Author: Lefroy, Anne
Biography:
LEFROY, Anne, formerly BRYDGES (1747-1804: ancestry.com)
She was baptised on 22 Mar. 1747, the eldest of eight children who survived infancy born to Jemima (Egerton) and Edward Brydges of Wootton Court, Wootton, Kent. While her brothers were educated at the King’s School, Canterbury, she learnt at home and helped to teach the younger children. The poems she wrote for them were collected by her son Christopher and published after her death. At the age of 31, on 28 Dec. 1778 at Wootton, she married one of her brothers’ schoolmates, Isaac Peter George (“George”) Lefroy, who had gone on to Oxford and taken orders in 1772. The couple had five children who grew past infancy. In 1783, George became rector of the church at Ashe, Hampshire, and the family settled permanently at the rectory there. Mrs. Lefroy’s active life included social affairs in the neighbourhood, organising and teaching in the Sunday school, and preparing a home front in case of invasion. She promoted vaccination for smallpox and personally vaccinated many of the families in their parish. She is known to this day for her kindness to one particular younger woman, Jane Austen (1775-1817), who lived nearby at Steventon and fell in love with the Lefroys’ Irish nephew Tom Lefroy in the winter of 1796-7. They may or may not have been very briefly engaged. Anne Lefroy died on 16 Dec. 1804 after falling from a horse, and was buried at Ashe on 21 Dec. In 1808, Austen recalled her “beloved friend” on her own birthday, which was also the anniversary of the death. Anne Lefroy’s letters, many of them written to her son Christopher towards the end of her life, were published by the Jane Austen Society in 2007. (ancestry.com 29 Dec. 2023; findmypast.com 29 Dec. 2023; Judith Stove, Jane Austen’s Inspiration . . . Anne Lefroy [2019])
Other Names:
- Mrs. Lefroy