To Cassandra, from Steventon, "My father & I dined by ourselves-How strange!-He & John Bond are now very happy together, for I have just heard the heavy step of the latter along the passage." - Saturday 27-Sunday 28 October 1798
So, dinner is done and John Bond has come to visit Reverend Austen. John Bond was Reverend Austen's farm bailiff. He was born c. 1738 and married Anne Naishon or Nation of Deane in 1772. They had four children, Hannah born in 1773; George born in 1776; John born in 1780; and Elizabeth born in 1782. John and Anne both died in 1825. John Bond would have been sixty years old at this point and maybe a heavy man. This is the first of nine times Jane Austen mentions him in her letters.
The duties of a farm bailiff as listed by Eve McLaughlin,
the author of The McLaughlin Guides for
Family Historians and the Secretary for Bucks Genealogical Society were, “To
manage and organize (and normally participate in) the day to day work of one
farm on behalf of a master who was a gentleman or just didn’t like getting his
hands dirty. He could hire and fire ordinary labourers, but basic things, even
sell on his master’s behalf, but could
only recommend major changes or purchases, and was liable to interference and
criticism – and sudden dismissal – if anything went wrong. If the master was an
absentee or owned a local big house, then he probably lived in the farmhouse.
If the family were seriously rich, with several farm or estates, he would come
under the Land Steward and might never see the master but once in a blue moon.”
For some reason this brings to mind Mr. Knightley and Robert Martin. I know the relationship was not the same, Robert Martin rented a farm from Mr. Knightley. This situation just made me think of them.
The Reverend George Austen about 1764.
I hope you enjoyed your day today!
Terrie
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