Mary Jane Purvis: Jane Austen’s Niece in Fareham
Mary Jane Purvis was born Mary Jane Austen on 27 April 1807, into one of the most famous literary families in England.
Her father was Admiral Sir Francis William Austen, the younger brother of Jane Austen. Francis had a long and distinguished Royal Navy career and eventually rose to Admiral of the Fleet. Mary Jane was therefore Jane Austen’s niece and was still a child when her aunt died in 1817.
On 10 June 1828, Mary Jane married the Fareham-born naval officer George Thomas Maitland Purvis. He came from the Purvis family of Blackbrook and was himself serving in the Royal Navy. Contemporary naval records specifically identify Mary Jane as the daughter of Vice-Admiral Sir Francis Austen.
The couple established a substantial family connection with Fareham. They had five children: George Thomas Maitland, Mary Renira, Herbert Mark Garrett, Francis Reginald and Helen Catherine Purvis. Several were born in Fareham, and members of the family later pursued military and naval careers of their own.
Mary Jane’s life was short. She died on 29 December 1836, aged only twenty-nine. Her husband was serving as first lieutenant of HMS Sulphur around this period but, according to his later naval biography, was forced to leave the ship because of “family affliction”. The timing strongly suggests that Mary Jane’s illness or death was the reason he returned home, although the record does not explicitly say so.
George remarried in 1838, this time to Esther North Harrison, daughter of the Vicar of Fareham, further strengthening the Purvis family’s connections with St Peter & St Paul.
Mary Jane’s memorial therefore gives Fareham a direct family connection with Jane Austen. She was not simply someone with the same surname: she was Jane Austen’s own niece, the daughter of Jane’s naval brother Francis, who married into a prominent Fareham naval family and raised her children here.
Through the Purvis memorials, the walls of St Peter & St Paul connect the town with both the Royal Navy and one of the best-known writers in English literature.
