What we know for certain about\nthese events in JA’s life is to be found in a few pieces of correspondence\namong Jane’s family, some bits of scholarly research, and a brief mention of it\nin a posthumous memoir of Jane by her nephew. This is all that is known about\nJane Austen and Tom Lefroy. In 1795-6, she met Thomas Lefroy (an Irish relative\nof Jane Austen’s close older friend Mrs. Anne Lefroy, who lived at Ashe\nRectory).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She mentions him in some of her\nletters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Letter Number 1 (From the Le Faye Edition of Jane Austen’s Letters<\/a>), she wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n To Cassandra Austen: written\nfrom Steventon: Saturday, January 9th 1796:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first place I hope you\nwill live twenty-three years longer. Mr. Tom Lefroy’s birthday was yesterday,\nso that you are very near of an age<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n You scold me so much in the nice\nlong letter which I have this moment received from you, that I am almost afraid\nto tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything\nmost profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I\ncan expose myself however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon\nafter next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all. He is\na very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you. But as to\nour having ever met, except at the three last balls, I cannot say much; for he\nis so excessively laughed at about me at Ashe, that he is ashamed of coming to\nSteventon, and ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We had a visit yesterday morning\nfrom Mr. Benjamin Portal, whose eyes are as handsome as ever. Everybody is\nextremely anxious for your return, but as you cannot come home by the Ashe\nball, I am glad that I have not fed them with false hopes. James danced with\nAlithea, and cut up the turkey last night with great perseverance. You say\nnothing of the silk stockings; I flatter myself, therefore, that Charles has\nnot purchased any, as I cannot very well afford to pay for them; all my money\nis spent in buying white gloves and pink persian. I wish Charles had been at\nManydown, because he would have given you some description of my friend, and I\nthink you must be impatient to hear something about him\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n After I had written the above,\nwe received a visit from Mr. Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is\nreally very well-behaved now; and as for the other, he has but one fault, which\ntime will, I trust, entirely remove — it is that his morning coat is a great\ndeal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears\nthe same coloured clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In Letter number 2, she wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n To Cassandra Austen: written\nfrom Steventon: Thursday ,January 16, 1796:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Friday. — At length the day is\ncome on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this\nit will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea. Wm. Chute\ncalled here yesterday. I wonder what he means by being so civil. There is a\nreport that Tom is going to be married to a Lichfield lass. John Lyford and his\nsister bring Edward home today, dine with us, and we shall all go together to\nAshe. I understand that we are to draw for partners. I shall be extremely\nimpatient to hear from you again, that I may know how Eliza is, and when you\nare to return.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n She wrote Letter number 3 (dated\nTuesday 23rd August 1796 from Cork Street in London). Deirdre Le Faye in Jane Austen: A Family Record<\/a>, assumes that she stayed there with Tom Lefroy’s uncle and\nbenefactor, Mr. Benjamin Langlois, who lived in that street in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is thought that Tom Lefroy was,\nat that time, staying with his uncle while he studied law in London. It is not\nknown if he met Jane Austen while she stayed in Cork Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom Lefroy visited Ashe rectory in\nOctober\/November 1798. He did not meet Jane Austen while he was staying there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deirdre Le Faye in Jane Austen : a\nFamily Record wrote about their friendship, as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It is highly unlikely that\nTom proposed or that Jane ever really believed he would do so. However, Mr. and\nMrs. Lefroy had seen enough of their mutual attraction to take fright at the\nidea of an engagement between so youthful and penniless a pair, and Tom was\nsent off rapidly to London to live under the watchful eye of his great-uncle\nBenjamin while he studied at Lincoln’s Inn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Lefroy parents were vexed with\nhim, and told their sons that Tom was to blame for paying attentions to Jane\nwhen he knew full well that he was in no position to think of marriage; and\nyears later George and his younger brother Edward Lefroy recalled how ‘[their]\nMother had disliked Tom Lefroy because he had behaved so ill to Jane Austen,\nwith sometimes the additional weight of the Father’s condemnation..<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Tom stayed at Ashe again\nin the autumn of 1798, no meetings with the Austens took place during this\nvisit, and it was not until Madam Lefroy called at Steventon parsonage in mid\nNovember that Jane had any news of him. ” (Page 93-4)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Letter Number 11 dated Saturday\n17-Sunday 18th November 1798 Jane Austen wrote about this visit :<\/p>\n\n\n\n To Cassandra Austen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026Mrs. Lefroy did come last\nWednesday, and the Harwoods came likewise, but very considerately paid their\nvisit before Mrs. Lefroy’s arrival, with whom, in spite of interruptions both\nfrom my father and James, I was enough alone to hear all that was interesting,\nwhich you will easily credit when I tell you that of her nephew she said\nnothing at all, and of her friend very little. She did not once mention the\nname of the former to me, and I was too proud to make any inquiries; but on my\nfather’s afterwards asking where he was, I learnt that he was gone back to\nLondon in his way to Ireland, where he is called to the Bar and means to\npractise\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Descendants of Jane Austen made\nthese comments on her friendship with Tom Lefroy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lord Brabourne (Edward Hugessen\nKnatchbull-Hugessen, the first Baron Brabourne, lived 1829-1893), who published\nthe first edition of Jane Austen’s letters in 1844 wrote in that first edition:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first two letters which I am\nable to present to my readers were written from Steventon to Jane Austen’s\nsister Cassandra in January, 1796. The most interesting allusion, perhaps, is\nto her “young Irish friend,” who would seem by the context to have\nbeen the late Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, though at the time of writing only\n“Mr. Tom Lefroy.” I have no means of knowing how serious the\n“flirtation” between the two may have been, or whether it was to this\nthat Mr. Austen Leigh refers when he tells us that “in her youth she had\ndeclined the addresses of a gentleman who had the recommendations of good\ncharacter and connections, and position in life, of everything, in fact, except\nthe subtle power of touching her heart.” I am inclined, however, upon the\nwhole, to think, from the tone of the letters, as well as from some passages in\nlater letters, that this little affair had nothing to do with the\n“addresses” referred to, any more than with that “passage of\nromance in her history” with which Mr. Austen Leigh was himself so\n“imperfectly acquainted” that he can only tell us that there was a\ngentleman whom the sisters met “whilst staying at some seaside\nplace,” whom Cassandra Austen thought worthy of her sister Jane, and\nlikely to gain her affection, but who very provokingly died suddenly after\nhaving expressed his “intention of soon seeing them again.” Mr.\nAusten Leigh thinks that, “if Jane ever loved, it was this unnamed\ngentleman”; but I have never met with any evidence upon the subject, and\nfrom all I have heard of “Aunt Jane,” I strongly incline to the\nopinion that, whatever passing inclination she may have felt for anyone during\nher younger days (and that there was once such an inclination is, I believe,\ncertain), she was too fond of home, and too happy among her own relations, to\nhave sought other ties, unless her heart had been really won, and that this was\na thing which never actually happened. Her allusion (letter two) to the day on\nwhich “I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy” rather negatives the\nidea that there was anything serious between the two, whilst a later reference\n(letter ten) to Mrs. Lefroy’s “friend” seems to intimate that,\nwhoever the latter may have been, any attachment which existed was rather on\nthe side of the gentleman than of the lady, and was not recognised by her as\nbeing of a permanent nature.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Deirdre Le Faye in an article\nwritten for the Jane Austen Society in 1985 wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the late 1860s, when\nJames-Edward Austen-Leigh was planning Memoir of Jane Austen, he consulted his\nsisters, Anna Lefroy and Caroline Austen, for information relating to any\nromantic episodes in Jane’s life, and in particular to her flirtation with Tom\nLefroy at Ashe Rectory in the winter of 1795-96.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time of these enquiries,\nTom had become the austere, venerable Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, head of a\nlarge family and the owner of a rich estate in Co. Longford.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In April 1869 Caroline wrote\nanxiously to her brother, maintaining that the flirtation had been brief, that\nTom could not be said to have jilted Jane in favour of marrying for money\nelsewhere, and that any rumours to the contrary had been spread by another\nbranch of the Lefroys, settled in York, who had their own reasons for disliking\nhim; she would prefer that no mention of the episode be made in the Memoir, in\nview of the fact that Tom was still alive.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n However, only a few weeks after\nCaroline’s letter, Tom died, aged 92, and almost immediately Anna Lefroy wrote\nto James-Edward’s wife Emma, passing on just the kind of rumour that Caroline\nwished so much to stifle:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Mrs. Austen Leigh Southern\nHill Bray Vicarage Reading Maidenhead May 24th [postmark 1869]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n My dear Emma,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n few days ago I recd. a long\nletter from Tom Lefroy in the course of which he tells me of a conversation he\nhad with his late Uncle last September [i.e., September 1868] on the subject of\nhis early acquaintance with my Aunt Jane – I wish I were at liberty to copy\nverbatim, as I think Tom’s own remarks rather amusing, but as the conversation\nwas private he thinks it ought not to be made use of – in the way of\npublication I suppose – In reply I assured him he need have no fears of that\nsort, as, in the first place it was no part of the Memorialist’s plan (as I\nbelieved) to enter upon those sort of particulars, & in the next that I am\nthe only person who has any faith in the tradition – nor should I probably be\nan exception if I had not married into the family of Lefroy – but when I came\nto hear again & again, from those who were old enough to remember, how the\nMother had disliked Tom Lefroy because he had behaved so ill to Jane Austen,\nwith sometimes the additional weight of the Father’s condemnation, what could I\nthink then? Or what now except to give a verdict, as Tom himself expressed it\n“under mitigating circumstances” As – First, the youth of the Parties\n– secondly, that Mrs. Lefroy, charming woman as she was, & warm in her\nfeelings, was also partial in [Page 3] her judgments – Thirdly – that for other\ncauses, too long to enter upon, she not improbably set out with a prejudice\nagainst the Gentleman, & would have distrusted had there been no Jane\nAusten in the case. The one thing certain is, that to the last year of his life\nshe was remembered as the object of his youthful admiration – They were within\na short month of the same age . … Believe me my dr. Emma yr. affect. Sister,\nJ.A.E. Lefroy”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Anna’s opinions had obviously\nbeen formed from information given by her elder brothers-in-law, John Henry\nGeorge and Christopher Edward Lefroy, who were 13 and 10 years of age\nrespectively when their Irish cousin Tom had visited Ashe in 1795-96. She would\nalso have heard more from her son-in-law, a member of that York branch of the\nfamily who, as Caroline said, had been at odds with the Lord Chief Justice in\npast years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n James-Edward then wrote direct\nto T. E. P. Lefroy, who cautiously confirmed that his uncle had admitted to a\n“boyish love” for Jane; and in the event only a very brief reference\nto the matter appeared in the Memoir. <\/em>(JAS Report 1985. Pages 336-338. )<\/p>\n\n\n\n James Edward Austen Leigh wrote\nin A Memoir of Jane Austen<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Ashe also Jane became\nacquainted with a member of the Lefroy family, who was still living when I\nbegan these memoirs, a few months ago; the Right Hon. Thomas Lefroy, late Chief\nJustice of Ireland. One must look back more than seventy years to reach the\ntime when these two bright young persons were, for a short time, intimately\nacquainted with each other, and then separated on their several courses, never\nto meet again; both destined to attain some distinction in their different\nways, one to survive the other for more than half a century, yet in his extreme\nold age to remember and speak, as he sometimes did, of his former companion, as\none to be much admired, and not easily forgotten by those who had ever known\nher. <\/em>(Page 56.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is all that is know about Jane\nAusten and Tom Lefory. The rest is speculation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On February 17, 2007, in an\ninterview in the Telegraph Magazine regarding promotion for “Becoming\nJane,” Deirdre LeFaye says,<\/p>\n\n\n\n The vexed question , of course,\nis whether any of it is true. “Its nonsense ” argues Dierdre Le\nFaye…”You might as well say Lady Hamilton was a vestal virgin living in\na convent”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Le Faye doesn’t dispute the\nmeeting, flirtation and family disapproval- it’s all in a letter from Jane to\nCassandra…But Le Faye maintains it was all short lived: “She’d obviously\nbeen flirting with him. And it does rather sound like, for a time, Jane was\nregretting his absence,but that is all there is to it”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jane never saw Lefroy again\nafter his Christmas visit.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And as for Lefroy inspiring her\nto write:” Its like saying Shakespeare murdered people to give him enough\ninformation to write “Macbeth”. Poppycock. She was a highly\nintelligent girl. She’d have been a good writer in any circumstances”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What we know for certain about these events in JA’s life is to be found in a few pieces of correspondence among Jane’s family, some bits of scholarly research, and a brief mention of it in a posthumous memoir of … Continue reading