Henry Thomas Austen In 1793 he joined the Oxfordshire Militia, rising to captain before resigning in 1801. In 1804 he founded, with two associates, the bank of Austen, Maude and Tilson in Covent Garden, London. It went bankrupt in 1816. He entered the church that same year and was made curate of Chawton, Hampshire. In 1820 he was made Rector of Steventon. He arranged the publication of "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion" after Jane Austen's death in 1817. He is believed to have published the first biographical notice of her, which prefaces those novels. He revised and expanded that short memoir for the republication
A Memoir of Jane Austen in one way or another, to Cassandra Austen." Cassandra was the executor of Jane's will and was responsible for the preservation and destruction of all remaining letters and manuscripts after Jane's death. According to Caroline Austen, one of Jane Austen's nieces, Cassandra "looked [the letters] over and burnt the greater part, (as she told me), 2 or 3 years before her own death—She left, or "gave" some as legacies to the Nieces—but of those that "I" have seen, several had portions cut out". Thus, while writing the "Memoir", Austen-Leigh did not have access to large numbers of Jane Austen's letters.