Martha Lloyd

Martha Lloyd

Martha Lloyd was the daughter of a poor Church of England clergyman. Her family were good friends with Jane Austen's family. Her family lived several miles from the Austen family, and the children regularly visited one another. Martha and her sister Mary Lloyd were both stricken with smallpox, when they were children, which left them with unsightly facial scars.

Martha's father, and Jane Austen's father, died around the same time. In 1805 Martha started living with Jane, her mother and sister. From 1805 to 1809 they lived with Frank Austen, and his young wife. They were subsequently given the use of Chawton Cottage, on the estate of Edward Austen-Knight. Martha continued to live with Jane's mother and sister, after Jane Austen's death in 1817.

In 1828, five years after the death of Frank Austen's first wife, she married, and helped raise his 10 surviving children.

She too became an author, of a cookbook.

She died in 1842, and, when Frank Austen died, he was buried next to Martha, not his first wife