Martha Lloyd

Martha was the eldest daughter of Rev Noyes Lloyd of Bishopstone (near Shrivenham in Wiltshire) and his wife, Martha Craven.[1] Her mother was second daughter of the Royal Governor of South Carolina, Charles Craven. Mrs Lloyd considered herself fortunate to have married "a beneficed clergyman of respectable character and good position."[2]

The Lloyds settled down and had four children. Martha, the oldest daughter, was born in 1765 and her sister Mary in 1771. A few years later, a smallpox epidemic took the life of their brother and left the two older sisters scarred for life, although the youngest, Eliza, seems to have escaped relatively unharmed. When the Rev Lloyd died in 1789, the Lloyd family lived for two or three years in the parsonage at Deane, a benefice held by Rev. George Austen.[3] During this period, Martha Lloyd and her sister, Mary, became lifelong friends of Cassandra and Jane Austen.[4]

Although Jane Austen was ten years younger than Martha, the eldest Lloyd daughter, they were, as Jane's cousin, Eliza de Feuillide, remarked, "very sensible and good-humored." Austen considered Martha to be a second sister, as her letter of 13 October 1808, written to Cassandra, shows: "With what true sympathy our feelings are shared by Martha, you need not be told;—she is the friend & Sister under every circumstance."[5]

Martha Lloyd's contribution to what is now known of Austen's life is significant. Letters survive from Jane to Martha, as well as Martha's collection of recipes used at Chawton, which were later compiled into A Jane Austen Household Book by Peggy Hickman, David & Charles, Ltd. 1977, and in The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye, British Museum Press, 1995; (ISBN 0-7141-2769-8). Martha Lloyd is directly mentioned in Jane Austen's poem, Oh! Mr. Best You're Very Bad.[6]

• Gehrer, Julienne (Ed.): Martha Lloyd's household book: the original manuscript from Jane Austen's kitchen; foreword by Deirdre Faye ; Julienne Gehrer ; Jane Austen's House, Oxford : Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, 2021, ISBN 978-1-85124-560-4

• Austen-Leigh, William; Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh (1913). Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters—A Family Record. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Collins, Irene (1994). Jane Austen and the Clergy. London and Rio Grande: The Hambledon Press. ISBN 1-85285-114-7.
• Le Fay, Deirdre (1995). Jane Austen's Letters. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-283297-2.

• Honan, Park (1987). Jane Austen — A Life. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-01451-1.
• Ross, Josephine (2003). Jane Austen: A Companion. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-3299-X.

• Jane Austen's Chawton House Museum which is open to the public and is very much as Jane Austen would have known it.
• Further information and photographs can be found at The Jane Austen Centre.