Conclusion

Our project is now coming to an end so we wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been reading this blog over the last couple of months. We really hope that you’ve enjoyed hearing about our research and have found this blog interesting. Hopefully we’ve added to, and perhaps challenged any ideas about Georgian Families you might have previously held from Jane Austen’s novels. The intention of this blog was to question and examine what factors impacted sibling relationships among the Hampshire gentry by examining real case studies and comparing these to fictional families portrayed in the literature of the period.

For our last post we thought we would bring together some of the different concepts we’ve explored over the past weeks to see what conclusions we can draw about Georgian Gentry families in Hampshire.

• The factor influenced sibling relationships the most was undoubtedly gender, since it played a role in so many aspects of Georgian lives. Sons and daughters were brought up differently, receiving different types of education in preparation for their adult lives. This is where inheritance also played a role; boys, especially the younger sons would need a profession, whereas the heir would inherit money and daughters would be expected to marry. Boys benefited more from inheritance than their sisters, reflecting the way in which men were expected to be financially independent whereas girls were dependent on their male relatives. This was evident in the examples from the Bonham Carter family.

• Correspondence between siblings was frequent and valued, especially when separated for long periods of time. As seen in the Temple family, the sons wrote constantly to their sisters and mother while away at school and university, taking an interest in their education and planning visits during school holidays. This is evidence of close relationships between siblings despite factors such as age, distance and education separating them.

Mary Mee, mother of Henry (3rd Viscount
 Palmerston), William, Elizabeth and Frances Temple.

• Marriage proved to be the most divisive of the factors, we have seen that it both strengthened family bonds and caused increased tension. It was common for a spouse to become an additional sibling and child within their marital family, however, as seen in the Austen family, the engagement or marriage of one child could cause tension among the parents and their unmarried children. Whilst marriage was desirable for the Georgian gentry, it would have had an enormous impact on day-to-day life; this explains why it was a recurring topic between siblings, especially sisters.

• Significantly, our study has shown that inheritance does not just mean the passing of money from one source to another. In the case of both the Temple and Austen-Leigh families, the new heir also took on the care and responsibility of dependent relatives, showing that inheritance was not simply about money. Attached to being the heir was becoming the head of the family, and the responsibilities that came with this. 

An Early 18th Century Wedding

In drawing all of these together, we can determine that there was a multitude of factors that influenced sibling relationships; patterns which could have been similar in other counties alongside Hampshire. As in any period, there were factors which caused conflict in families; however we have seen that despite this, sibling relationships among the Georgian Gentry were largely strong and affectionate.