Posted on 2010-01-13
The last Bennet to hold ownership over Longbourn was Thomas Bennet, the great-great-grandson of Harry Bennet. Born in 1765, he attended Eton as a boy, and later Oxford, where his marks, while not brilliant, were still considered quite good.
Upon finishing his education at Oxford, Thomas returned to Longbourn to take up the running of the estate for his elderly father. He proved somewhat of an indifferent manager, maintaining what his father had kept, but doing nothing to improve on the estate. Thus Longbourn remained at an income of about two thousand a year, far less than it had been in previous generations.
Thomas' father, Edwin Bennet, died in 1788, barely a year after Thomas' return to Longbourn. His mother, Jane, had been dead since 1784. This left him beholden to none, and he began a search for a wife in the nearby village of Meryton, eventually settling on Fanny Gardiner.
The Gardiner family was a moderately well-off family of Meryton. Frederick Gardiner was one in a long line of lawyers. He and his wife, Elizabeth, had three children, of which Fanny was the eldest, born in 1770. Another daughter, Sophia, had been born in 1773, and a son, Edward, in 1775.
In terms of social standing, Fanny Gardiner marrying Thomas Bennet, the last scion of the most upstanding, gentile family in the area – no matter how fallen its fortunes were in recent generations – could be, and likely was, considered quite an achievement by her family and social circle. On the Bennet side of things, however, the alliance would have been considered ill-advised. Certainly Thomas' relations had no problem telling him so. "Have you taken leave of your (TAG: illegible]?" wrote William Collins, Thomas' distant cousin and heir presumptive.1 "This woman is hardly of your […] sphere, whose [illegible] is so mired in trade and other mean [illegible) that it will be a permanent stain upon your house! No good will come of it, I own!"2 This letter, one of only two that survive of the already-scant correspondence between Thomas Bennet and William Collins, shows the disparity of the two men's situations. While Bennet had been afforded a fine education, Collins on the other hand appeared barely literate.
Whatever the disapproval of his family, Bennet was determined to marry Fanny Gardiner, and there does appear to have been genuine love and feeling between the two at this time. The wedding took place on 14 January 1790, at the Meryton Church.
The next several years were filled with disappointment, from a marital perspective. Within two years of their wedding, Fanny gave birth to a daughter, Jane. Roughly a year later, another daughter, Elizabeth, was born. Three more daughters followed over the following five years, Mary, Catherine (called "Kitty" by family and close friends), and finally Lydia, in 1798.3 With five daughters the only fruit of Thomas and Fanny's union, the Longbourn entail finally came into play, falling on William Collins' son, another William, since the senior Collins perished of cholera in 1797.4
After the births of his five daughters, Thomas' indolent nature became more and more pronounced. He continued maintaining Longbourn, but made little effort to expand it or do anything to increase the fortunes of his daughters. This left the five ladies with only a share of their mother's £5,000 dowry and an allowance of £100 per annum from their father's estate for the duration of his lifetime to recommend them. These sums were hardly the kind to attract respectable men of the time, who often sought well-settled women as well as those who were considered accomplished.
The events that began at Michaelmas 1813 and continued through the following year are well-documented. From Jane Austen's account in her book Pride and Prejudice (for over a century thought to be a work of fiction!) to the many subsequent films and plays based on her work, the courting of Jane and Elizabeth Bennet by Charles Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy, as well as the infamous elopement and hurried marriage of Lydia Bennet to George Wickham, have all been put on display for untold numbers of people over the years. Nonetheless, the importance of Jane and Elizabeth's marriages cannot be understated in regards to the family. The wealth of Bingley and Darcy would see to the protection of the two unmarried remaining Bennet sisters, Mary and Kitty, as well as to the comfort of Fanny should she outlive Thomas and be ejected from Longbourn by the Collins family.
Fortunately, there never was a need to call upon Bingley and Darcy's respective fortunes for such an occasion. In 1815, some months after the double wedding of Jane and Elizabeth, Kitty traveled to Derbyshire and took up residence with the Darcys. It was here that Kitty's "improvement was great," now that she was no longer under Lydia's direct and foolish influence.5 It has been thought that this improvement was thanks just as much to her subsequent friendship with Georgiana Darcy as to the stricter lifestyle and supervision she lived under with Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam. Kitty and Georgiana remained friends for the rest of their lives, sharing their joys and sorrows in a vast and lengthy correspondence – of which much still survives and is in the care of both the Derbyshire Historical Society and Georgiana's descendents.6
Kitty married a year later on 2 November 1816 John Masters, the parson of Kympton. Masters was a second son, and thus had been obliged to make his own way in the world, but had also inherited a large sum of money from a widowed and childless aunt. This wealth enabled the two to live quite comfortably at the parsonage until Masters' death in 1842, after which Kitty left Kympton and moved to reside at Pemberley with her sister and brother-in-law. The couple had two children, John (25 April 1818 – 14 December 1889), and Beatrice (1-3 January 1822).7
Mary, Thomas and Fanny's third daughter – and the plainest, according to all records that mention her – was the last to marry. She wed Harold Simms in 1818, a junior partner in her maternal uncle's law firm in Meryton, and thus was ultimately the only Bennet daughter to remain in Hertfordshire at length after her marriage, as Jane and Charles had departed from Netherfield some years before to take up residence in Derbyshire.8 She and Harold had three children, Daniel (17 August 1820 – 11 February 1888), Sarah (22 March 1822 – 1 June 1855), and Fanny (27 December 1823 – 4 May 1828).9 Simms was quite successful in his chosen profession, taking over the law firm from Oliver Philips when he retired and expanding the business.
Against all odds, Thomas' daughters were all safely married (though Lydia's 'safety' being married to George Wickham can be argued). Fanny died in 1825, thus sparing her of her great fear of what might befall her upon Thomas' death. She saw the births of many of her grandchildren, and was said to be content with her family's fate.
Despite the fact that their paths had diverged relatively quickly in their marriage, Thomas genuinely mourned the death of his wife. He remained at Longbourn, traveling less and less often to Derbyshire to visit Elizabeth, arguably his favorite of all his daughters. Mary spent much of her time at Longbourn as well, caring for her father in his declining years and allowing him time with his grandchildren, something he did not often receive due to the other grandchildren not residing in the area. Though she did not mention it in her letters to her sisters, Mrs. Simms' diaries record of how father and daughter grew closer during this time period. 'Spent the afternoon with Father at L(TAG: ongbourn],' Mrs. Simms wrote in April 1826. 'Laughed together over the Bard's [Much Ado About Nothing).'10 It appears that Mrs. Simms' literary tastes developed beyond religious and dull moral texts that she became famous for quoting in Austen's account.
Thomas himself died 4 August 1830 at Longbourn, the end of the male line of Bennets of Hertfordshire. The entail upon Longbourn finally went into effect, and William Collins moved his wife, Charlotte Lucas Collins, and their three children, William, Charlotte ("Lottie"), and Sophie, from the parsonage at Hunsford, in Kent, to Longbourn. The estate remains under the ownership of the Collins family even today, though it is no longer a private residence but a museum.11
Despite the ending of the Bennet male line, the Bennet blood still continued through the families of Thomas' daughters. Kitty and Mary had their children, and their sisters too had their families. Jane and Charles Bingley had five children: Selina, Charles, Winston, Margaret, and Harriet; Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy had four: Nathaniel, Frederick, Edward, and Amelia (who died in infancy in 1821); and Lydia and George Wickham had six children: Ralph, Helena, George, Thomas, Lydia, and Ann. The Simms and Masters lines have faded into obscurity if not ended altogether, but the remaining Bingley, Darcy, and Wickham lines are still traced by genealogically curious, including their own descendents.
The fortunes of the Bennets and Longbourn saw many turns. Beginning in greatness during the final years of the Tudor dynasty, they slowly dwindled down due to economic uncertainty as well as indifferent management. Just when the family might have been thrown into poverty for good, the advantageous marriages secured for four of the five daughters prevented any final decline. The fifth marriage, scandalous in its nature, was nonetheless secured and protected by the others, the image of familial solidarity, even if the four husbands had no liking for the fifth. In the end, it made for an interesting story, recorded in part by one of the finest nineteenth century authors and preserved by various historical societies.
2 Vincent Donaldson, The Collins Family, A History, 32.
3 Jane Bingley, The Diary of Jane Bennet Bingley, Volume VII, 12.
4 Donaldson, 39.
5 Austen, 355-356.
6 Derbyshire Historical Society, "Collections."
7 Catherine Masters, The Diary of Catherine Bennet Masters of Kympton, Volume IV, 11.
8 Austen, 355.
9 Mary Simms, The Diary of Mary Bennet Simms of Hertfordshire, Volume VIII, 67.
10 Mary Simms, Volume IX, 44.
11 Donaldson, 403.