Literary anniversaries – Two degrees of separation

Jane Austen

This December marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. While the novelist herself had no direct connection to the Inn, Thomas Langlois Lefroy—who was known to Austen—did. Tom Lefroy, as she knew him, has long been romanticised as the lost love of her life, most famously in the book and subsequent film Becoming Jane. How far this is true is debatable, but it does seem she was enamoured with him. In her letters to her sister Cassandra in early 1796, Jane described him as ‘a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man.’

Thomas Langlois Lefroy joined the Inn in 1793 as part of his legal education for the Irish Bar, where he was Called in 1797. He had graduated with top honours from Trinity College Dublin in 1795. In December of that same year, he spent a few weeks visiting his uncle and aunt, George Lefroy, the rector of Ashe, and his wife Anne Lefroy. Anne was a close friend and mentor of Jane Austen, and it was during this visit that Tom Lefroy met her.

It appears that between the end of 1795 and early 1796 the pair enjoyed a brief flirtation. Jane Austen had reported on the time they spent together at a ball in a letter to Cassandra, asking her to ‘Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together.’ Likewise Lefroy, much later in life, famously referred to having had a ‘boyish love’ for Jane Austen at that time. However, their dalliance was not destined to become anything more. Tom Lefroy was about to begin his legal studies in earnest and as the eldest son of 11 children he also had his family’s high expectations of his future to consider. In addition, he had already met the woman he would later marry.

Lefroy began to practise at the Irish Bar in 1800. He served on the Munster circuit and took silk in 1816. He published Observations on Proceedings by Elgit and was joint editor of Reports on Cases in the Irish Court of Chancery under Lord Redesdale from 1802 to 1806. An evangelical churchman and a Conservative, he successfully stood for parliament in 1830 and held his seat for the Dublin University constituency until the end of 1841. In 1852, at the age of 76, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench in Ireland, and remarkably continued in office until he was 90.

Virginia Woolf

2025 has also marked another literary anniversary—the centenary of the publication of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.

Again, the Inn cannot claim a direct connection with Woolf herself, but the records do show a link with another member of the Bloomsbury circle: her nephew, Julian Bell.

Julian Bell was the son of Vanessa Bell—Woolf’s sister and the celebrated painter—and her husband Clive Bell, art critic and historian. He was admitted to the Inn on 30 January 1930, although he did not go on to be Called to the Bar. His membership papers survive in the archive, recording that he was 21 years old and living at 8 Fitzroy Street. His uncle, Leonard Woolf, is listed as a surety at the bottom of the page.

We cannot be certain what led Julian Bell to join the Inn or why he did not proceed to be Called, but we do know he was still at King’s College, Cambridge at this time (he studied there from 1927 to 1934). The 1930s were a period in which he published two books of poetry: Winter Movement (1930) and Work for the Winter (1936). He also accepted a post as Professor of English at the University of Wuhan in China. He returned in 1937, hoping to contribute to the Spanish Civil War effort, and enrolled with Spanish Medical Aid as an ambulance driver. Tragically, he was killed in a battle near Madrid in July 1937, at the age of only 29.

The Inn is fortunate to have direct connections with several famous authors and works of literature. From Charles Dickens to C J Sansom, writers have taken inspiration from Lincoln’s Inn, and some renowned novelists have been members, including Wilkie Collins and Anthony Trollope. However, these indirect connections can be equally intriguing, offering a glimpse into the wider networks that shaped the cultural life of the time.