I recently visited Bath and was horrified to see many locals and tourists alike donning Regency-style ‘Austen-wear’ in and around the city. I felt like walking up to them and shouting, ’My culture is not your costume,’ but decided to follow in Austen’s footsteps and write critically about them behind their backs instead. Delving deeper, I soon realised that Bath had made quite the industry out of exploiting Jane Austen’s legacy, either through museums, novelty gift shops, or, worst of all, themed walking tours. Such a brazen appropriation of Hampshirian culture needs to be challenged, since, after all, she was born here, not Bath!
The historical record supports my grievance. Contemporary sources say that Austen fainted after hearing the news she had to leave Hampshire for known-dump, Bath. Hampshire nurtured Austen’s genius from a young age, believing in her when other counties likely doubted. Ironically, Austen used Bath as a backdrop in her novels to criticise vanity and the empty pursuit of wealth, and yet today, the BTB (Bath Tourist Board) exploits that very literary legacy for profit, palming off novelty gifts and experiences on tourists who don’t know any better, without even a nod to Hampshire or Chawton. I would even go as far as to say that this level of arrogance, dare I say, pride, points to an underlying, institutional anti-Hampshirian bias, dare I say prejudice, deep within the BTB (Bath Tourism Board).
Now, a word to the BTB (Bath Tourism Board) directly: you have Mary Berry – and she was actually born in Bath – so why don’t you sell kitchens and cookbooks to your city’s tourists and leave Austen well enough alone? If not, we in Hampshire will be forced to take drastic action, perhaps even going as far as to boycott bath entirely, instead relying on the (more energy efficient anyway) modern shower.
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