I believe that early in the seventeenth century they were
clothiers. Hasted, in his history of Kent, says: 'The clothing business
was exercised by persons who possessed most of the landed property in the
Weald, insomuch that almost all the ancient families of these parts, now
of large estates and genteel rank in life, and some of them ennobled by
titles, are sprung from ancestors who have used this great staple
manufacture, now almost unknown here.' In his list of these families
Hasted places the Austens, and he adds that these clothiers 'were usually
called the Gray Coats of Kent; and were a body so numerous and united
that at county elections whoever had their vote and interest was almost
certain of being elected.' The family still retains a badge of this
origin; for their livery is of that peculiar mixture of light blue and
white called Kentish gray, which forms the facings of the Kentish
militia.
Mr. George Austen had lost both his parents before he was nine years old.
He inherited no property from them; but was happy in having a kind uncle,
Mr. Francis Austen, a successful lawyer at Tunbridge, the ancestor of the
Austens of Kippington, who, though he had children of his own, yet made
liberal provision for his orphan nephew.
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