Orders, Decorations and Medals

The important ‘St Domingo’ Naval Gold Medal group to Admiral of the Fleet Sir Francis Austen, G.C.B., brother of the famous novelist, Jane Austen

The Most Honourable Order of The Bath, G.C.B. (Military) Grand Cross set of insignia comprising sash badge in 22 carat gold and enamels, hallmarked London 1820, maker’s mark ‘IN’, and breast star in silver with appliqué centre in gold and enamels, the star circa 1860, complete with full dress sash ribbon

The Most Honourable Order of The Bath, K.C.B. (Military) a superb quality Knight Commander’s breast star in silver with appliqué centre in gold and enamels, translucent white enamel to the central ground, circa 1840, unsigned but in the style of Storr and Mortimer

Naval Small Gold Medal, the reverse inscribed (Francis William Austen Esquire, Captain of H.M.S. Canopus on the 6 February MDCCCVI, the French Squadron Captured and Destroyed) with original gold ribbon brooch-buckle, small chip to reverse glass lunette (one of only eight Gold Medals for St Domingo)

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 2 clasps, Petrel 21 March 1800 (2 clasps issued for this frigate action), St Domingo (Francis W. Austen, Capt. R.N.) unless otherwise stated, good very fine or better (5)

Francis Wiliam Austen, the fourth son of the Rev. George Austen of Steventon, and the elder and more forceful of Jane Austen’s two sailor brothers, was born on 23 April 1774. Known by his family as Frank, and nicknamed ‘Fly’ on account of his seeming limitless energy, he became an enthusiastic follower of foxhounds when still of an age to be in the nursery. At the age of seven he bought a pony for £1. 8s., and after two seasons, sold it with precocious enterprise for £2. 4s. 6d. His carefree boyhood in the Hampshire hunting field ended in April 1786 when a few days before his twelfth birthday he was packed off to the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth, an institution with ‘a long standing evil reputation for bullying, idleness, and debauchery’. His father’s decision to make him the first Austen to go to sea was no doubt influenced by the fact that once accepted by the Academy, board and tuition were free. Young Frank, however, was not one of those who idled away their time, and he applied himself to his studies with a diligence that not only kept him beyond the direful sway of the principal’s horsewhip, but which also ‘attracted the particular notice of the Lords of the Admiralty’ and ‘marked him out for early promotion’.

He left the Academy in December 1788 and sailed as a Midshipman aboard the Perseverance for the East Indies, armed with a lengthy Memorandum prepared by his father, who advised him: ‘ ... Your commander and officers will be most likely to become your friends by a respectful behaviour to themselves, and by an active and ready obedience to orders. Good humour, an inclination to oblige and the carefully avoiding every appearance of selfishness, will infallibly secure you the regards of your own mess and of all of your equals. With your inferiors perhaps you will have but little intercourse, but when it does occur there is a sort of kindness they have a claim on you for, and which, you may believe me will not be thrown away on them. Your conduct, as it respects yourself, chiefly comprehends sobriety and prudence ... ’ Frank was quick to heed this parental wisdom. ‘By the age eighteen he had matured into a short slight young man, with a soft voice and gentlemanly manners, but formidably firm, independent and efficient; known as a disciplinarian, with a meticulous eye for detail and an unsleeping interest in correct fact which never deserted him, even in a life and death crisis. Once, sitting on board ship at anchor, he noticed a brother officer, swimming in the sea, was being pursued by a shark. “Mr Pakenham,” cried Francis Austen, “you are in danger of a shark - a shark of the blue species.” Other characteristics which were startlingly rare in Nelson’s Navy were that he knelt to pray in church whereas other officers stood, and that he never swore, even when berating Jack Tar.

As a Midshipman, Frank was a heroic figure in the eyes of his younger sister, and while he was serving in Perseverance she expressed her admiration by dedicating two of her juvenalia to him - Jack and Alice and The Adventures of Mr Harley. Later in 1791, while he was still stationed in the East Indies, Jane also made a reference to him in her History of England: ‘It was about this time that Sir Francis Drake the first English Navigator who sailed around the World, lived, to be the ornament of his Country & his profession. Yet great as he was, & justly celebrated as a Sailor, I cannot help foreseeing that he will be equalled in this or the next Century by one who tho’ now but young, already promises to answer all the ardent & sanguine expectations of his Relations & Friends, amongst whom I may class the amiable Lady to whom this work is dedicated [Cassandra Austen], & my no less amiable Self.’

In an age when merit was no guarantee of advancement, Frank was fortunate in his family’s social conections. In 1792 the Rev. George Austen solicited the help on his son’s behalf of the uncrowned king of India, Warren Hastings, whose son had been lodged as a student at the Steventon rectory some years earlier. But the marriage of Frank’s brother, James, in 1797 to the daughter of General Edward Mathew, was to result in the patronage of a yet more influential personage, Admiral James Gambier, a member of the all-powerful Admiralty Board. Frank, returning from the East shortly before the outbreak of war with the French Republic, was promoted Lieutenant on 28 December 1792, and served in a succession of ships on active service over the next six years, including the sloop Lark which formed part of the squadron that brought the Prince of Wales’s troublesome bride, Caroline of Brunswick, to England, and afterwards assisted in the evacuation of British troops from Ostend and Nieuport. As first Lieutenant of the Triton he took part in the capture of five French privateers, and the destruction of several enemy coasting vessels, and in the same appointment in the London (98) he participated in the blockade of Cadiz by the fleet under Earl St. Vincent.

On Christmas Eve 1798, Jane received the first inkling of Frank’s promotion to Commander, when their father received a letter from Gambier which she excitedly transcribed for the benefit of her sister Cassandra at Godmersham Park: ‘“... With regard to your Son now in the London, I am glad I can give you the assurance that his promotion is likely to take place very soon, as Lord Spencer has been so good as to say he would include him in an arrangement that he proposes making in a short time in that quarter.” - There! - I may now finish my letter, & go & hang myself, for I am sure I can neither write nor do anything which will not appear insipid to you after this - now I really think he will soon be made, & only wish we could communicate our fore-knowledge of the Event, to him whom it principally concerns.’ Then Jane, rather in mood of her meddling, matchmaker heroine, Emma Woodhouse, poses the question, ‘could Lord Spencer give happiness to Martha at the same time, what a joyful heart he would make of Yours!’ Jane and Cassandra had hatched a plot to see Frank married to their friend Martha Lloyd.

However with enemy vessels to be captured and prize money to be taken, Frank for the time being was to be otherwise engaged. His promotion to Commander took effect from 3 February 1799, and, appointed captain of the Peterel, sloop of 14 guns and 120 men, at Gibraltar, he sallied forth into the Mediterranean, destroying upwards of forty enemy vessels, frequently under a heavy fire from shore batteries. In July 1799, he was present at the final capture of a French squadron returning from Egypt after a long pursuit by Lord Kieth’s fleet, and whilst cruising off Marseilles on 21 March 1800 he fought an action which resulted in his promotion to Post Captain. The Peterel, with thirty of her crew including the first Lieutenant and gunner absent in prizes, fell in with three French national vessels, the fourteen-gun Le Cerf, the six-gun Le Joilliet, and La Ligurienne, a new brig of fourteen brass 6-pounders, two 36-pounder howitzers and 104 men, which was to follow Napoleon to Egypt. Under the nose of a shore battery which kept up a heavy fire on the Peterel throughout, Frank engaged the three ships and during the course of a running fight lasting an hour and a half, succeeded in driving Le Cerf and Le Joilliet on to the rocks and capturing the Ligurienne. He next took part in the blockade of Genoa, as the advanced ship of Kieth’s squadron with instructions to never be more than three miles from the mole-head, and while there he prevented an 80 gun Turkish ship falling into French hands, although this meant burning the vessel. Nothwithstanding the conflagration, the Captain Pasha was so pleased that he presented Frank with ‘a rich sabre and pelisse’. During this period Frank came to the attention of Nelson, who was then at Palermo with the Neapolitan Royal Family. An important despatch from Lord St. Vincent concerning the movements of the French Fleet which had weighed at Brest and had entered the Mediterranean had been given to the Captain of the Hyena for delivery to Nelson. But as the Hyena was slower than the Peterel the despatch was transferred to Frank’s charge and taken by him from Minorca to Palermo in less than two days, ‘an act that gained him Nelson’s gratitude’.

As with his previous promotion, Frank’s advancement to Post Captain (effective from 13 May 1800) was known to the family circle at Steventon and beamed out by Jane before he knew of it himself. In January 1800, Jane, who had evidently received a letter from Frank describing the somewhat unsual circumstances under which he learnt of the event at Rhodes, related it to Cassandra: ‘What a surprise it must have been on the 20th of Octr. to be visited, collar’d & thrust out of the Petterell [sic] by Captn. Inglis [Frank’s successor].’ In the spring of 1801 Frank returned home and was appointed Gambier’s flag-captain in the Neptune (98), which appointment he held until the Peace of Amiens. On 23 August 1801 he had the pleasure of entertaining his proud parents on board Neptune while anchored at Portsmouth. On the renewal of hostilities, when a French invasion threatened, Frank was sent to Ramsgate to raise and command a home guard of Sea Fencibles. During his ten month stay he met his future wife, Mary Gibson, thus thwarting, for the time being at least, Jane’s and Cassandra’s hopes for Martha Lloyd. The Austen-Gibson wedding, however, did not take place until 1806, partly because Frank could not afford it and partly because he was soon ordered back to sea.

In May 1804 Frank was appointed to the Leopard, the flagship of Rear-Admiral Thomas Louis, blockading Boulogne, and in March of the following year he followed Louis’s flag into the Canopus (80). At that time Nelson in a letter to Lord Moira, wrote: ‘You may rely upon every attention in my power to Captain Austen. I hope to see him alongside a French 80-gun ship, and he cannot be better placed than in the Canopus, which was once a French Admiral’s ship, and struck to me. Captain Austen I knew a little of before; he is an excellent young man.’
In early 1805 Villeneuve’s Toulon fleet broke out of the Mediterranean and Nelson, followed by Canopus, gave chase to the West Indies. But, as the prelude to Trafalgar, Villeneuve recrossed the Atlantic and joined the Spanish Fleet at Cadiz. Frank looked eagerly forward to a fleet engagement but his hopes were dashed when Canopus and four other ships were dispatched to Tetuan and Gibraltar for water and provisions, and the Battle of Trafalgar was fought in his absence.

It was a bitter disappointment: ‘To lose all share in the glory of a day which surpasses all which ever went before, is what I cannot think of with any degree of patience, but, as I cannot write upon that subject without complaining, I will drop it for the present, till time and reflection reconcile me a little more to what I know is inevitable.’ However, within a few days of writing the latter he had sufficiently recovered his spirits to be interested in meeting Villeneuve, the commander of the defeated French Fleet now a prisoner in the flagship Euryalus. Frank observed: ‘I was on board the Euryalus yesterday and was introduced to the French Admiral Villeneuve, who is a prisoner there. He appears to be about forty-five years of age, of dark complexion, and has not much the appearance of a gentleman. He is, however, so much of a Frenchman as to bear his misfortunes with cheerfulness.’ Frank was mistaken in his last judgement. Six months later, overcome with shame at his defeat, Villeneuve killed himself, giving credence to the view that the Austens were too English to understand foreigners.

Although Frank never ceased to regret missing Trafalgar, his disappointment was temporarily mitigated by participation in the Battle of St. Domingo on 6 February 1806. Relating something of the action to Mary Gibson, he wrote on the 7th: ‘The Canopus sails so bad that we were nearly the last ship in action; when we did get up, however, we had our share of it. Our people behaved admirably well and displayed astonishing coolness during the whole time. The first broadside we gave brought our opponents’ three masts down at once, and towards the close of the business we also had the satisfaction of giving the three-decker a tickling which knocked all his sticks away. We were so intermingled with the enemy it was impossible to confine our attack to one, and though no one vessel struck to us in particular, I am sure we had a share in each.’ Frank’s part in the victory at St. Domingo brought him the Gold Medal, the Thanks of Parliament and a £100 vase from Lloyd’s Patriotic Society.

Meanwhile on the home front the Rev. George Austen had died in the autumn of 1805, the news had come in the form of letter from Jane. Mrs Austen found that the greater part of her husband’s income had died with him, and Frank joined his brothers in supporting her. “Never were children so good as mine!” cried Mrs Austen. Frank at last married in July 1806 and the following autumn was joined at Southampton by his mother and Jane, who was soon to report, ‘Frank has got a very bad cough for an Austen; - but it does not disable him from making a very nice fringe for the Drawingroom Curtains.’ This rather peculiar pastime was one of Frank’s many handicrafts which extended to turning intricate boxes and making nets to protect his Morello cherries. This aspect of him Jane bestowed on Captain Harville in Persuasion as Frank confirmed many years after his sister’s death: ‘I do not know whether in the character of Capt. Wentworth the authoress meant in any degree to delineate that of her Brother: perhaps she might - but I rather think parts of Capt. Harville’s were drawn from myself. At least some of his domestic habits, tastes and occupations bear a strong resemblance to mine.’

In early 1807 Frank returned to sea in command of the St. Albans (64), and early the next year escorted a division of transports to Portugal, where the troops were disembarked on the eve of the Battle of Vimiera which he watched through a telescope from the decks of the St. Albans. In 1809 he oversaw the disembarkation of the survivors of Sir John Moore’s army, and after that was engaged in convoying East Indiamen to China where he remained in the vicinity of Canton from September 1809 to March 1810. While there he had to deal with a dispute arising from the murder of a Chinaman by a British sailor, and for a while it seemed as if the cargo of tea which he was to convoy home would be held up and so encounter severe weather. But his forceful diplomacy won the day and the convoy was allowed to sail according to plan, earning him the gratitude of the East India Company and their gift of 1,000 guineas. This encounter produced a well-turned phrase, well worthy of an Austen, on the Chinese mandarin - ‘which designation’, he declared, ‘perhaps comprises every bad quality which has disgraced human nature’.

In his absence, Mary produced a son, which event was celebrated by Jane with a lengthy congratulatory poem. In December 1810 Frank served again as flag-captain to Gambier, this time in the Caledonia, blockading the French coast. The following year he was given command of the Elephant in the Baltic and was engaged on convoy duty until the outbreak of war with the United States, when he was dispatched to cruise off the Western Isles where he captured the American privateer Swordfish. When off the coast of Sweden in Elephant in 1813 he received a letter from Jane dated 3 July informing him of her literary success: ‘You will be glad to hear that every copy of S.and S. [Sense sand Sensibility] is sold, and that it bought me £140, besides the copyright, if that should be of any value.’ She added, ‘I have something [Mansfield Park] in hand which I hope the credit of P. and P. [Pride and Prejudice] will sell well, though not half so entertaining, and by the bye shall you object to my mentioning the Elephant in it, and two or three other old ships? I have done it, but it shall not stay to make you angry. - They are only just mentioned.’ Permission was granted by return of post.

Jane died in 1817, and Frank, having given up the command of the Elephant in 1814, was at home to attend her funeral at Winchester. Frank’s wife, Mary, died in 1823, and five years later he realised Jane’s wishes by marrying Martha Lloyd. Frank was created a C.B. in 1815 and ten years later made a Colonel of Marines. He was advanced to a K.C.B. on 28 February 1838 and on 28 June following became a Vice-Admiral. At the age of seventy-one he was given his first sea going appointment since the Elephant thirty years earlier, when appointed to the command of the North American and West Indies Station with his flag in Vindictive. In 1860 Sir Francis was made a G.C.B., and shortly before his death on 10 August 1865, he attained the rank of Admiral of the Fleet.