Frank Austen Transcript complete!
‘And by the bye—shall you object to my mentioning the Elephant in it, & two or three other of your old Ships?’ With these words, written 6 July 1813, Jane Austen introduced her latest novel, Mansfield Park, to brother Frank on duty in the Baltic on HMS Elephant. In her novels we meet men inside female space. In his memoir Frank Austen invites us to see the world from the North Atlantic and the West Indies to India and China through the eyes of an active sailor. Illuminating a key period in British history, his memoir describes in vivid detail the frustrations and successes of a naval career: battles and blockades, long voyages far from home, promotions gained and denied, the capture of enemy vessels and his share of prize-money. He comments on the ships in which he sailed, on fellow naval officers, and those under whom he served, including the great Lord Nelson. Austen’s fictional sailors owe much to Frank who might have stepped straight out of the pages of her most navy-inspired novel, Persuasion.
– Kathryn Sutherland, 2025
As one of the most famous and well-loved authors in English literature, Jane Austen’s life has been pored over by scholars and fans alike. One area of interest is the Austen family’s connection to the Royal Navy, particularly through the experiences of her high-flying sailor brothers Francis and Charles Austen.
Francis Austen – known as Frank to his family – went to Naval College in Portsmouth at the age of 12 and over the course of a long and prestigious career he rose up through the ranks to become Admiral of the Fleet. A career like Frank’s, sailing all over the world and gaining promotions, would surely have been of great interest to his brilliant novel-writing sister… In many ways – from characters such as Captain Wentworth and William Price, to the names of ships named in Persuasion and Mansfield Park – the Navy wove its way into Jane Austen’s novels.
In 2024 Jane Austen’s House was fortunate to acquire the unpublished manuscript memoir of Admiral Sir Francis William Austen. We hoped that it would help us to tell Frank’s story, and indeed it offers a unique insight into his career in the Navy, a career which comprised most of his life.
Our goal was to transcribe the 41-page Memoir and publish it online, so that everyone could access this valuable resource. This also gave us an opportunity to engage our worldwide audience, by asking for volunteers to each transcribe a page of Frank’s story. Our appeal quickly caught the attention of the global press and within 24 hours we had received over 2,000 offers from keen volunteer transcribers! We were, of course, thrilled to see so much engagement with our project!
The volunteers were each assigned a page of the Memoir and dutifully transcribed it. These transcriptions were then compared and combined to create a full transcription. The task was not without its challenges – from interesting spelling and punctuation to spindly handwriting, the Memoir was not always the easiest to read.
We are so grateful to everyone that helped us with this project and are delighted to have brought together amateur historians, fans of Jane Austen, and friends of the Museum from all around the world. It was an impressive undertaking and a rewarding one.
We’d also like to thank Lesley Peterson and Fiona MacConnacher for their invaluable help reviewing the pages, and Diane Setterfield whose personal essay on her experience of transcribing a page offers an intimate and revealing account of the process!
We are delighted to present the full transcription of the Memoir of Francis Austen for you to read and enjoy. If you’d like to see Frank’s Memoir in person, it’s now on display here at the House, in the Brothers’ Room!
New in at Jane Austen’s House:
We also haven’t forgotten Admiral Sir Charles Austen! We are delighted to be able to display two beautiful portraits of Charles and his first wife Fanny Palmer, which have been generously loaned to the House to help us celebrate Austen’s anniversary year.
