Nowes ( pronounced “Noise” ) Lloyd had been born in Essex and was baptised on 6th September 1719. His father was the Rev John Lloyd of Epping and his mother Isabella. Isabella’s maiden name had been Nowes, hence the baby’s rather unusual name.
As a young man, Nowes seems to have taken the traditional route to the priesthood for the time, having graduated with a BA from St John’s College, Oxford in 1742 before being ordained by the Bishop of London at Whitehall on 9th June, 1745. However, his vocation was to take him out of the city and into rural Wiltshire. By 1751, Nowes had become vicar of Bishopstone as well as Rector of the next door parish of Hinton Parva, near Swindon.
The position of parish priest has never been a lucrative one, and this may be why the Rev Lloyd did not marry until 1763, when he was 43. His bride, ten years her husband’s junior, however, may well have been used to a more affluent lifestyle than the vicarage could offer, since she was Martha Craven, the daughter of the Honourable Charles Craven of Hamstead Marshall, and his wife Elizabeth, Lady Craven.
Martha’s father had been the first Governor of South Carolina in what is now the U.S. Martha’s mother is reputed to have been something of a socialite and a very difficult person, with little time for Martha or her sisters, Mary and Jane. Consequently, Mary left home to make a very unhappy marriage with a horse dealer whilst Martha worked for a time as a seamstress at a school, using a false name to hide her identity before marrying Nowes.
Martha Craven and Nowes Lloyd were married by licence at Bishopstone on 2nd June 1763. I do not know why the marriage was by licence rather than banns; there may have been a very simple reason although I wonder if Martha’s difficult relationship with her mother might have caused the couple to arrange their marriage at short notice thereby requiring a licence rather than banns. We will probably never know.
In the same year that Martha married Nowes, her sister Jane married Rev Thomas Fowle of Kintbury.
Martha and Nowes began their married life at Bishopstone, where four children were born to them. The first child, also Martha, was baptised there on 16th November 1765, to be followed by Elizabeth on June 15th, 1767, Charles on December 21st, 1768 and Mary on May 20th 1771.
The Rev Lloyd’s relationship with what is now the Walbury Beacon Benefice seems to have begun in 1764 when he became Domestic Chaplain to William Craven, 5th Baron Craven of Hamstead Marshall. Baron Craven was, of course, a relative of Martha Lloyd. These were the days when who you knew rather than what you knew could make a really big difference to your life.
In 1771, Nowes Lloyd became rector of Enborne whilst retaining his position at the other parishes, even though they were over thirty miles apart. This was not an unusual situation for the time, when it was quite common for a curate to undertake all the duties of the absent priest. Eventually, the Lloyd family moved to Enborne where Martha would be much closer to her sister Jane at Kintbury. Their mother, however, was by now also living in Kintbury, at Barton Court, with her second husband, Jemmet Raymond. We can only wonder what Elizabeth Raymond’s relationship with her daughters was like by this time.
Sadly, there was an outbreak of smallpox in the Enborne area in 1775 and, whilst his sisters survived, Charles Lloyd, then only six, died. He was buried in the churchyard on 13th April of that year. Martha’s mother, meanwhile, had died in 1771. As if to demonstrate the wealth and status of the Raymond family, an elaborate marble memorial was commissioned from the renowned sculptor, Peter Scheemakers, to be placed next to the altar in Kintbury church. A letter written by Nowes Lloyd to his brother-in-law, Rev Thomas Fowle, regarding arrangements with Scheemakers, is still in the church’s possession.
You might have seen Elizabeth Raymond, formerly Lady Craven, in Kintbury church. If you happen to be standing in a pew near the front and to the left hand side of the aisle, possibly singing a favourite hymn, and casually turn your head to the left – there, in her current position in the north transept will be Elizabeth, stonily staring back at you as if in disapproval of something, you know not what.
Nowes remained as rector of Enborne until his death on February 3rd, 1789. The previous year, his daughter Elizabeth had married her cousin from Kintbury, Fulwar Craven Fowle. At this time Martha and Mary were still living at home. There was a need to vacate the Enborne rectory but fortunately for Rev Lloyd’s widow and her daughters, a friend of the Fowles offered them his parsonage at Deane. The move to Deane proved to be quite significant for Martha Lloyd in particular as she became a close friend of the vicar’s daughter, later living with her, her sister and their mother in Bath.
Martha’s friend was creative and lively with a keen if sometimes wicked sense of humour. She loved walking, wrote long, detailed letters whenever she was away from her family and friends and, in particular, would entertain them all by reading to them the stories she had spent hours writing. In this way, Martha Lloyd, formerly of Enborne, became one of the first people to read what have become some of the best loved novels in the English language. Martha’s close friend was none other than Jane Austen. In 1797, the link between the Lloyds and the Austens became even stronger when Mary Lloyd became the second wife of the Jane Austen’s widowed brother, James. When Jane Austen, along with her mother and sister Cassandra moved back to their native Hampshire, Martha went with them to share the cottage in Chawton, now the Jane Austen’s House Museum. It says something of the position of women in the early nineteenth century that Martha Lloyd, grand daughter of Lady Craven with her elaborate and expensive monument in Kintbury church, had no home of her own except the one she shared with her friends. But life had another surprise in store for the young woman from Enborne. After Jane Austen’s death in 1817, Martha continued to live in the cottage at Chawton with Cassandra Austen. However, on 24th July 1828, she became Sir Francis Austen’s second wife and therefore, Lady Austen.
Today, the name of Martha Lloyd is well known to Jane Austen fans all over the world. A facsimile of her household book containing the recipes for dishes she cooked at Chawton, has been published and earlier last year saw the publication of Jane Austen’s Best Friend: The Life and Influence of Martha Lloyd by Zoe Wheddon . So, while Janeites (as fans of Jane Austen are known) all over the world think of Martha Lloyd as Jane Austen’s best friend, I will always think of her as the young woman from Enborne.
Many thanks to Alec Morley of Romsey Local History Society https://www.ltvas.org.uk/ for information regarding Nowes Lloyd’s family and also for clarifying for me how to spell and pronounce his unusual first name.
© Theresa A. Lock 2024
Kintbury and Beyond 