A new road sign pointing to “Jane Austin’s House” went up
outside Chawton recently, and, after a flurry of indignant comments, was quickly
corrected. There’s really no excuse for
such an error these days, but Jane Austen and her family must have been quite
accustomed to seeing their name misspelled.
A famous example: the London publisher
John Murray sent a check made out to “Miss Jane Austin” to the author in 1816.
Nor did people closer to home do any better. One example is a notice published in the
Hampshire Chronicle on 6 March 1815, listing the contributors to a charitable
collection to benefit the widow and children of the late curate of Overton,
Hampshire. “Rev. J. Austen” and “Mrs. J.
Austen” (Jane's brother James and his wife) gave £5 each, and “Miss C. Austen” (their daughter Caroline) donated 10
shillings and sixpence – so far so good, but the spelling went downhill when it
came to “Mrs. Austin and family” (Cassandra Leigh Austen and her daughters
Cassandra and Jane), who also gave £5. They
no doubt forwarded their donation through their banker – listed in the notice as “Messrs.
Austin & Co., Alton.”
It gets worse (or better, if like me you find these things
fascinating). In looking through
hundreds of handwritten documents of the time contained in the Knight Archive, I saw several other interesting
variations of the name: Ausdin, Aston,
Ausdon. These variations were all written by Hampshire
tradesmen on their invoices, and I can imagine thatchers and blacksmiths saying
the name out loud to themselves and then putting it to paper phonetically.
The names of villagers were equally malleable. I studied the record-book of the Overseers of
the Poor to track the fortunes of Thomas Windibank, who seems to have relied on
parish aid more than just about anyone else (other than the non-working
elderly) in Chawton in the early years of the 19th century. His surname was most often spelled Windibank,
but the various overseers also recorded it as Windibanks, Windebank, Windybank,
Willybank, and Willebank. James Mersh
was also Mearsh and Marsh. With some
exceptions, the overseers who made these entries used fairly standard spelling
elsewhere, so poor education is not the reason for the inconsistency. The names must simply have sounded
differently to different ears, and were set down accordingly. Clearly, in such a small place, everyone
could figure out who was being written about, however it was spelled.
Having gone through my whole life hearing “How do you spell
that?” and taking a deep breath before reciting all ten letters (usually
more than once), I think it would be rather refreshing to say, “Oh, just spell
it however you like.”
