Cassandra Austen - Later Life

Later Life

George Austen was not wealthy and had supplemented his income as a country parson "by taking in pupils and tutoring them for Oxford". After graduating from Oxford University, in 1794, one former pupil, Thomas Fowle, became engaged to Cassandra Austen. Fowle needed money to marry and went to the Caribbean with a military expedition as chaplain to his cousin, General Lord Craven. There, Fowle died of yellow fever in 1797. Austen inherited £1000 from him, which gave her a little financial independence but, like her sister, she never married.

After the death of her father in 1805, Austen, her sister, and their mother moved to Southampton, where they lived with their brother Frank and his family for five years. They moved again in 1809 to a cottage in the village of Chawton on their brother Edward's Chawton House estate.

When Jane died in 1817, Austen is reported to have destroyed many of her letters, most of them dated after 1795. Austen herself lived alone until her death on 22 March 1845, aged 72. She was buried at St. Nicholas' Church in Chawton, Hampshire.