the author

My interest is in uncovering more material relating to Emma Smith and Mary Gosling (aka: Emma Austen-Leigh and Lady Smith). Diaries and letters show up in university archives, in public record offices, and in private collections, in both the US and the UK. Please contact me, Kelly M. McDonald, at smithandgosling [at] gmail [dot] com if you have any information to share about: the Goslings of Roehampton Grove, the Goslings of Hassobury (Essex), their family banking firm (Goslings and Sharpe) on Fleet Street, London; or about the Smiths of Suttons (Essex), or their extended family.

Publications of my research include:

  • “Edward Austen’s Emma Reads Emma,” in Persuasions (The Jane Austen Journal), vol. 29 (2007), pp. 234-239. The diaries of Emma Smith note some key moments in her courtship with James-Edward Austen, including their jointly reading his Aunt Jane’s novel Emma in the days surrounding their engagement. Had Emma Smith any of the qualities of Austen’s heroine Emma Woodhouse?
  • “Before She Became Fanny Seymour, Parson’s Wife,” Local Past, Newsletter of the Alcester and District Historical Society (Warwickshire, England), June 2008 (vol. 4, No. 1), pp. 3-5. Based on the lecture “Becoming Fanny Seymour,” this article traces the girlhood of Fanny Smith (younger sister of Emma Austen-Leigh) prior to her marriage with the Rev. Richard Seymour.
    READ this article online: localpast_fanny1-june08.
  • “‘Fanny I am thankful to say continues going on very well’,” Local Past, Newsletter of the Alcester and District Historical Society, December 2008 (vol. 4, No. 2), pp. 4-6. The first year of marriage brings Fanny Seymour joy and tragedy, and during it all she is bolstered by her beloved sister, Emma Austen.
  • “Derbyshires Corresponding: Elizabeth Bennet and the Austen Tour of 1833,” Persuasions, vol. 30 (2008), pp. 149-158. The starting point is Jane Austen’s own narration of Elizabeth Bennet’s fateful journey into Derbyshire with Aunt and Uncle Gardiner in summer 1812; using diaries and letters, Emma Austen’s tour of the same county twenty-one years later points up the tourist possibilities and problems which Pride & Prejudice’s narrator claimed were ‘too well known’ to need mention.
    JASNA has made this article available online.
  • “‘There Was Once a Golden Time’: The Knyvett Family Musicians,” Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine (submitted). A short, biographical look at the four Knyvetts: father Charles Knyvett Senior, sons Charles and William, and William’s second wife Deborah Travis. Emma Smith met them all! Diary excerpts penned by young Emma highlight the article.
  • Pemberley’s Welcome: An Historical Conjecture Upon Elizabeth Darcy’s Wedding Journey. (Submitted to Persuasions).

In Manuscript:

  • with Alan Godfrey. The Seymours of Kinwarton (a fundraiser for the church of St. Mary, Kinwarton, Warwickshire, England). A look at the early life of Fanny Seymour née Smith, from young girl to new wife; Mr Godfrey concentrates on Rev. Richard Seymour, Vicar of Kinwarton and Great Alne (Warwickshire). St. Mary’s was Richard’s primary parish, which he served until the 1870s. Lady Smith’s two daughters raised funds for new service books the Christmas of 1847; and brother-in-law Arthur Currie gifted a chancel window. Several family inscriptions can be found within the church. Fanny and Richard are buried in Kinwarton.
  • Presenting Miss Emma Smith. A peek at Emma’s life before her marriage to James-Edward Austen, based on her diaries and letters.
  • Mirror Images: Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy and Mr Collins.

Lectures:

  • “Becoming Fanny Seymour,” Great Alne, Warwickshire, England, 13 July 2007. Young Fanny was brought home to an appreciative audience who heard of the priviledged life and tragic family history of the girl who, in October 1834, became Fanny Seymour. (Redditch Advertiser announcement.)
  • “Georgiana Darcy and the ‘Naïve Art’ of Young Ladies,” 30 January 2009/14 August 2009/11 September 2009. Part of a Jane Austen weekend at the Governor’s House in Hyde Park, Hyde Park, Vermont. Looking into the lives of ladies like Georgiana Darcy (Pride & Prejudice), as expressed through their artwork.
    Future (and last) date for these Austen Weekends: 8-10 January 2010
    See the website: www.onehundredmain.com.
  • “Austen/Adams: Journeys with Jane and Abigail,” 6 June 2010. JASNA-Vermont (Burlington) meeting. Be prepared to bring your own picnic hamper, for this event is our JASNA chapter’s Box Hill picnic! The talk centers on journeys taken by Jane Austen and Abigail Adams, and will feature some surprising audience participation! The event is open to the public, but prior registration recommended. Contact us at JASNA-vt@hotmail.com.

 Proposed Papers:

  • “Sisters of the Heart: Three Female Friendship Pairs,” proposed paper for JASNA AGM, Philadelphia, October 2009. Examines the relationships of Jane Austen & Martha Lloyd / Elizabeth Bennet & Charlotte Lucas / Mary Gosling & Emma Smith  – in other words: the author and her close friend; Austen’s Pride and Prejudice girlfriends; Mary and Emma represent two contemporary readers of Austen’s novels.
    (not accepted)
  • “Mirror Images: Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy and Mr Collins,” proposed paper for New Directions in Austen Studies, Chawton, July 2009. Is it any wonder that Elizabeth Bennet preferred Fitzwilliam Darcy over the Revd. Mr William Collins?? Not when Jane Austen sets them up as polar opposites… This paper will look at the novel’s two characters, who have more in common than movies and TV will ever portray.
    (not accepted)
  • “Coming Out: Augusta Smith and Catherine Morland, at Court and in Bath,” proposed paper for JASNA AGM, Portland (Ore.), October 2010. A young Lady’s Court presentation was the norm for a certain sector of society in Austen’s England. Emma Smith wrote about this special day when her elder sister, Augusta, was presented in February 1817. Catherine Morland (heroine of the 2010 AGM focus novel, Northanger Abbey) had her own ‘presentation’ when she entered Bath society.

    •  

Funding:

  • The Timpson Research Grant; Clifford A. Timpson of Milton, Vermont (2007); $250.
  • National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Summer Stipend, 2007; unfunded.
  • Jane Austen Society of North America, International Visitor Program (IVP), 2007; unfunded.
  • National Coalition of Independent Scholars, Eisenstein Prize for Best published article by an NCIS member; unawarded.
  • National Coalition of Independent Scholars, Yosef Wosk Grant; unfunded.

 

JASNA Related book reviews:

  • “Madame Lefroy In Her Own Words,” review of The Letters of Mrs Lefroy: Jane Austen’s Beloved Friend, edited by Gavin Turner and Helen Lefroy. JASNA News, Summer, 2008.
  • “Those Marrying Men,” reviews of Lydia Bennet’s Story, Jane Odiwe; and The Matters at Mansfield, Carrie Bebris. JASNA News, Spring, 2009.
  • “Keeping Up Appearances,” review of John Styles, The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth Century England. JASNA News, Summer 2009.
  • “Crafty Jane Austen,” review of Jennifer Forest, Jane Austen’s Sewing Box. JASNA News, Winter 2010.

JASNA Related interviews:

  • Deb Barnum and Kelly McDonald, Regional co-Coordinators of the Vermont region, talking with VPR listeners and Vermont Edition host Jane Lindholm, Vermont Public Radio (3 July 2008). Listen online. (The Austen segment opens the broadcast; approx: 30 minutes.)
  • In December 2007 I spoke with journalist Steven Pappas. The resultant article on our JASNA chapter appeared in the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus and the Rutland Herald in January 2008 – just in time for MASTERPIECE THEATRE’s Austen marathon. An earlier article on the start-up of the chapter, by Amy Lilly, appeared in Seven Days.

JASNA-Vermont online book reviews:

Smith and Gosling related reviews:

* * *

Kelly M. McDonald is a 1984 graduate (B.A.) of The University of Vermont (Burlington, VT), where she was inducted a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honor Society. Researching the diaries of Mary Gosling led to her joining the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA); she is a founding member of the Vermont Chapter of the society, and currently serves as Regional co-Coordinator for JASNA-Vermont. For more on Jane Austen, see JASNA-Vermont’s chapter blog at wordpress: Jane Austen in Vermont. Kelly has recently [2008] been accepted for membership to the National Coalition of Independent Scholars. NCIS was formed in 1989 to facilitate the work of independent scholars; they are an affiliate of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

Acknowledgements

This project brought me to Old Dominion University (Norfolk, Virginia; May 2006), Duke University (Durham, NC; November, 2006), as well as to the English county of Hampshire for a two-month research stay (mid-May to mid-July, 2007) in the Austen city of Winchester.

Old Dominion University (ODU) was the site were my ‘hunch’ that Mary Gosling and Lady Smith were one and the same person was confirmed! They have a splendid microfilm collection (one of the few to have part V, Essex for the series Women’s Language & Experience), and I was lucky to find an exceptionally helpful student staff-member working the room the day of my visit. I never got his name.

Duke University owns the earliest known diary belonging to Mary Gosling. My father drove me from Vermont to Durham and patiently waited, for days on end, while I transcribed it. The staff of the Special Collections, including Elizabeth Dunn (treated separately, below), could not have been kinder. And having the original Mary Gosling diary (one section alone seen in a xerox copy) to hold in my hands was simply an exquisite sensation.

The Hampshire Record Office houses a splendid collection of Austen-Leigh papers; heartful thanks to all the HRO staff in the reading room for their assistance. It was a pleasure working six days a week among them all. As I go through notes from that period, expect a few belated thank yous to pop up here; for I did encounter a few favorite staff members.

While in England, the Record Offices of Essex (Chelmsford) and Warwickshire (Warwick), where the Smith and Seymour families resided, were also visited, so their staff members deserve some share of thanks, although my visits were necessarily much too short. ERO holds a special place, for they microfilmed all of Charles’ diaries for me.

I gratefully acknowledge the kindness of Chris (landlady in Kingsworthy); and neighbors Rowland and Peggy – who drove me out to Chawton Cottage, which – life-long Hampshire natives – they had never before visited. I also recognize Mrs Johnstone of Kingsworthy, a docent at The Vyne, for her engrossing story about Colin Firth (a local lad) and the American fan she met on the train, and for her interest in hearing a little about the life of Eliza Chute.

Deep thanks go to Dr. Jeremy Catto (Oxford University) for his collection of letters, and to Rob Petre (archivist, Oriel College, Oxford) who photographed them. Alan Godfrey, in his early enthusiasm for sharing his collection of letters and for putting together the opportunity for a talk on Fanny Seymour, can never be thanked enough. And a similar sentiment for Elizabeth Dunn, at Duke University; she responded to my query about Mary Gosling’s diary – without her positive encouragment, this project would never have gotten started.

This blog introduced Mike and his digital reproductions of the Surrey photo album, which was as thrilling to see as one could have hoped! Pity Mary never lived into the photographic age… Mike has also recently shared his collection of Gosling/Gregg genealogy. He is an indefatigable traveller and photographer, and has become ‘my eyes’ at places like St. Mary’s (Sutton’s parish church, where among others Mary is buried) and Preston Deanery. Thanks are extended to John for his “Nanna’s Grandchildren” list, and Eliza for sharing her wonderful family ephemeria (I look forward to her book!). Gwyneth is a recent contact, from whom I look forward to hearing more about The Vyne and certain Smith descendents. Kate from Norfolk deserves special mention; she not only has interesting tidbits she willingly shares, she has also read drafts of articles and written excellent and helpful responses. Her long-distance friendship is greatly appreciated.

Very belated thanks to Clifford A. Timpson; his unstinting belief in this project near its research inception resulted in my first research grant. His own delving into the history of his family shows just how strongly many people care about the past; his generosity shows that sometimes people also care about the present and future, not to mention ‘the living’. I am grateful!

To obtain copies of the above journal articles, contact the author; Persuasions is also available for purchase through JASNA.org.