Members of the public are being invited to help transcribe a handwritten memoir by Admiral Francis Austen, brother of celebrated novelist Jane Austen.
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The 78-page manuscript is currently on display for the first time at ‘Travels with Frank Austen’, an exhibition at the Jane Austen’s House museum in Chawton, Hampshire.
Francis Austen was born on 23 April 1774, the sixth of the eight children of the Reverend George Austen and his wife Cassandra. He joined the Royal Navy in 1786 and fought in the Napoleonic Wars. He rose to become Admiral of the Fleet, the highest rank possible. He died in 1865.
Jane Austen’s House said the memoir “contains an account of Frank Austen’s life from his childhood in Chawton to entering the Navy, carrying despatches to Lord Nelson at Palermo, the blockade of Genoa and service in Egypt, a stay with his family in Bath in 1802, further travels in the West Indies with Nelson’s fleet as captain of the Canopus and the death of Nelson, Frank’s marriage and settling in Southampton with his mother and sisters, a sojourn on St Helena on East India company business, on the China station, and finally retirement to Chawton”.
It also said that transcribing it would uncover “more about Frank Austen’s life and the world in which Jane Austen lived and wrote”.
To help transcribe the memoir, email office@janeaustens.house to receive full instructions and an image of a page.