George Romney - children's hair

In this post I am looking at some paintings by George Romney.

Romney was a friend of Ozias Humphry, the artist who painted the Rice Portrait. For identification of Ozias Humphry as the artist responsible for the Rice Portrait, you can read art conservator Eva Schwan's report HERE. Page 13 shows Ozias Humphry's monogram in the lower left area of the portrait.

Humphry's signatures have also been detected on a 100 year-old photograph of the portrait, which you can read about on my blog HERE. In that post you can also read about how Romney and Humphry's style of painting were so similar that it took a celebrated court case in 1917 to determine that a painting of the Misses Waldegrave was in fact painted by Ozias Humphry and not George Romney. The case was decided when a preparatory sketch of the portrait was produced which showed Humphry's distinctive monogram of an H within an O.

Like Ozias Humphry, George Romney paintings date entirely to the eighteenth century. He was born in Dalton-in-Furness in 1732 and retired in ill-health to Kendal in 1799 where he died in 1802. So, we can be confident that, like Ozias Humphry, who was functionally blind by 1798, a portrait which is identified as a Romney, cannot date to the nineteenth century.

One of the objections which has been raised against the Rice Portrait, eg HERE, is that the hairstyle of the girl in the Rice Portrait dates the portrait to the nineteenth century, not the eighteenth. But is this correct? If the portrait was painted in 1788 or 1789 as the Austen family have always believed, then Jane would have been about 13 years old and still considered a child and it is therefore childrens' hairstyles that we should be looking at.

If Romney painted children with short, similar styles to the girl in the Rice Portrait, then this would demonstrate that the style could indeed date to the late eighteenth century.

Did he?

Well, let's take a look.

First up - a painting which many believe to be his masterpiece: The Gower Family: The Children of Granville,2nd Earl Gower painted in 1777, which hangs at Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal.

The painting depict the five youngest children of Lord Gower. The eldest girl, with the tambourine is Anne, child of his second marriage, whilst the four younger children are by his third wife, Lady Susannah Stewart.

The girl in the green dress on the left is Georgina Granville, born in April 1769, who later married William Elliot and became Countess of St Germans. Look more closely here at her short hair:

Next, here are the Misses Cumberland, painted in 1773.

The daughters of dramatist Richard Cumberland, Elizabeth (b1759) is on the left and Sophia (b1761) is on the right. They are holding a copy of their father's play The Fashionable Lover, published in 1772. Sophia therefore would be around 13 years old.

Here is Sophia's hair, close-up:

Here are some more examples:

The Vernon Children:

Two Children in a Wooded Landscape:

Portrait of Maria Emily Fagniani as a child (Painted in 1783 when she was aged about 12):

Now compare to the style of hair of the children in these portraits to the style of the hair in the Rice Portrait. Remember, all these portraits were painted before 1800.

And yet it is argued that the hairstyle of the girl in the Rice Portrait cannot date to before 1800.

What do you think?

Lanhydrock and Anna Maria Hunt

This week I visited Lanhydrock house in Cornwall.

This imposing country pile situated between Bodmin and Lostwithiel in mid-Cornwall is now a flagship property for the National Trust. It was for many years the home of the Agar-Robartes family and had been in the ownership of the Robartes since around 1621 when Richard Robartes bought the house. Richard's father John Robartes had amassed huge riches supplying fuel to the tin industry while Richard Robartes made money as a 'gentleman-moneylender'. He used his wealth to buy power and influence, purchasing the Baronetcy of Truro from the Duke of Buckingham for £10,000.

Richard Robartes son, another John, was a staunch Parliamentarian, but as Cromwell moved towards an English 'Terror', with the execution of Charles I and military dictatorship, a disenchanted Robartes retired quietly to his Lanhydrock estate. He found favour after the Restoration with Charles II despite his lack of friends and social skills; Pepys said that he was 'a destroyer of everybody's business and doth no good at all to the public'. Nevertheless, it was under John Robartes ownership that a substantial part of Lanhydrock house was built.

After John Robartes death, his successors, preferring London life to a Cornish backwater, lived elsewhere and throughout the eighteenth century the house was sorely neglected. When traveller John Loveday visited in 1736, he said the house was 'extremely out of repair and utterly destitute of furniture.'

By the end of the eighteenth century the house had passed, by the marriage of Mary Vere Robartes (d.1758), to the Hunt family of Mollington Hall, Cheshire. Mary's eldest son George Hunt made extensive alterations and refurnished the house in contemporary style. He also tried to make the exterior of the house look more contemporary by following the prevailing fashion for brick and painted the granite exterior red.

George Hunt never married and over time it became accepted that his niece Anna Maria Hunt (1771-1861) would inherit Lanhydrock. She was the daughter of George's brother Thomas Hunt and his wife, Mary Bold. The couple had two children, Mary Vere in 1766 and Anna Maria in 1771. Sadly, Mary Vere Hunt died when her sister Anna Maria was just 9, and her father Thomas died in 1789 when Anna Maria was 18 years old. Unsurprisingly then, Anna Maria and her mother Mary Hunt remained close for the rest of their lives.

Mary Hunt by Joseph Wright of Derby circa 1795

Mary Hunt by George Romney 1769

When she was 21, Anna Maria's Uncle George commissioned George Romney to paint a portrait of his niece and heir. Romney had already painted Anna Maria's mother, in 1769. Romney had written in his notebook for that year: 'Mrs Hunt's picture before it be well dryed the coloure is apt to turn verry yellow my picture will turn yellow in a small degree but that will come of if the picture is well dryed. If it should be the case with Mrs Hunts setting of it in a strong light a day or two will bring it to its original clearness

Anna Maria sat for Romney seven times at his studio in 1792 and the portrait was delivered to the home of George Hunt at Seymour Place, London, on 20 June 1793. Possibly the picture was intended as an engagement portrait, but if so, the event never happened. Some time later her dog Dragon was added and her hairstyle changed to reflect the fashion of the day.

Anna Maria Hunt by George Romney 1792/3

In 1798, at the age of 27, Anna Maria Hunt did inherit Lanhydrock - but she did not inherit her uncle's wealth. The money went to another branch of the family. leaving Anna Maria with £68,000 of debt and £100 to run the estate. It is a testament to her determination, hard work and sound financial management that over the coming years she managed to get the house on a sound financial footing although she did not spend a huge amount of time here, preferring to live in Mayfair, London close to her mother Mary. In order to bring the exterior up to date, in imitation of Portland stone she had the granite exterior of the house painted yellow.

In 1804 Anna Maria married Charles Agar, a 35 year old lawyer and youngest son of Viscount Clifden. The marriage settlement stipulated that she would continue to exercise control over a substantial portion of her money. They had three sons, Charles, Thomas and Edward, but by 1818, Anna Maria's husband and two of her three sons were dead, leaving only her middle son, Thomas James. Anna Maria Hunt continued working to maintain the Lanhydrock estate until well into her seventies alongside her son.

Anna Maria Hunt died in 1861 and her son Thomas inherited Lanhydrock. Thomas had married Juliana Pole-Carew of Antony House in 1839. On 4 April 1881 they were in the house when a huge fire broke out. A telegram was sent to London: Lanhydrock on fire. Only the Gallery left. Lord and Lady Robartes well. In fact Lady Robartes died four days later and Lord Roberts the following year.

The Jacobean ceiling in the Long Gallery which survived the fire

In 2015 there was an incredible find at Lanhydrock when a book dating from 1495 was linked to Henry VIII. The book is a summary of the writings of the theologian William of Ockham and contains notes and annotations by the king's advisors to build a case for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.


As I have mentioned HERE the great interest for me at Lanhydrock is the portrait by Romney of Anna Maria Hunt for its possible relevance to the long running debate about the dating of the costume in the Rice portrait. Some costume experts in the past have claimed that the puffed sleeves of the girl in the Rice Portrait are one of the costume features which date the painting to c1805 and the National Portrait Gallery, as far as I am aware, remains of this view today. Yet we know that the portrait of Anna Maria Hunt was delivered in 1793 and she is also wearing puffed sleeves.

I've put the dresses side by side below so you can compare them - to me the sleeves look remarkably similar.

Anna Maria Hunt painted 1792/3 left and Rice Portrait right

I am indebted to the article by Ann Marie Curtis, An Accidental Heiress in Lanhydrock Journal number 10  and to Paul Holden, house and collections manager at Lanhydrock House for information about Anna Maria Hunt and her portrait.

Thank you for reading.


Ellie Bennett

The Rice Portrait - Who were the Harding Newmans? - Part Four - Benjamin Harding Newman

Benjamin Harding Newman was born in Cork, Ireland in 1842, the son of Captain Benjamin Harding Newman and his wife Anna Lefroy Sadleir. His maternal grandmother was Elizabeth (Eliza) Lefroy, younger sister of Thomas Langlois Lefroy.

Benjamin Harding Newman's father died in Bermuda of yellow fever when he was an infant and the 1851 census shows Benjamin living at 16 St George Road, Cheltenham with his grandmother Elizabeth, mother Anna and younger sister. Harriet. Ten years on at the time of the 1861 census the 18 year-old Benjamin is recorded as a boarder, living with farmer and landowner John Hastings and his family at Gressenhall in Norfolk.  

In 1868 Benjamin married Charlotte Augusta North, the daughter of John North, a general medical  practitioner and J.P. from Brecon, Wales. (Three years later Charlotte's brother John Cunningham North married Helen Stringer in New Romney, Kent and later practiced as a surgeon and apothecary at Horsmonden, the village where Jane Austen's family originated. When John North was practicing it was the home of John Francis Austen, nephew of Colonel Thomas Austen. John Cunningham North died of pneumonia on 11 May 1882 at Horsmonden, at the early age of 34.)

In the 1881 census Benjamin Harding Newman is listed at 91 Kensington Gardens Square, West London with his wife Charlotte and their six young children and five servants. He is recorded as having no profession so perhaps he already had an income from other property.

Benjamin's uncle, Rev. Dr. Thomas Harding Newman died on 21 April 1882 with probate granted on 5 June 1882. His will recorded the following provision:

I give my wines spirits and consumable stores my furniture plate books and china glass pictures prints drawings objects of art and vertu and other household effects at Nelmes and my horses carriages garden and stable utensils and outdoor effects to my Nephew Benjamin Harding Newman absolutely. 

Excerpt from will of Thomas Harding Newman

Thomas Harding Newman left his property interests at Blue Hole, Hanover in Jamaica to Charles Harding Newman Ringer, the son of his step-sister Julia; the remainder of his property including his estate at Nelmes and at Great Clacton he left to Benjamin, albeit with some encumbrances which we'll come to in a minute.

Nelmes, Essex 

In my previous post on Rev. Dr. Thomas Harding Newman I related that he had written to his friend Dr John Rouse Bloxam in 1880, stating that he wanted to give the portrait of Jane Austen in his possession to their mutual friend and Bloxam's neighbour, John Morland Rice. In the event he never did pass the portrait on to his friend. The portrait therefore must have passed with the other effects to his nephew Benjamin. This is borne out by a further letter, from Dr John Rouse Bloxam to a third party. On Easter Monday 1883 Dr. Bloxam wrote a letter to his friend General Gibbes Rigaud. In it he said:

Talking of paintings Hardman [sic] Newman, nephew of Dr Newman has just sent me a full length portrait by Zoffany of Miss Austen, the novelist, to give to Rice, who is a connection of the Lady.  - Rice is much pleased with it - I knew that Newman intended to leave it to Rice, but did not, - but his nephew to his great credit has given it.

At the time Benjamin Harding Newman was no doubt feeling rather well-off, having just inherited considerable land, estates and property from his uncle. In the same year, 1883, he sold one of these inherited estates, the 265 acre manor of Romford or 'Mawneys' to a housing developer.

But financial problems were looming. Rev. Dr. Thomas Harding-Newman, in an effort to ensure his relatives were financially looked after, had made a number of provisions in his will which gave various individuals a claim against the estates. A cousin, Thomas Harding Newman, was given an annual charge of £80; his brother's widow Anna Lefroy Newman was given £100 per annum; his niece Harriet Croker was given £300 per annum; his sister Eliza Hall Allies was granted an annual rent charge of £100 per annum and his butler Henry Tyrell was granted £50 per annum.  This was in addition to various bequests to family members and servants.

As early as 1886 there were signs of problems in making these payments as evidenced by a series of letters held by the Hampshire record office. In that year Tankerville Chamberlain landowner and MP and an old friend of Rev. Dr Harding Newman, wrote to his solicitor on behalf of Henry Tyrell explaining that Benjamin Harding Newman had stopped payment of the annuity and asking for his assistance:

The writer of the enclosed was butler to an old friend of mine, Dr Harding Newman, Fellow of Magdalen College. He can’t get his annuity and wants to know if he has any remedy, I have told him to call on you on Thursday at 3. Please advise him and debit me. 

On 27 Jan 1887 Benjamin Harding Newman wrote to Tyrell paying the outstanding balance of eleven shillings and offering £500 to discharge Tyrell's claim on the estate:

I enclose you an order for 11 shillings as balance of annuity. I see no prospect of either rents or tithes being paid with anything like punctuality in the future, are you willing to accept £500 to discharge your claim on the estate. I do not make the offer but might be inclined to do so, or purchase an annuity from an insurance office if you prefer.

Benjamin Harding Newman was by no means alone; Britain had been facing a severe agricultural depression since around 1873 and by the 1880s many landowners were experiencing colossal losses in income.    

Richard Harding Newman by
Romney  - the 'Pink Boy'

In 1889/90 Benjamin Harding Newman sold the portrait by George Romney of his great-grandfather Richard Harding Newman. It was acquired by Alfred de Rothschild and later by Michael Arthur Bass, 1st Lord Burton for £8000, and was hung above the fireplace in the drawing room at his Mayfair mansion Chesterfield House, where it became known by the sobriquet the 'Pink Boy'.







By the 1891 census Benjamin and Charlotte Harding Newman, together with three of their children, Thomas, Edith and Marian, are recorded as being at 18 Cleveland Square, Paddington. Described as living on own means' they have still retained a ladies maid and a cook, parlourmaid, kitchenmaid and housemaid.

Then, in 1894, Benjamin Harding Newman was declared bankrupt. According to the bankruptcy proceedings Benjamin was living at the Inns of Court Hotel in Holborn, and prior to this at the Great Western Hotel in Paddington and for some time at Llangoed in Brecon, home of his wife's family. The bankruptcy court recorded that Harding Newman had been living off the income from his estates which were encumbered with mortgages and annuities. Benjamin himself blamed pressure from his creditors, excessive interest charges and the agricultural depression for the bankruptcy.

In 1895 the southern part of the Nelmes estate at Hornchurch was sold to developer William Carter of Dorset who built the Emerson Park estate, now a prestigious residential area popular with West Ham footballers.

Plans for Emerson Park Estate

In the 1901 census Benjamin Harding Newman, his wife Charlotte and three of their six children are living in Surbiton with Benjamin still recorded as living off his own means. In the same year the northern part of the Nelmes estate was also sold for development and in 1903 the house itself, Great Nelmes, was sold to Alfred Barber, a sack and bag manufacturer from Islington. In June 1902 Benjamin Harding Newman made a short will; his address was given as Mawneys, Catherine Road, Surbiton in the County of Surrey. (He had evidently named his house after the estate he had sold in Romney) He bequeathed all his property to his son Edward, a captain in the British army and mentions a debt to Martins Bank of £60 to be paid from his estate.

Benjamin's wife, Charlotte Harding Newman died in 1908 at Newmarket, presumably at the home of her eldest son Francis who lived at Chippenham, Newmarket in Cambridgeshire.

After this there appears to have been a radical change in circumstances for Benjamin Harding Newman. For at the time of the next census, taken on 2 April 1911, he is recorded as lodging with a grocer, Frederick Mewton, his wife Annie and two sons at Brookside, Mount Charles, St Austell, Cornwall.

Benjamin Harding Newman on the 1911 census 

The Mewtons were a Cornish family, originally from nearby Roche, where Frederick Mewton's father was a shoemaker. Frederick and Annie Mewton also acted as witnesses to a codicil Benjamin Harding Newman added to his will on 05 October 1914, in which his address was given as  'formerly of Mawneys Catherine Road Surbiton in the County of Surrey but now of Brookside Watering Hill St Austell Cornwall'. The Great War had started and his son Edward was serving with the British Expeditionary Force in France. As Edward was the sole executor of his father's will, Benjamin therefore made provision, in the event of his son pre-deceasing him, that his eldest daughter Edith should act as executor. The debt to Martins Bank evidently remained outstanding for he renewed the direction that payment of £60 'or any other sum which I may owe to them and interest thereon' should be paid from his estate.

I have been unable to discover what could possibly have brought Benjamin Harding Newman to live in Cornwall. None of his six children lived in the area and his sister Harriet was in Oxfordshire; there is no connection to St Austell that I have uncovered.

And here is a very curious coincidence - if coincidence it is.

The Cassandra Sketch

The portrait of Jane Austen owned by the National Portrait Gallery and which is on display is the unfinished sketch thought to have been drawn by Jane's sister Cassandra. The National Portrait Gallery purchased the sketch  at a Sothebys auction in 1948 from the dead estate of Frederick Richard Lovering, a china clay merchant, whose residence was a grand town house in the centre of St Austell named 'Caprera'. The Lovering family were well established as one of the major industrial families of St Austell. Born in 1861, Fred Lovering was instrumental in forming the important china clay manufacturing company of ECLP (English Clays Lovering Pochin and Co), later the English China Clays Group.

Lovering had purchased the portrait along with a lock of Jane Austen's hair and some of Jane Austen's letters from the grand-daughters of Jane's brother, Charles Austen in 1925-7, with the assistance of Austen scholar Robert Chapman. Lovering is described by Austen scholar Claudia Johnson in her book Cults and Cultures as 'certainly one of the first collectors of Austeniana.' According to Deirdre Le Faye, Frederick Lovering was a neighbour of Charles Austen's descendants, however I can find no record of any of Charles Austen's descendants  living in St Austell.

Isn't it rather strange that two men, who both owned portraits of Jane Austen (hardly a commonplace), happened to live at the very same time in the same relatively obscure town in Cornwall? It is very possible that Benjamin Harding Newman knew Frederick Lovering during the years he was living in St Austell, a small town with limited opportunity for socialising. Did Benjamin Harding Newman tell Lovering the story of the portrait of Jane Austen he had inherited from his uncle and then given to Morland Rice? Could it be this connection that lay the foundation for Frederick Lovering's interest in collecting memorabilia of Jane Austen?

Benjamin Harding Newman died aged about 75, on 21 July 1917. By now he was living at Highfield Avenue, a street of modest terraced houses, in the centre of St Austell. Administration was granted to his son Edward. (Brigadier-General Edward Harding Newman survived both world wars and did not die until 1955) At the time of his death Benjamin Harding Newman's personal estate was valued for probate at fifty-three pounds, eight shillings and sixpence.

Will of Benjamin Harding Newman 

Probate entry for Benjamin Harding Newman

And now, with Benjamin Harding Newman's death, the connection of the Harding Newman family to the portrait of Jane Austen, through three generations, finally came to an end.

Jane Austen & the Rice Portrait - Who were the Harding Newmans? Part One - Thomas Harding Newman and his antecedents

Richard Newman Harding by George Romney

In my previous post about Eliza Hall, I recounted how the Rice Portrait, according to its later owner Rev. Dr. Thomas Harding-Newman, was given to his step-mother, Eliza Hall. It was to remain within the Harding-Newman family for over fifty years. So who was this family and what do we know about them?

Previous generations

Eliza Hall’s husband, Colonel Thomas Harding Newman was the son of Richard Newman Harding. He was born in 1757, to Sarah Newman, daughter of Richard Newman of West Ham Abbey in Essex and Benjamin Harding, of Hacton House, near Hornchurch.

Like the Hall family, the Hardings and the Newmans owned slave plantations in Jamaica. The UCL site Legacies of Slave Ownership records the relationships between the various members of the family with dealings in Jamaica which were principally at Blue Hole in Hanover.

In around 1770/71 the youthful Richard Newman Harding had his portrait painted by George Romney, not long before the latter set off on a tour of Italy with his close friend Ozias Humphry in March 1772 to study the great Italian artists. The portrait descended down the family line to Benjamin Harding Newman, who sold it in 1890. (I'll explain the likely reason he decided to sell it in a later post.)

The abstemious Schutz

In 1776 at the age of nineteen Harding married seventeen-year-old Harriet Schutz, the daughter of Francis Schutz who was third cousin to Frederick, Prince of Wales. His family had come over from Hanover with George I but his chief claim to fame now is the portrait of him by William Hogarth, which portrays Schutz vomiting into his chamberpot while lying in bed nursing a monumental hangover. The portrait was allegedly commissioned by his new wife Susan Bacon, to remind him he must leave his debauched ways behind. Later his descendants had the painting reworked to replace the chamberpot with a more respectable newspaper.

'Francis Matthew Schutz in his bed'
 by William Hogarth

The vomit has now been restored and the painting is in the ownership of Norwich Museum and Art Gallery.

It was from the Schutz family that Richard Newman Harding inherited the estates of Black Callerton in Northumberland and Great Clacton in Essex.

In 1783 Richard Newman Harding took the name Newman in order to inherit from his grandfather, who had owned an estate at Great Nelmes near Hornchurch in Essex and other properties and thus formally became Richard Newman Harding Newman. In 1806 after the death of Harriet Schutz, Richard married Rosamond Bradish with whom he had two children before his own death in 1808 whereupon his eldest son, Thomas Harding Newman (b.1779) inherited the bulk of the estates and a share of the Blue Hole Plantation in Jamaica.

Col. Thomas Harding Newman married three times. His first wife was Harriet Cartwright, the daughter of John Cartwright of Ixworth and with her he had two sons, Thomas and Benjamin and a daughter, Harriet. After Harriet Cartwright's death in 1815, Thomas married Eliza Hall on 29 December 1817, and it is at this time that Colonel Austen is believed to have presented the portrait of Jane Austen to Eliza as a wedding gift. Thomas and Eliza went on to have at least three children: John, Eliza and Julia. Eliza Hall Newman died in 1831 at Exmouth, presumably at the home of her brother Thomas, who lived at Littleham, Exmouth for many years.

Thomas Harding Newman married his third wife, 58 year old Anna Maria Parry in 1840. Anna Maria was the daughter of the late Charles Henry Parry, the vicar of Speen, Berkshire and his wife Mary Ann née Shephard. Charles Parry had been ordained deacon in 1778 and became vicar of Speen two years later, succeeding his father-in-law Thomas Shephard who resigned his position. He held the post for eight years until his early death at the age of 31.

Anna Maria's mother, Mrs Mary Parry, owned land in Speen and in nearby Shaw cum Donnington. She had lived at Donnington Priory, once owned by the Cowslades, which passed to her under the will of John Cowslade but in later years she lived in Clifton with her daughter, Harriet Allen. Presumably, Anna Maria was also living with Harriet and her husband until her own marriage to Thomas Harding Newman, as they married in Clifton. A third sister, Catherine, had died in 1832.

From 1833, Mrs Parry's property in Speen was rented out to  James Edward Austen, Jane Austen's nephew. Two of his children were born in Speen, Spencer and Arthur Henry, and the Austens remained here until James Edward inherited nearby Scarlets at Hare Hatch from Mrs Leigh-Perrot in 1837 and added Leigh to his family name. Mrs Mary Parry died the same year. Her will refers to her property in Speen 'now in the occupation of the Reverend Mr Austin and others' which she leaves to her two surviving daughters Anna Maria Parry and Harriet Allen. When James Edward moved into Scarlets at the beginning of 1837, his mother Mary and sister Caroline moved into the Parry's house in Speen.

Speen, of course, has other connections to Jane Austen, through the inter-connected families of Lloyd, Fowle and Craven. The Fowles were at Kintbury, five miles down the road, while the Lloyd's aunt, Mrs Craven, was living at Speen Hill.

After their marriage, Thomas and Anna Maria Harding Newman lived initially at Northam, near Bideford in North Devon. They are recorded as being here on the 1841 census and in 1845 Thomas' son-in-law Thomas Allies refers to a visit to his wife's father at Bideford so he must presumably be still living in Devon at this date. But by 1851 they have moved to Anna Marie's birthplace for the 1851 census shows them living at Church Speen Lodge, Speen.

(It appears that the Essex house Nelmes was let to Thomas Walmesley and his family, who in turn let the house to his brother-in-law Henry Petre who lived there for six months in 1859 while his own house was being renovated. Walmesley's niece Lucy described the house as a 'curious old place with a ghost room'. It was also, apparently, teeming with rats.)

Speen Church

Thomas Harding Newman died in 1856 and when his will is proved he is referred to as 'Thomas Harding Newman formerly of Nelmes in the Parish of Hornchurch in the County of Essex but late of Speenhill in the County of Berks.'

In his will Thomas Harding Newman left his plate linen and horse and carriage to his wife. His eldest daughter received five hundred pounds, his three youngest children were left Woodspeen Farm and £5000 divided between them. The remainder of his considerable estates and property went to his eldest son, Rev Dr Thomas Harding Newman. Anna Maria Newman continued living at Church Speen until her own death in 1872 at the age of 90. In 1861 members of the Majendie family appear on the census as visitors staying with Anna Newman, who lived very close to the vicarage. They were relatives of Henry Majendie, the vicar of Speen from 1819 until 1870, who was a friend of James Edward Austen Leigh.

It was clearly not only Thomas Harding-Newman's second wife, Eliza Hall, who had connections with Jane Austen. His third wife, Anna Maria Parry, had connections to the Austens too.

Given these connections, it is likely that James Edward Austen-Leigh knew about the portrait of his aunt in the ownership of Thomas Harding Newman. Yet he chose not to use it in his own biography of Austen published in 1869. Why? My guess is that the reason is due to bad feeling between the Hampshire and the Kent Austens. James Edward's father James was the eldest son. The generally accepted system of passing money through the family in the eighteenth century was via the system of primogeniture whereby the eldest son would inherit the family wealth, often leaving the remaining siblings with comparatively little. Yet James Austen had been passed over. It was younger brother Edward who was adopted by the wealthy Knights and Edward who was the wealthy member of the family. James Austen, who often fretted over his finances, would have had to have been a saint not to feel some resentment of his younger brother's good fortune. I have long been of the opinion that the Austens were far from the close-knit family portrayed in the Memoir. Furthermore, on the Kent side, after the death of old Francis Austen, his son, Francis Motley Austen does not seem to have been particularly well disposed towards his poorer relations. Relations between the Austens living in Kent and those in Hampshire grew increasingly distant. There was certainly no co-operation from Edward Austen Knight's descendants with the Memoir and requests to use Jane's letters which were mainly in the possession of Fanny Knatchbull, Jane's niece, were steadfastly refused.

So, if he had known of this portrait, would James Edward have used a painting for his Memoir that had been commissioned by the wealthy Austens of Sevenoak and that had been given to someone outside the family rather than passed to Jane's closest relatives? Perhaps there was resentment about this too. It seems possible that if James Edward did know the whereabouts of the portrait he would be quite likely to ignore it in favour of an alternative image, to make the point that they were the custodians of Jane Austen's memory, not the relatives in Kent. 

In my next post I will look at Thomas Harding Newman's brother Benjamin who married into a family whose name will be familiar...