Living to 100
the number 100 features prominently in this
issue. here, suewilkes looks at instances of
remarkable longevity from georgian britainT
he late 18th and early 19th
centuries were a time when medical
science was imperfect, infant
mortality high, and even people in
the very prime of life fell prey to disease.
Within Jane Austen’s own family, her
grandfather William Austen died at the early
age of 36, and three of her sisters-in-law died
young, so she was well aware of the fragility
of life.
In Sense & Sensibility, Fanny Dashwood
pours cold water on her husband’s suggestion
that they set up an annuity for her widowed
mother-in-law, because she was “very stout
and healthy, and hardly forty ... if Mrs
Dashwood should live fifteen years we shall
be completely taken in”.
The Leigh side of Jane Austen’s family
were more likely to live longer. Her mother
Cassandra, who survived her husband and both daughters, lived to the grand old age
of 88 and was described as “a pale, dark-eyed
old lady, with a high arched nose and a kind
smile, dressed in a long cloak and a large
drawn bonnet, both made of black satin”.
At a time when life expectancy was
Henry Jenkins, who claimed to have
delivered arrows for the King’s army in
1513, died in 1670 at the supposed age
of 169 (Wellcome Collection)