{"id":917069,"date":"2026-04-25T06:52:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T06:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/917069\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T06:52:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T06:52:21","slug":"jane-austens-bristol-legacy-tragedy-and-the-unfinished-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/917069\/","title":{"rendered":"Jane Austen’s Bristol: Legacy, tragedy and the unfinished novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are connections and landmarks all over the city – you just need to know where to look\"bristolpost\"<\/p>\n

Jonathan Rowe<\/strong><\/p>\n

06:00, 25 Apr 2026<\/p>\n

\"Jane<\/p>\n

Jane Austen\u2019s unfinished novel Lesley Castle was written when she was 16 years old and was partially set in Bristol(Image: Getty)<\/p>\n

In April 1928, 58-year-old Caroline Hubback travelled from Rome, where she worked as a translator, to visit the grave of her former barrister grandfather, John Hubback, in St Luke\u2019s churchyard in Brislington<\/a>.<\/p>\n

John Hubback was Jane Austen\u2019s nephew-in-law and tragically spent 35 years in Brislington House Asylum (now Long Fox Manor), where he was a patient after suffering a mental breakdown in 1847, aged 36.<\/p>\n

The gravestone also commemorates his wife, Catherine Anne Hubback, Jane Austen\u2019s niece, who, to provide for herself and her three sons, became a novelist.<\/p>\n

In 1850, Catherine published a version of Jane Austen\u2019s unfinished novel, The Watsons as The Younger Sister. She dedicated the novel to her aunt and wrote, \u201cThough too young to have known her personally, [I] was from early childhood taught to esteem her virtues and admire her talents\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jane Austen had stopped writing The Watsons after her father died in 1805, when the family were living at 3 Green Park Buildings East, Bath<\/a>. Revd George Austen is buried in St Swithin\u2019s churchyard.<\/p>\n

Over 13 years, Catherine published nine more novels, and her work became much admired by middle-class Victorian young ladies.<\/p>\n

Catherine eventually emigrated to America in 1871, where her two younger sons were living. She regularly visited her husband with her family, even after she had moved to the USA. On her final visit before her death in 1877, aged 59, John failed to recognise her. He outlived her for eight years and died in 1885, aged 74. The inscription on the gravestone reads, \u201cAnd There Was No More Sea\u201d, from Revelations 21.v1.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Hubback grave at St Luke\u2019s. John Hubback had been at the Brislington House asylum for 35 years(Image: Jonathan Rowe)<\/p>\n

Accompanying Caroline Hubback to Brislington in 1928 was her father, 84-year-old John Henry Hubback, Catherine\u2019s eldest son, who was a retired Liverpool corn merchant.<\/p>\n

Caroline and John signed the visitors\u2019 book at St Luke\u2019s on 14 April 1928, which can still be seen today. The connection was only discovered in 2023. Caroline and her father stayed at the Pulteney Hotel, Great Pulteney Street, Bath (now Connaught Mansions flats). The hotel was advertised as \u201cThe most palatial hotel in the Queen of English Spas\u201d, offering a \u201ccultured repose and artistic refinement\u2026 patronised by the most distinguished personages\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is unlikely that Caroline and John Henry Hubback noticed a memorial in the porch of St Luke\u2019s, tucked away in a dark corner, virtually unseen to anyone entering or leaving the church.<\/p>\n

Stephen Stuart Bridges died in 1787, aged 46, probably an illegitimate son of the Bridges\/Brydges family, who were landowners of Keynsham from the 16th\u201318th centuries. If this is correct, Bridges would have been a tenuous relation of Jane Austen (and the Hubbacks) by Austen\u2019s maternal great-grandmother, The Honourable Mary Brydges (1666\u20131703), sister of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John Henry Hubback and Caroline Hubback signed the visitors\u2019 book at at St Luke\u2019s(Image: Jonathan Rowe)<\/p>\n

Like her illustrious great-great-aunt Jane, Caroline Hubback never married and also became a writer. She translated a significant work by the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1922), becoming the first person to use the word \u201cangst\u201d in English.<\/p>\n

Caroline\u2019s translation made Freud\u2019s complex ideas accessible to the English-speaking world. Freud corresponded with lifelong friend, Welshman Ernest Jones of the Institute of Psychoanalysis, and praised Caroline\u2019s translation of Freud\u2019s treatise on the psychology of the sexual libido, which was published by the Institute of Psychoanalysis and The Hogarth Press, which was founded and run by Virginia and Leonard Woolf.<\/p>\n

Caroline had obtained a degree in Classical Greats at Oxford and later lectured at Cambridge Training College. She was also the first headmistress of Chester City High School, 1905\u201309, where anti-permissive \u201cClean Up TV\u201d campaigner Mary Whitehouse was later a pupil. Caroline lived in Italy, working as a translator, from 1921\u201339. She died in 1959, aged 87.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Rowe will give a double-bill talk on Jane Austen\u2019s Bristol and Catherine Anne Hubback for Brislington Conservation and History Society on May 28 2026 at 7.30 at St Cuthbert\u2019s Church Crypt, Sandy Park Road. In autumn 2026, Gemini Players will present the stage world premiere of Jane Austen\u2019s unfinished novel Lesley Castle, adapted by Jonathan Rowe, at St Luke\u2019s Church Hall, Church Parade, Brislington. Jane Austen wrote \u201cLesley Castle\u201d in 1792, aged 16, and it is the only one of her works to be partly set in Bristol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are connections and landmarks all over the city – you just need to know where to look…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[9420,381,14720,748,393,4884,29121,11653,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-917069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-brislington","9":"tag-bristol","10":"tag-bristol-nostalgia","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-keynsham","15":"tag-premium","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116464029011262972","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}