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terribly costly to rear.’ Potatoes did not become a poor man’s crop till the 1820s. The gap between ‘gentry’ and the rest was real Clergymen of the established Church were gentlemen, though Dissenters were not, but many, including the Austens, found it a struggle to maintain anything like a gentry lifestyle.

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Siblings and Society
    T HE ELDEST AUSTEN son was James, born 13 February 1765. He became a clergyman like his father, and it was James’s son by his second wife, the Revd James-Edward Austen-Leigh, who published his
Memoir
of his aunt Jane Austen in 1869, when he was the oldest living person to remember her. He had been the youngest mourner at her funeral in 1817.
    The second Austen son, George, was hardly ever mentioned, and the
Memoir
leaves him out. He was handicapped, and suffered from fits. His mother wrote sadly when he was four, ‘My poor little George is come to see me to-day, he seems pretty well, tho’ he had a fit lately, it was near a twelvemonth since he had one before, so was in hopes they had left him, but must not flatter myself so now.’ It is believed he was deaf and dumb, as Jane knew how to ‘talk on her fingers’. He did not live at home. His father drew comfort from the reflection that he cannot be a bad or wicked child’.
    The third son, Edward, born 7 October 1767, was luckier. At the age of sixteen he was adopted by his father’s patron, rich and childless Thomas Knight II, and inherited Godmersham Park, a fine estate in Kent. Thomas Knight’s father had been born Thomas Brodnax, but changed his name to May when he inherited an estate. This was not an unusual condition at the time but changing one’s name required an Act of Parliament. Thomas May found it worth his while to change once more, to Knight, when a distant cousin, Mrs Elizabeth Knight, bequeathed him her estates at Steventon and Chawton in Hampshire. His rapid changes of name provoked one Member of Parliament to comment, ‘This gentleman gives us so much trouble that the best way would be to pass an Act for him to use whatever name he pleases/ Thomas was generous to his various relatives, presenting those in Holy Orders with livings in his gift. Edward was a special favourite with the son (also Thomas Knight) and spent a lot of time at Godmersham. When Thomas Knight II proposed to adopt the boy Mrs Austen advised her husband to accept the offer. Edward and his wife and children are usually written of as ‘Knight’, although they were called Austen until Edward changed his name in 1812 when old Mrs Knight died.
    Mrs Austen wrote after James’s early death that Edward was ‘quite a man of business’, while James had ‘classical knowledge, literary taste and the power of elegant composition’. Both, she added, were equally good, amiable and sweet-tempered. Their mother recognized and accepted that Edward was not as academically gifted as James or Henry.
    A silhouette group shows Edward’s father presenting the boy to his wealthy patrons. Edward, in tight-fitting coat and knee-breeches, stretches out his hands towards them, his back towards his father, while Mrs Knight looks up coolly from the game of chess she is playing with another lady. Mr Knight stands at the extreme right of the picture. The women wear stays and high coiffures with beribboned caps, while the grown men wear wigs tied behind. Edward’s hair is his own, and hangs long at the back.
    Edward missed out on Oxford but was more than compensated by the opportunity of the Grand Tour. He visited Switzerland, Dresden and Rome, staying in Dresden for about a year. But his family ties were strong and he was always specially close to Cassandra, while there was a strong bond of intellectual compatibility between Jane and the fourth son, Henry.
    Henry, born 8 June 1771, was brilliant and charming, but seems to have been the least stable among the brothers, although, in his father’s opinion, Henry was the ‘most talented’ of the children. He was