I was recently asked to do a tour for a group of students around Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, but the catch was they were studying Jane Austen’s Persuasion and wanted to see it in relation to that book and author.
My old, battered copy of Jane's last novel. The cover doesn't look very naval?
Hmm, not an obvious place to make a Jane Austen connection. But, it turns out there are quite a few. In preparing for the tour it got me thinking in all sorts of new ways about the Dockyard. First of all Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is all about Navy, and Persuasion is all about the Navy – that’s the obvious connection. Captain Wentworth is the romantic hero, having made his fortune in the Navy, through prize money. He is supported by a cast of Naval characters such as Admiral and Mrs Croft who rent the large Kellynch Hall the Elliotts are forced to let, and Captain Benwick and Captain Harville and family who live in straightened circumstances in Lyme Regis. All not currently on board a ship, living on land, on naval half-pay, as the war had ended.
The book was Jane Austen’s last novel before she died and is perhaps her most personal. It is a novel dedicated to praise of the Senior service. The truth was that although the Navy had been riding high on its great victories of the 18th century, up to the great victory of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and had contributed to the cultural identity of a nation dominating the seas, an island defending itself and forging ahead in trade, war and empire, by 1817 this was dwindling.
It was the Army who had won the battle of Waterloo in 1815 and ended the Napoleonic threat for good and the Navy had little to offer after Trafalgar. But Austen had a reason to defend and praise the Navy and raise their profile – she had two brothers in the Navy and had seen first hand what admirable characters they produced. Francis and Charles made their way in the Navy as careers, with all its vicissitudes. While the Navy offered a way to raise your social status, fortunes and have a lifelong career which rewarded independence and initiative it could also be frustrating, leaving you stuck searching for promotion in peacetime, particularly from midshipman to lieutenant and lieutenant to captain. ‘Friends’ in high places and patrons helped, but not money, as in the army. Joining the Navy early, as a young boy under the care of a Captain was one way of gaining powerful friends. But the Austen brothers chose a different route, or rather their father chose a different way for them.
The Old Royal Naval Academy Colin Smith / Historic Portsmouth Buildings / CC BY-SA 2.0. Still to be seen at the end of the Porters Garden in the Historic Dockyard, though behind locked gates as it is in the working part of the Naval Base.
They studied first in the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth, from the age of 11. This had been founded in 1733, to provide a more academic route into being a Navy officer. Here you would learn navigation, mathematics, writing, fortification, drawing, use of the flintlock, fencing, French (useful as a lingua franca when travelling and often naval officers were pressed into being a diplomat in far flung places), dancing (ditto – dancing was believed to be a useful diplomatic skill). The graduates would still face 2 years at sea, placed by the Admiralty with a captain, before lieutenancy exams. It was to produce more of the gentleman and less of the seadog. However, it was not popular with captains and officers, brought up in the old way (6 years at sea under a captain before lieutenancy exams), who wished to be in control of their own captain’s ‘household’ while on board and not have the Admiralty interfere with their group of protegees. For this reason it was not always the best way to start your career in the Navy – and numbers were never very high registering for the Academy. However, the Austen brothers had few naval connections to help them (at least at the beginning, a couple of advantageous marriages in the family to naval people further on in their careers helped), so they took the academy route starting in 1786 and 1791. They both passed and went on to have varied careers. They were promoted within a reasonable time, won prize money, saw action, captured ships but had bad times too: Charles was posted in a ship moored off Sheerness at one point, on which he lived with his wife and family. Later, another of his ships was wrecked and he spent time ‘in the wilderness’ as a coastguard before getting his career back on track, in an extraordinary show of initiative. Living in Gosport, on the opposite side of Portsmouth Harbour, in 1826 he saw that the Aurora, anchored in the Spithead anchorage, had its Captain’s flag at half mast, meaning the Captain had died. He immediately wrote to the Admiralty offering his services, was accepted and was at sea within 4 days of the death, in command of a ship for the first time in 10 years!
Charles Austen about 1810 in a Captains uniform. In Jane Austen and the Navy by Brian Southam
Francis too, spent a long time on shore, and by sheer longevity and seniority rose eventually to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet. After Captain, promotion in this era was by seniority alone, meaning if you survived long enough you would automatically rise to Admiral. Francis, known to Jane as Frank, died aged 91 and is buried in St. Peter and St Paul Church, Wymering on Portsdown Hill.
It is with these officers, who were still in the Navy but on shore, not on active duty, that Persuasion is concerned. Jane Austen sees the naval characters as having certain personal, domestic and professional characteristics, which they bring to life on shore and she shows them adapting into society and society adapting to them. There were many of these naval officers around in 1815, after the end of the Napoleonic wars. Jane had a good chance to see them up close. There were frequent visits to and from Charles and Francis and their families, while they were living in England, as well as frequent letters from and to them when they were as far away as India and the Caribbean.
The Juniper Berry pub (as was) in Castle Square, Southampton, the site of the house where Jane Austen lived with Francis Austen her naval brother 1806-9.
Jane and Cassandra and their mother lived with Francis in Southampton from 1806 to 1809. The location of their house can be seen not far from the city walls where the Juniper Berry pub now is. The small house was shared with Francis and his wife. When we read, in Persuasion the description of the small but ingenious domestic situation of Captain Harville in Lyme Regis, we might recognize the domestic arrangements Jane witnessed at Southampton with Francis. The naval types were practical, solution-orientated, and skilled craftsmen. They brought their experience making small, cramped conditions on board ship more comfortable, to their new land-based domestic circumstances. They make things ‘snug’ – a word Jane uses often in Persuasion originating in a naval word meaning to tightly reef a sail against a storm. In the book, we hear Captain Harville has constructed bookshelves and draught excluders at Lyme and fixes fishing nets and makes wooden tools. Francis Austen was also handy, learning to woodturn, carve things and even carefully cut sewing patterns. The picture below is Francis Austen around 1806 in a Captains uniform. From Brian Southam's book Jane Austen and the Navy.
In Persuasion it is also notable that the naval characters' manners are different to the vain, status-sensitive and frankly snobby manners of the upper gentry typified by Sir Walter Elliott and his daughter Elizabeth (but not the heroine Anne Elliott). The Navy officers are open, kind-hearted, don’t stand on ceremony, generous, hospitable, liberal in their views and the women (in particular Mrs. Croft) are practical, efficient, competent, friendly and supportive. These traits must come from people Jane Austen knew, her brothers and their friends and are always shown in a positive and glowing light by Jane. They seem like people you would want to know and very loyal friends to each other, a ‘band of brothers’ as Lord Nelson would have said. The story of Admiral Nelson, hero of Trafalgar, is the ultimate story of social mobility, determination, underdog-made-good and daring and charismatic leader and gets a little parallel in Captain Wentworth.
When visiting Portsmouth Historic Dockyard you can see HMS Victory in dry dock (built in 1756 and Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar 1805), not only the location used in the last scene of the 1995 TV adaptation of Persuasion, when Anne Elliott and Captain Wentworth sail off into the horizon, but is also a great place to see the ingenious arrangements of the naval officers’ lives. Note the Admiral’s quarters in which all the furniture can be folded up and stowed away or hooked up and guns brought in if the ship was in action. You can also see Admiral Nelson’s foldaway campaign bed. The very same solutions that naval men brought into their admirable domestic arrangements on land, as Jane shows us in Persuasion.
You can actually walk under the great ship, HMS Victory, as it sits in dry dock, as well as go in it.
I can’t help but feel the same problem-solving attitude evident when looking at the old block mills at the Dockyard (visible across the Basin no. 1 next to HMS Victory) – the first steam-powered, machine production line, in 1806. The Navy was one of the only organisations of the time that would need production on such a huge scale: 130,000 blocks (or pulleys) a year needed to rig the navy ships, and before Marc Brunel (father of Isambard) designed the machinery and the factory, it took 110 skilled woodworkers.
The old block mills are on the right. The Dockyard still operates as a Naval Base, and they are not accessible. The most modern aircraft carriers berth at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, seen on the left.
A block, or pulley - the Navy needed 130,000 a year to rig the ships
Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is one of the world’s greatest preserved Georgian dockyards and the great storehouses, mast ponds, boat houses, basins, dry docks and office blocks are still there, even if not used for the same purpose. All as Jane Austen would have known them and certainly as her brothers and her heros would have known it, as they joined their ships and came back to England through Portsmouth.
The Royal Dockyard in 1796 - the 3 grand red-brick, late 1700s storehouses in the middle of the plan are still there (now the Royal Naval Museum) as is the top mast pond, Great Basin, Camber and rope house as well early office buildings.
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