Becoming Bigg-Wither
We have been corresponding off and on with Blair Rogers, a descendant of Harris Bigg-Wither–yes, that Harris Bigg-Wither. The Harris Bigg-Wither (sorry, we love typing that name) who proposed to Jane Austen, was accepted, and then the next morning rejected. Poor fellow! One might feel sorry for him, except that had Jane gone through with it, she most likely would not have written her books, and besides, Harris made a love match with a nice young lady less than two years later, and they had many children and lived happily ever after. Their youngest son, Charles, emigrated to New Zealand, and Blair is his descendant. They are very proud of their almost-relationship to Jane Austen, and Blair has set up a genealogical site for his family that includes information about Harris and some of his famous relatives. Just think, Jane could have been related by marriage to Sir William Blackstone, W.V. Awdry (creator of Thomas the Tank Engine), and even the Duchess of York! Check it out, it’s fun to click around and find out so much about the family of Jane’s friends and her spurned suitor.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:17 am
I’m glad to see that the deleted Wikipedia entry on on Harris Bigg-Wither has been resurrected. The entry was deleted from Wikipedia in January because its subject, Harris Bigg-Wither, was considered insufficiently “notable” (although everyone in the discussion about whether to delete the article praised it as a model biographical entry).
May 8th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
That is indeed interesting.
May 8th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Hi Robert,
Yes it was pulled, and since I had largely written it, I thought I would pull it over to our site. I’m in the process of rewriting it as I find time to include his magisterial work. At the time I couldn’t be bothered debating the point - as I really did have my hands full with helping out with the twins.
Outside of family, HBW’s main ‘claim to fame’ does relate to his 12 hour engagement to JA, which based on her subject matter in her written work - does make it interesting. She choosing the opposite path to what her characters chose.
The funny thing about all of this brouhaha is that the traffic from Wikipedia to our site jumped from about 80 odd visits a month to about 1200 visits a month, as instead of having the information on Wikipedia for people to read and contribute to if they wish, they now head to our site to read about the article - and have no right to edit/contribute to.
It seems that there is no stopping people’s interest in JA and her life and times and those people that she knew and dealt with.
I’ll soon have a piece written up on our site about Manydown Park which will include photo’s never seen before in any publication from the family archives.
We welcome any feedback good or bad, just keep it polite.
May 8th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Isn’t it interesting (to me at least) that with the exception of Lovelace (named for the deceased brother), all of Harris’s children share their name with a character in Jane Austen’s books. I can’t believe it’s a coincidence. Then again, I have always suspected that Elizabeth Bigg (Heathcote) was in someways a sort of inspiration for one or two of Jane’s female chracters. She married William after all, a handsome young clergyman.