probably called her my sister Mary.

Jane often discussed sister Mary with Cassandra in the letters and was not often kind. We guess Cassandra destroyed the frankest of Jane’s letters so Jane may even had worse to say. What was the problem between Jane and Mary?

James Austen

Speculation is that in the year before marrying Mary, James had courted his cousin Eliza. Both James and Eliza were widowed and close in age, but Eliza made a good choice in James’s charming young brother Henry. James then made a good choice in friend Mary whom Eliza described as "not either rich or handsome, but very sensible & good hu­moured." 

"Domestic Happiness"

Mary’s good humor did not extend to Eliza after her marriage. The James Austens do not seem to have joined the family circle when the Henry Austens were visiting. Jane, Eliza and Henry were close, so the rift may have begun. “She is in the main NOT a liberal minded woman,” wrote Jane to Cassandra.

Cross Patch by Becky Brown

(Another brilliant fussy-cut!)

Jane, who'd lived there all her life, was unhappy

to leave the Steventon rectory in 1801.

When Jane’s father retired from his two parishes at Deane and Steventon, resentment seems to have increased. As eldest son, James took over the parish and parsonage at Deane, evicting the Lloyds. James then took over Steventon, evicting the Austens. The gentle evictions (or, perhaps, not so gentle) were standard procedure but Jane blamed Mary for taking advantage of her parents move to get their furniture at a good price. Oh, to be a fly on the wall!

Cross Patch by Becky Brown

We’re taking sides here in a family quarrel but Cross Patch seems a good block to remember Jane’s sister-in-law Mary. This name for an old pattern was published in 1930 in the agricultural periodical The Rural New Yorker.

It’s BlockBase #2414 .

Cutting a 12” Block

A – Cut 2 squares 2-7/8”. Cut each in half with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

  

You need 4 triangles.

B – Cut 2 squares 5-1/4”. Cut into 4 triangles with 2 diagonal cuts.

You need 8 triangles.

C – Cut 10 squares 3-3/8”.

D- Cut 1 rectangle 3-3/8” x 9”.  

Cross Patch by Georgann Eglinski

UPDATE: Cross Patch by Dustin Cecil

Block 18: Indian Star for Warren Hastings

Block 18: Indian Star for Warren Hastings by Bettina Havig

Warren Hastings 1732-1818 ( Print after a Joshua Reynolds painting)

Warren Hastings enjoyed a place in the family circle, a spot familiar in Jane Austen’s England, but curious to us. He was either Cousin Eliza Hancock’s natural father and/or her godfather and patron. We have very little evidence other than one item of gossip that he and Jane’s Aunt Philadelphia had an affair and none that he was father to her only child.

Indian Star by Georgann Eglinski

There is much evidence he was Eliza’s patron, giving her a fortune of £10,000 and assisting her and Philadelphia in their social contacts in India, France and England. Eliza named her only child Hastings, a gesture often made to honor a patron or win future benevolence.

An Indian view of Warren Hastings

Indian Star by Becky Brown

Some historians believe Warren Hastings also assisted Jane’s brothers Frank and Charles in their impressive Navy careers.  He certainly had the influence needed to obtain promotions for young friends. He had been Governor-General of India when Jane was born and in 1814 became a Privy Councillor, that is, member of a private group advising the Regent towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars.  

First edition of Pride and Prejudice

Hastings was a fan of Pride and Prejudice, as Jane enthused to Cassandra in 1813:

“And Mr. Hastings! I am quite delighted with what such a man writes about it. Henry sent him the books…”

Warren Hastings with his second wife, the Baroness Imhoff and a servant.

Hastings was either a friend of  Jane’s father George or of her mother's family the Leighs (perhaps both). As a young man Hastings joined the East India Company as a clerk. In India, he married Mary Elliott Buchanan who died in Calcutta after their second child Elizabeth was born in 1761. The widower sent his older son George to England for the conventional education and chose George and Cassandra Austen to act as foster parents at Oxford, where the child died.

Indian Star by Becky Brown

Becky cut the 4 center squares from the same

fabric and rotated the figure to get a kaleidoscopic detail

in the center.

Hastings’s political trial was a major event 

In late Georgian England

Hasting's career had its ups and downs, financial and political. Two years after returning from India he was charged with corruption in his governance for the East India Company. It was not hard to find evidence of corruption but blaming Hastings for the pervasive colonial attitude was a political move. The trial went on for seven years until 1795, when he was acquitted.

James Gillray showed Warren Hastings

weighted down by his fortune.

To remember Warren Hastings and the East India Company: Indian Star---given that name by the Kansas City Star in 1937.  The name refers to Native Americans but we’re recalling the time when the British viewed their colonies simply as the East Indies and the West Indies.

BlockBase #2155

Cutting a 12” Block

A – Cut 8 squares 3-1/2”.

B – Cut 1 square 7-1/4”. Cut into 4 triangles with 2 diagonal cuts. 

You need 4 triangles.

 C- Cut 4 squares 2-7/8”. UPDATE: That is 3-7/8"  Cut each in half with a diagonal cut to make 2 triangles.

  

 You need 8 triangles.

Sewing

The Hastings relationship to the Hancocks and the Austens fascinates us Janeites. You can find all sorts of speculation on the web.

Read Sydney C. Grier’s 1905 biography online in The Letters of Warren Hastings to his Wife:

http://archive.org/stream/lettersofwarrenh00hastrich/lettersofwarrenh00hastrich_djvu.txt