Austen

JANE AUSTEN (1776 - 1817) ...

In Pride and Prejudice Darcy purchases the lowest officer rank for Wickham in the regular army 'quartered in the North' i.e. Newcastle. This is an obvious device to get Wickham and Lydia as far away from Darcy and the other Bennet sisters as possible. Only Mrs Bennet frets over her favourite daughter's situation. For her Newcastle is 'a place quite northward'. Lydia would be 'banished to the North', 'such a way off', 'so far off' and 'such a way from me'. Other places in Pride and Prejudice have disguised names; Newcastle escapes anonymity, though it is not described at all. This is not a symbolic 'north and south' matter, however: in Sense and Sensibility a proposed removal to Devon arouses similar misgivings in Mrs Dashwood. But why Newcastle in particular?

Clive Caplan, writing for the Jane Austen Society, describes the unrest among miners and seamen in the North East at the time (1795) when Jane was projecting her novel, necessitating the deployment of several regiments near Newcastle. England's military fortunes were at a low ebb, and the French threat against the coal trade to London (600 vessels plied from Newcastle alone) coupled with domestic upheaval prompts Caplan to see Wickham's move to Newcastle as natural in the circumstances and evidence of Jane Austen's awareness of the political and social events of her time. Newcastle Barracks was completed in 1804, and its grim crenellations dominated Gallowgate and Nun's Moor until well after WWII. The Duke of Gloucester at about this time marched the ten thousand men of the 'Army of the North' along Blyth beach - in order to impress Sarah Delaval (without success).

Jane herself never went north of the Trent in her life, but her widowed cousin Eliza Feuillide (the Comte had been guillotined on 22 February 1794) stayed with the Rev. Charles Egerton and his wife Catherine for six months from July 1794 to January 1795 in Washington, Co. Durham (interestingly, Dorothy Wordsworth (q.v.) was living in nearby Newcastle at the time). Eliza was very close to the Austen family, and Jane's favourite brother Henry proposed to her. We must suppose that Jane received a good deal of information about the Newcastle area. It is not beyond possibility that Whickham near Washington suggested a link to Wickham in Hampshire, the accepted source of the reprobate's name.

Eliza was a fun-loving creature and no doubt went dancing in Newcastle - presumably at the glamorous Assembly Rooms (still in existence) with their seven chandeliers comprising ten thousand pieces of local crystal. Eliza wrote a letter from Washington on 19 Sept 1794 to Warren Hastings, who was her godfather, generous benefactor, and some say, her actual father.

' In answer to your kind enquiries concerning my health, I find myself much the better for the Northern Air of which I have now made some trial, having been at this place, that is to say on the borders of Northumberland ever since July. I purposed returning to London some time next month, but Mr. and Mrs. Egerton the friends to whom I have already paid so long a visit, kindly insist on my not leaving them till after Christmas.'

In Pride and Prejudice Lydia invites her parents, and especially her sisters, to visit. She seems rather tentative about the social scene which awaits her. 'We shall be at Newcastle all the winter and I dare say there will be some balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all [her sisters] ,' but there is no reason why the character Lydia should display the knowledge that her creator possessed.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
JANE AUSTEN (1776 - 1817) ... In Pride and Prejudice Darcy purchases the lowest officer rank for Wickham in the regular army 'quartered in the North' i.e. Newcastle. This is an obvious device to get Wickham and Lydia as far away from Darcy and the other Bennet sisters as possible. Only Mrs Bennet frets over her favourite daughter's situation. For her Newcastle is 'a place quite northward'. Lydia would be 'banished to the North', 'such a way off', 'so far off' and 'such a way from me'. Other places in Pride and Prejudice have disguised names; Newcastle escapes anonymity, though it is not described at all. This is not a symbolic 'north and south' matter, however: in Sense and Sensibility a proposed removal to Devon arouses similar misgivings in Mrs Dashwood. But why Newcastle in particular? Clive Caplan, writing for the Jane Austen Society, describes the unrest among miners and seamen in the North East at the time (1795) when Jane was projecting her novel, necessitating the deployment of several regiments near Newcastle. England's military fortunes were at a low ebb, and the French threat against the coal trade to London (600 vessels plied from Newcastle alone) coupled with domestic upheaval prompts Caplan to see Wickham's move to Newcastle as natural in the circumstances and evidence of Jane Austen's awareness of the political and social events of her time. Newcastle Barracks was completed in 1804, and its grim crenellations dominated Gallowgate and Nun's Moor until well after WWII. The Duke of Gloucester at about this time marched the ten thousand men of the 'Army of the North' along Blyth beach - in order to impress Sarah Delaval (without success). Jane herself never went north of the Trent in her life, but her widowed cousin Eliza Feuillide (the Comte had been guillotined on 22 February 1794) stayed with the Rev. Charles Egerton and his wife Catherine for six months from July 1794 to January 1795 in Washington, Co. Durham (interestingly, Dorothy Wordsworth (q.v.) was living in nearby Newcastle at the time). Eliza was very close to the Austen family, and Jane's favourite brother Henry proposed to her. We must suppose that Jane received a good deal of information about the Newcastle area. It is not beyond possibility that Whickham near Washington suggested a link to Wickham in Hampshire, the accepted source of the reprobate's name. Eliza was a fun-loving creature and no doubt went dancing in Newcastle - presumably at the glamorous Assembly Rooms (still in existence) with their seven chandeliers comprising ten thousand pieces of local crystal. Eliza wrote a letter from Washington on 19 Sept 1794 to Warren Hastings, who was her godfather, generous benefactor, and some say, her actual father. ' In answer to your kind enquiries concerning my health, I find myself much the better for the Northern Air of which I have now made some trial, having been at this place, that is to say on the borders of Northumberland ever since July. I purposed returning to London some time next month, but Mr. and Mrs. Egerton the friends to whom I have already paid so long a visit, kindly insist on my not leaving them till after Christmas.' In Pride and Prejudice Lydia invites her parents, and especially her sisters, to visit. She seems rather tentative about the social scene which awaits her. 'We shall be at Newcastle all the winter and I dare say there will be some balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all [her sisters] ,' but there is no reason why the character Lydia should display the knowledge that her creator possessed.
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