Capability Brown
Lancelot Brown, more known with the byname Capability Brown, was an English landscape architect. He is remembered as "the last of the great English 18th century artists to be accorded his due" and "England's greatest gardener", he designed over 170 parks. He was nicknamed "Capability" because he would tell his clients that their property had "capability" for improvement, his influence was so great that the contributions to the English garden made by his predecessors Charles Bridgeman and William Kent are overlooked. Lancelot Brown was born as a land agent's and chambermaid's fifth child in the village of Kirkharle and educated at a school in Cambo until he was 16. Brown’s father William Brown had been Sir William Loraine’s land agent and his mother Ursula had been in service at Kirkharle Hall, his eldest brother John became the estate surveyor and married Sir William's daughter. Elder brother George became a mason-architect. After school Lancelot worked as the head gardener's apprentice at Sir William Loraine's kitchen garden at Kirkharle Hall till he was 23.
In 1739 he journeyed south arriving at the port of Lincolnshire. He moved further inland where his first landscape commission was for a new lake in the park at Kiddington Hall, Oxfordshire, he moved to Wotton Underwood House, seat of Sir Richard Grenville. In 1741, Brown joined Lord Cobham's gardening staff as undergardener at Stowe, where he worked under William Kent, one of the founders of the new English style of landscape garden. At the age of 26 he was appointed as the Head Gardener in 1742, earning £25 a year and residing at the western Boycott Pavilion. Brown was the head gardener at Stowe 1742-1750, he made the Grecian Valley at Stowe, despite its name, is an abstract composition of landform and woodland. Lord Cobham let Brown take freelance commission work from his aristocratic friends, thus making him well known as a landscape gardener; as a proponent of the new English style, Brown became. By 1751, when Brown was beginning to be known, Horace Walpole wrote somewhat slightingly of Brown's work at Warwick Castle: The castle is enchanting.
It is well laid out by one Brown who has set up on a few ideas of Mr. Southcote. By the 1760s, he was earning on average £6,000 a year £500 for one commission; as an accomplished rider he was able to work fast, taking only an hour or so on horseback to survey an estate and rough out an entire design. In 1764, Brown was appointed King George III's Master Gardener at Hampton Court Palace, succeeding John Greening and residing at the Wilderness House. In 1767 he bought an estate for himself at Fenstanton in Huntingdonshire from the Earl of Northampton and was appointed High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire for 1770, although his son Lance carried out most of the duties, it is estimated that Brown was responsible for over 170 gardens surrounding the finest country houses and estates in Britain. His work still endures at Belvoir Castle, Croome Court, Blenheim Palace, Warwick Castle, Harewood House, Appuldurcombe House, Milton Abbey, in traces at Kew Gardens and many other locations, his style of smooth undulating grass, which would run straight to the house, clumps and scattering of trees and his serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers, were a new style within the English landscape, a "gardenless" form of landscape gardening, which swept away all the remnants of previous formally patterned styles.
His landscapes were at the forefront of fashion. They were fundamentally different from what they replaced, the well-known formal gardens of England which were criticised by Alexander Pope and others from the 1710s. Starting in 1719, William Kent replaced these with more naturalistic compositions, which reached their greatest refinement in Brown's landscapes. At Hampton Court, Brown encountered Hannah More in 1782 and she described his "grammatical" manner in her literary terms: "'Now there' said he, pointing his finger,'I make a comma, there' pointing to another spot,'where a more decided turn is proper, I make a colon. Brown's patrons saw the idealised landscapes he was creating for them in terms of the Italian landscape painters they admired and collected, as Kenneth Woodbridge first observed in the landscape at Stourhead, a "Brownian" landscape in which Brown himself was not involved. Brown's sternest critic was his contemporary Uvedale Price, who likened Brown's clumps of trees to "so many puddings turned out of one common mould."
Russell Page, who began his career in the Brownian landscape of Longleat but whose own designs have formal structure, accused Brown of "encouraging his wealthy clients to tear out their splendid formal gardens and replace them with his facile compositions of grass, tree clumps and rather shapeless pools and lakes." Richard Owen Cambridge, the English poet and satirical author, declared that he hoped to die before Brown so that he could "see heaven before it was'improved'." This was a typical statement reflecting the controversy about Brown's work, which has continued over the last 200 years. By contrast, a recent historian
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates credit. Lending activities can be performed either indirectly through capital markets. Due to their importance in the financial stability of a country, banks are regulated in most countries. Most nations have institutionalized a system known as fractional reserve banking under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, known as the Basel Accords. Banking in its modern sense evolved in the 14th century in the prosperous cities of Renaissance Italy but in many ways was a continuation of ideas and concepts of credit and lending that had their roots in the ancient world. In the history of banking, a number of banking dynasties – notably, the Medicis, the Fuggers, the Welsers, the Berenbergs, the Rothschilds – have played a central role over many centuries.
The oldest existing retail bank is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, while the oldest existing merchant bank is Berenberg Bank. The concept of banking may have begun in ancient Assyria and Babylonia, with merchants offering loans of grain as collateral within a barter system. Lenders in ancient Greece and during the Roman Empire added two important innovations: they accepted deposits and changed money. Archaeology from this period in ancient China and India shows evidence of money lending. More modern banking can be traced to medieval and early Renaissance Italy, to the rich cities in the centre and north like Florence, Siena and Genoa; the Bardi and Peruzzi families dominated banking in 14th-century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe. One of the most famous Italian banks was the Medici Bank, set up by Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici in 1397; the earliest known state deposit bank, Banco di San Giorgio, was founded in 1407 at Italy. Modern banking practices, including fractional reserve banking and the issue of banknotes, emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Merchants started to store their gold with the goldsmiths of London, who possessed private vaults, charged a fee for that service. In exchange for each deposit of precious metal, the goldsmiths issued receipts certifying the quantity and purity of the metal they held as a bailee; the goldsmiths began to lend the money out on behalf of the depositor, which led to the development of modern banking practices. The goldsmith paid interest on these deposits. Since the promissory notes were payable on demand, the advances to the goldsmith's customers were repayable over a longer time period, this was an early form of fractional reserve banking; the promissory notes developed into an assignable instrument which could circulate as a safe and convenient form of money backed by the goldsmith's promise to pay, allowing goldsmiths to advance loans with little risk of default. Thus, the goldsmiths of London became the forerunners of banking by creating new money based on credit; the Bank of England was the first to begin the permanent issue of banknotes, in 1695.
The Royal Bank of Scotland established the first overdraft facility in 1728. By the beginning of the 19th century a bankers' clearing house was established in London to allow multiple banks to clear transactions; the Rothschilds pioneered international finance on a large scale, financing the purchase of the Suez canal for the British government. The word bank was taken Middle English from Middle French banque, from Old Italian banco, meaning "table", from Old High German banc, bank "bench, counter". Benches were used as makeshift desks or exchange counters during the Renaissance by Jewish Florentine bankers, who used to make their transactions atop desks covered by green tablecloths; the definition of a bank varies from country to country. See the relevant country pages under for more information. Under English common law, a banker is defined as a person who carries on the business of banking by conducting current accounts for his customers, paying cheques drawn on him/her and collecting cheques for his/her customers.
In most common law jurisdictions there is a Bills of Exchange Act that codifies the law in relation to negotiable instruments, including cheques, this Act contains a statutory definition of the term banker: banker includes a body of persons, whether incorporated or not, who carry on the business of banking'. Although this definition seems circular, it is functional, because it ensures that the legal basis for bank transactions such as cheques does not depend on how the bank is structured or regulated; the business of banking is in many English common law countries not defined by statute but by common law, the definition above. In other English common law jurisdictions there are statutory definitions of the business of banking or banking business; when looking at these definitions it is important to keep in mind that they are defining the business of banking for the purposes of the legislation, not in general. In particular, most of the definitions are from legislation that has the purpose of regulating and supervising banks rather than regulating the actual business of banking.
However, in many cases the statutory definition mirrors the common law one. Examples of statutory definitions: "banking business" means the business of receiving money on current or deposit account and collecting cheques drawn by or paid in by customers, the making
Henry Hoare (banker)
Henry Hoare I, known as Henry the Good, was an English banker and landowner. Born the son of Sir Richard Hoare, founder of C. Hoare & Co bankers, Henry the Good became a Partner in the bank in August 1702. Together with his father, he became a commissioner for the building of 50 new churches in London in 1711. Following his father's death in 1719, he managed the bank through the South Sea Bubble of 1720 making a profit of over £28,000 from the crisis, he acquired the Stourhead estate in 1717 but died before the new house there had been completed. In 1702 he married Jane Benson.
Lord Mayor of London
The Lord Mayor of London is the City of London's mayor and leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional powers and privileges, including the title and style The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of London; this office differs from the much more powerful Mayor of London, a popularly elected position and covers the much larger Greater London area. In 2006 the Corporation of London changed its name to the City of London Corporation, when the title Lord Mayor of the City of London was reintroduced to avoid confusion with the Mayor of London. However, the legal and used title remains Lord Mayor of London; the Lord Mayor is elected at Common Hall each year on Michaelmas, takes office on the Friday before the second Saturday in November, at The Silent Ceremony. The Lord Mayor's Show is held on the day after taking office. One of the world's oldest continuously elected civic offices, the Lord Mayor's main role nowadays is to represent and promote the businesses and residents in the City of London.
Today, these businesses are in the financial sector and the Lord Mayor is regarded as the champion of the entire UK-based financial sector regardless of ownership or location throughout the country. As leader of the Corporation of the City of London, the Lord Mayor serves as the key spokesman for the local authority and has important ceremonial and social responsibilities. All Lord Mayors of London are apolitical; the Lord Mayor of London delivers many hundreds of speeches and addresses per year, attends many receptions and other events in London and beyond. Many incumbents of the office make overseas visits while Lord Mayor of London; the Lord Mayor ex-officio Rector of London's City, University of London and Admiral of the Port of London, is assisted in day-to-day administration by the Mansion House'Esquires' and whose titles include the City Marshal, Sword Bearer and Common Crier. Peter Estlin is serving as the 691st Lord Mayor, for the 2018–19 period. Of the 69 cities in the United Kingdom, the City of London is among the 30.
The Lord Mayor is entitled to the style The Right Honourable. The style, however, is used; the latter prefix applies only to Privy Counsellors. A woman who holds the office is known as a Lord Mayor; the wife of a male Lord Mayor is styled as Lady Mayoress, but no equivalent title exists for the husband of a female Lord Mayor. A female Lord Mayor or an unmarried male Lord Mayor may appoint a female consort a fellow member of the corporation, to the role of Lady Mayoress. In speech, a Lord Mayor is referred to as "My Lord Mayor", a Lady Mayoress as "My Lady Mayoress", it was once customary for Lord Mayors to be appointed knights upon taking office and baronets upon retirement, unless they held such a title. This custom was followed with a few inconsistencies from the 16th until the 19th centuries. However, from 1964 onwards, the regular creation of hereditary titles such as baronetcies was phased out, so subsequent Lord Mayors were offered knighthoods. Since 1993, Lord Mayors have not automatically received any national honour upon appointment.
Furthermore, foreign Heads of State visiting the City of London on a UK State Visit, diplomatically bestow upon the Lord Mayor one of their suitable national honours. For example, in 2001, Sir David Howard was created a Grand Cordon of the Order of Independence of Jordan by King Abdullah II. Lord Mayors have been appointed at the beginning of their term of office Knights or Dames of St John, as a mark of respect, by HM The Queen, Sovereign Head of the Order of St John; the office of Mayor was instituted in 1189, the first holder of the office being Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonestone. The Mayor of the City of London has been elected by the City, rather than appointed by the Sovereign since a Royal Charter providing for a Mayor was issued by King John in 1215; the title "Lord Mayor" came to be used after 1354, when it was granted to Thomas Legge by King Edward III. Lord Mayors are elected for one-year terms. Numerous individuals have served multiple terms in office, including: As Mayor: 24 terms: Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonestone 9 terms: Ralph de Sandwich 8 terms: Gregory de Rokesley 7 terms: Andrew Buckerel.
World War II
World War II known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries; the major participants threw their entire economic and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China, it included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, the only use of nuclear weapons in war. Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with China by 1937, though neither side had declared war on the other. World War II is said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Finland and the Baltic states. Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, the fall of France in mid 1940, the war continued between the European Axis powers and the British Empire. War in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the long Battle of the Atlantic followed. On 22 June 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history; this Eastern Front trapped most crucially the German Wehrmacht, into a war of attrition. In December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States as well as European colonies in the Pacific. Following an immediate U. S. declaration of war against Japan, supported by one from Great Britain, the European Axis powers declared war on the U.
S. in solidarity with their Japanese ally. Rapid Japanese conquests over much of the Western Pacific ensued, perceived by many in Asia as liberation from Western dominance and resulting in the support of several armies from defeated territories; the Axis advance in the Pacific halted in 1942. Key setbacks in 1943, which included a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, Allied victories in the Pacific, cost the Axis its initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned toward Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in Central China, South China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands; the war in Europe concluded with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender under its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August respectively. With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, the Soviet entry into the war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its intention to surrender on 15 August 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies. Tribunals were set up by fiat by the Allies and war crimes trials were conducted in the wake of the war both against the Germans and the Japanese. World War II changed the political social structure of the globe; the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The Soviet Union and United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia.
Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic expansion. Political integration in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities and create a common identity; the start of the war in Europe is held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred and the two wars merged in 1941; this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935; the British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the fo
John Dryden
John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic and playwright, made England's first Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott called him "Glorious John". Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was rector of All Saints, he was the eldest of fourteen children born to Erasmus Dryden and wife Mary Pickering, paternal grandson of Sir Erasmus Dryden, 1st Baronet, wife Frances Wilkes, Puritan landowning gentry who supported the Puritan cause and Parliament. He was a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift; as a boy Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, where it is that he received his first education. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a King's Scholar where his headmaster was Dr. Richard Busby, a charismatic teacher and severe disciplinarian. Having been re-founded by Elizabeth I, Westminster during this period embraced a different religious and political spirit encouraging royalism and high Anglicanism.
Whatever Dryden's response to this was, he respected the headmaster and would send two of his sons to school at Westminster. As a humanist public school, Westminster maintained a curriculum which trained pupils in the art of rhetoric and the presentation of arguments for both sides of a given issue; this is a skill which would remain with Dryden and influence his writing and thinking, as much of it displays these dialectical patterns. The Westminster curriculum included weekly translation assignments which developed Dryden's capacity for assimilation; this was to be exhibited in his works. His years at Westminster were not uneventful, his first published poem, an elegy with a strong royalist feel on the death of his schoolmate Henry, Lord Hastings from smallpox, alludes to the execution of King Charles I, which took place on 30 January 1649 near the school where Dr. Busby had first prayed for the King and locked in his schoolboys to prevent their attending the spectacle. In 1650 Dryden went up to Cambridge.
Here he would have experienced a return to the religious and political ethos of his childhood: the Master of Trinity was a Puritan preacher by the name of Thomas Hill, a rector in Dryden's home village. Though there is little specific information on Dryden's undergraduate years, he would most have followed the standard curriculum of classics and mathematics. In 1654 he obtained his BA. In June of the same year Dryden's father died, leaving him some land which generated a little income, but not enough to live on. Returning to London during the Protectorate, Dryden obtained work with Oliver Cromwell's Secretary of State, John Thurloe; this appointment may have been the result of influence exercised on his behalf by his cousin the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Pickering. At Cromwell's funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden processed with the Puritan poets John Milton and Andrew Marvell. Shortly thereafter he published his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas, a eulogy on Cromwell's death, cautious and prudent in its emotional display.
In 1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of the monarchy and the return of Charles II with Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist panegyric. In this work the interregnum is illustrated as a time of anarchy, Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order. After the Restoration, as Dryden established himself as the leading poet and literary critic of his day, he transferred his allegiances to the new government. Along with Astraea Redux, Dryden welcomed the new regime with two more panegyrics: To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyric on his Coronation and To My Lord Chancellor; these poems suggest that Dryden was looking to court a possible patron, but he was to instead make a living in writing for publishers, not for the aristocracy, thus for the reading public. These, his other nondramatic poems, are occasional—that is, they celebrate public events, thus they are written for the nation rather than the self, the Poet Laureate is obliged to write a certain number of these per annum. In November 1662 Dryden was proposed for membership in the Royal Society, he was elected an early fellow.
However, Dryden was inactive in Society affairs and in 1666 was expelled for non-payment of his dues. On 1 December 1663 Dryden married the royalist sister of Sir Robert Howard—Lady Elizabeth. Dryden's works contain outbursts against the married state but celebrations of the same. Thus, little is known of the intimate side of his marriage. Lady Elizabeth outlived her husband. With the reopening of the theatres in 1660 after the Puritan ban, Dryden began writing plays, his first play The Wild Gallant appeared in 1663, was not successful, but was still promising, from 1668 on he was contracted to produce three plays a year for the King's Company in which he became a shareholder. During the 1660s and 1670s, theatrical writing was his main source of income, he led the way in Restoration comedy, his best-known work being Marriage à la Mode, as well as heroic tragedy and regular tragedy, in which his greatest success was All for Love. Dryden was never satisfied with his theatrical writings and suggested that his talents were wasted on unworthy audiences.
He thus was making a bid for poetic fame off-stage. In 1667, around the same time his dramatic career began, he published Annus Mirabilis, a lengthy historical poem which descr
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist known for her six major novels, which interpret and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security, her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her use of biting irony, along with her realism and social commentary, have long earned her acclaim among critics and popular audiences alike. With the publications of Sense and Sensibility and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma, she achieved success as a published writer, she wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, began another titled Sanditon, but died before its completion. She left behind three volumes of juvenile writings in manuscript, a short epistolary novel Lady Susan, another unfinished novel, The Watsons.
Her six full-length novels have been out of print, although they were published anonymously and brought her moderate success and little fame during her lifetime. A significant transition in her posthumous reputation occurred in 1833, when her novels were republished in Richard Bentley's Standard Novels series, illustrated by Ferdinand Pickering, sold as a set, they gained wider acclaim and popular readership. In 1869, fifty-two years after her death, her nephew's publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced a compelling version of her writing career and uneventful life to an eager audience. Austen has inspired a large number of literary anthologies, her novels have inspired many films, from 1940's Pride and Prejudice to more recent productions like Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Pride & Prejudice, Love & Friendship. There is little biographical information about Jane Austen's life except the few letters that survive and the biographical notes her family members wrote. During her lifetime, Austen may have written as many as 3,000 letters.
Many of the letters were written to Austen's older sister Cassandra, who in 1843 burned the greater part of them and cut pieces out of those she kept. Ostensibly, Cassandra destroyed or censored her sister's letters to prevent their falling into the hands of relatives and ensuring that "younger nieces did not read any of Jane Austen's sometimes acid or forthright comments on neighbours or family members". Cassandra believed that in the interest of tact and Jane's penchant for forthrightness, these details should be destroyed; the paucity of record of Austen's life leaves modern biographers little with. The situation was compounded as successive generations of the family expunged and sanitised the opaque details of Austen's biography; the heirs of Jane's brother, Admiral Francis Austen, destroyed more letters. The legend the family and relatives created reflects their biases in favour of "good quiet Aunt Jane", portraying a woman whose domestic situation was happy and whose family was the mainstay of her life.
Austen scholar Jan Fergus explains that modern biographies tend to include details excised from the letters and family biographical materials, but that the challenge is to avoid the polarising view that Austen experienced periods of deep unhappiness and was "an embittered, disappointed woman trapped in a unpleasant family". Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on 16 December 1775, she was born a month than her parents expected. He added that her arrival was welcome as "a future companion to her sister"; the winter of 1776 was harsh and it was not until 5 April that she was baptised at the local church with the single name Jane. For much of Jane's life, her father, George Austen, served as the rector of the Anglican parishes at Steventon and at nearby Deane, he came from an old and wealthy family of wool merchants. Over the centuries as each generation of eldest sons received inheritances, their wealth was consolidated, George's branch of the family fell into poverty, he and his two sisters had to be taken in by relatives.
His sister Philadelphia went to India to find a husband and George entered St John's College, Oxford on a fellowship, where he most met Cassandra Leigh. She came from the prominent Leigh family, her eldest brother James inherited a fortune and large estate from his great-aunt Perrot, with the only condition that he change his name to Leigh-Perrot. George and Cassandra exchanged miniatures in 1763 and were engaged around that time. George received the living for the Steventon parish from the wealthy husband of his second cousin, Thomas Knight, who owned Steventon and its associated farms, one of which the Austen family rented to live in. Two months after Cassandra's father died, they married on 26 April 1764 at St Swithin's Church in Bath, by licence, in a simple ceremony, they left for Hampshire the same day. Their income was modest, with George's small per annum living.
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