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| Reference: HAST780 |
| Marriage Beginning Status: Other
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Individual:
Philadelphia Austen, left England explicitly in order to find a rich husband in India. She succeeded and the man she married may well have been the father of their daughter, Eliza. There were rumors that he was not, and matters were not helped much when the local governor(*Warren HASTINGS) provided Eliza with a fortune upon her gaining maturity. With that, Eliza went to France to seek a husband and succeeded when she married a French Count. (Well, maybe he was a Count and maybe he was not; he certainly died a nobleman's death when he was beheaded during the revolution.) Both Philadelphia and Eliza were frequent and welcome visitors in the Austen home. There were strong family ties and strong defenses were made for the honor of these clanswomen. In fact, the widowed and slightly notorious Eliza was courted by two of Jane's brothers until she chose Jane's favorite brother, Henry. (Henry was ten years younger than Eliza, a fact which gives some hint of her appeal.) Eliza loved and favored her younger cousin Jane Austen; so, when Eliza was on her deathbed, it was Jane that Henry sent for to attend upon his wife.
A fascinating aspect of Jane Austen's life relates to the paternity of her delightful cousin and sister-in-law Eliza de Feuillade nee Hancock who evidently inspired some of her more lively characters. Eliza's mother, Philadelphia Austen, was orphaned and went out to India to find a rich husband. She married Tysoe Saul Hancock, a surgeon, but she was childless until they moved to Bengal and she had a love affair with Warren Hastings, an official of the East India Company, a business partner of her husband and a connection of her brother, the Reverend George Austen. Indeed Hasting's son George boarded with Jane Austen's parents, the Reverend George Austen and Mrs Cassandra Austen nee Leigh, and sadly died of an illness in their devoted care. A colleague of Warren Hastings in Bengal, George Vansittart, later helped to save Jane Austen's Aunt Jane Leigh-Perrot from the gallows or transportation to Botany Bay over the alleged theft of some lace from a milliner in Bath. It is most likely that Eliza was a product of this affair of Philadelphia Hancock and Warren Hastings. Indeed when Philadelphia and her daughter returned to England, Hastings provided for them to the tune of 10,000 pounds (an immense sum in those days).
(Warren Hastings.FTW)
Philadelphia Austen and Warren Hastings had a "love child" ...originally named Betsy Hancock. She later changed her name to Eliz. Hancock. Warren HASTINGS cared for Philadelphia and Betsy after the husband/father died. Philadelphia and Warren never married.
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