Jane Austen is buried in Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire but a small tablet was unveiled to her memory in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, on 17th December 1967. This was given by The Jane Austen Society. The polished Roman stone tablet, designed by the Abbey's Surveyor S.E. Dykes Bower, is on the wall adjacent to Shakespeare's memorial and the inscription reads simply:
JANE AUSTEN 1775 1817
She was the daughter of a country clergyman, George Austen, and his wife Cassandra (Leigh) and was born at the rectory at Steventon in Hampshire on 16th December 1775. In her books she portrayed the society and manners of the life to which she belonged: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. The family later moved to Bath and after her father's death she lived in the village of Chawton. Although she had several suitors Jane never married. She died in Winchester on 18th July 1817.
A copy of the sermon preached at Evensong before the unveiling can be obtained from Westminster Abbey Library.
Further reading
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004
"A memoir of Jane Austen" by James E. Austen-Leigh, 1870
See also the websites of the Jane Austen Society UK and Jane Austen's House Museum (her house at Chawton).
[Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons
This image can be purchased from Westminster Abbey Library
Image © 2024 Dean and Chapter of Westminster
