Letter #6, Post #6

Tuesday 21 February 2012
To Cassandra, from Rowling, "We dine today at Goodnestone, to meet my Aunt Fielding from Margate, and a Mr Clayton, her professed Admirer; at least so I imagine." - Jane Austen, Thursday 15-Friday 16 September 1796

                                                                Goodnestone in Kent

Mrs. Sophia Finch Fielding was not really Jane Austen's aunt. Her husband, Commodore Charles Fielding, RN, was Half-brother to Sir Brook Bridges III of Goodnestone. She would have been called aunt by Sir Brook's children.

Sophia and Charles married in 1772, but he died in 1783. They had a daughter, Miss Isabella Fielding, who was "known affectionately as 'Aunt Fatty' to the Godmersham children." She was godmother to Marianne Austen Knight. She died unmarried in 1812.

This is a quote from the notes in the back of the Jane Austen's Letters book, "Mrs. Charles Fielding was Woman of the Bedchamber to the Queen, and had apartments in St James's Palace; she lived for a time with her mother (Lady Charlotte Finch) at the royal residences of Windsor and St James's, since Lady Charlotte Finch (died June 1813) was governess to the children of George III."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fielding

Mr. George Clayton was Mrs. Sophia Finch Fielding's maternal cousin. He was the son of Sir William and Lady Louisa Fermor Clayton of Harleyford, Bucks., and 79 Gloucester Place, Portman Square, London.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margate

This picture of the Promenade in Margate, Kent was taken between 1890 and 1900. Look at their dresses. Aren't they great? Highly unlikely anyone would get sunburned.

This is the harbor at Margate in 1897. These pictures at pretty amazing to be from the late 1800's.

Enjoy your day today!
Terrie