Jane Austen in Nova Scotia

There is a particular connection in Halifax to Jane Austen, as both of her brothers, Francis and Charles were in the Royal Navy and lived in Halifax.  Francis, as Vice-Admiral (1845 -1848) and Charles as Captain (1805-1810). They would have resided in Admiralty House and worked in The Royal Naval Dockyard, which was also referred to as “The King’s Yard” – which are both functioning as part of today’s Canadian Forces Base Halifax.  The Austens would have also attended receptions at Government House,  the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor, the British Monarch’s representative in Nova Scotia.  The Georgian-styled Government House,  is still home to the current British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II’s representative in Nova Scotia 

 In Deirdre LeFay’s Collection of Jane Austen’s Letters (2003),  two of Jane Austen’s letters to her sister Cassandra, specifically mentioned “Halifax”.  On April 11, 1805, she noted: “To the former[Charles] I wrote in consequence of my Mother’s having seen in the papers that The Urania was waiting in Portmouth for a convoy to Halifax”… 

On April 25, 1811, she wrote, “This said Captain Sampson told us, on the authority of some other Captain just arrived from Halifax, that Charles was bringing The Cleopatra home, and that she was probably by this time in the Channel.”

Please enjoy your time with us and stop by for a “virtual cup of afternoon tea”, which is such a very British and a Maritime tradition!

The Purpose of  The Jane Austen Society of North America is to encourage the appreciation and enjoyment of her works and her novels.  With the recent movie adaptations, the titles of Pride and Prejudice; Sense and Sensibility; Emma; Northanger Abbey; Mansfield Park and Persuasion, have become household names.  So much so, that characters from these books ~ particularly Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet~ have appeared to have walked out of the pages and into our lives. 

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, has had a proud, naval tradition with England since 1758, when the British Admiralty established a Royal Naval Dockyard, which was referred to as “The King’s Yard”.

 With this close Royal Naval connection between Halifax and England, was it merely a coincidence that the last name of the British Monarch’s (King George III) representative in Nova Scotia, Sir John Wentworth, appears in the naval-themed Persuasion – whose hero was Captain Frederick Wentworth?   Or, did a little piece of Nova Scotian history sail across the Atlantic into the pages of Jane Austen’s last completed novel?