‘I’m a living relative of Jane Austen – taking her off the £10 note is a real shame’
One of Jane Austen’s closest living relatives has said it is ‘peculiar’ and ‘extraordinary’ that the novelist is being dropped from the £10 note during the government’s National Year of Reading campaign.
Caroline Jane Knight, the fifth great niece of Austen, called it a ‘real shame’ that the iconic author will be ditched from the currency after only nine years.
She also questioned the decision to replace Britain’s most famous figures with animals like otters and beavers.
The Bank of England announced last week that wildlife will feature on the next series of banknotes following a public consultation.
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Carole Jane Knight, 55, who founded the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation, told Metro: ‘Jane Austen deserves to be in our pockets, not just on our bookshelves.
‘The banknote was a daily reminder of who she was and what she gave us.
‘It is a real shame she is now coming off the £10 note.’
Ms Knight – a descendent of Austen’s brother Edward – was the last ofthe author’s family to grow up in Chawton House, where she wrote all her most famous novels.
While she accepts her ancestor could not be on the currency forever, she questioned why the decision to get rid of her portrait from the £10 note is happening so soon after Austen first appeared in 2017.
She explained: ‘She has only been on it for nine years. Charles Darwin, who was her predecessor on the £10 note, had double the time.
‘And it is not like she is being replaced by someone more deserving.’
The Bank of England has issued bank notes with historical figures for more than 50 years.
Winston Churchill is currently on the £5 note, painter JMW Turner is on the £20, while mathematician Alan Turing is on the £50 piece.
However the Bank said last week that images of wildlife would be more difficult counterfeit and allow Brits to celebrate nature.
A panel of experts will draw up a wildlife shortlist to put before the public.
The announcement has prompted criticism from across the political spectrum. Kemi Badenoch called it ‘a silly thing to do’ and Reform’s Nigel Farage labelled it ‘absolutely crackers’.
Ms Knight said she was also shocked by the decision to take famous faces off of banknotes altogether.
The Austen descendant added: ‘It’s a real shame that the currency is no longer going to celebrate the finest minds that Britain has produced.
‘How else are they going to be part of everyday culture and not just sit on a bookshelf somewhere or in a university library?
‘One of the things that is amazing about money is that it passes through everybody’s hands. It creates conversations.
‘Jane Austen brings hundreds of thousands of people to Britain every year.
‘Internationally, people are going to think this is an unfortunate decision. It is just another sign that there is a decline in how culture is valued.’
Ms Knight is particularly stunned by the decision to replace Jane Austen in the midst of the government’s National Year of Reading.
The 2026 campaign is the UK’s biggest ever reading initiative and describes itself as ‘designed to inspire more people to make reading a regular part of their lives’.
Ms Knight, who ate off the same china and dinner table as Austen at Chawton House, said: ‘The timing could hardly be more striking. Reading rates in children are declining enormously.
‘One arm of government is urgently trying to reconnect the nation with books. Another has just taken the country’s most beloved author off the banknote. It is a peculiar moment to make that choice.’
Who was Jane Austen?
Born in Steventon, Hampshire on 16 December 1775, she was the daughter of George Austen, a rector of the Anglican parish at Steventon.
She lived a modest and quiet life focused on family. She took inspiration from her world of the minor landed gentry and country clergy to shape her novels.
Austen spent the last eight years of her life in Chawton House in Hampshire, from 1809 until 1817 and it was here that she was able to truly focus on her work and her now best-known novels were revised, finished and published.
In Chawton House, Jane revised the three manuscripts she had written previously, but which had remained unpublished, wrote three more novels and started one more, which she was not able to finish before falling ill. She would never recover.
Austen, who never married, died on the 18 July 1817 and was buried in Winchester Cathedral.
Her fictional novels were: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous), Persuasion (1818, posthumous), Lady Susan (1871, posthumous)
Despite this setback, Ms Knight has pledged to intensify her efforts to continue prompting her ancestor’s legacy after she celebrated her 250th birthday last December.
The decision to remove wartime hero Winston Churchill from the bank note has sparked the most upset.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: ‘Removing Churchill from banknotes is erasing our history.
‘Changing the pictures to put wild animals on them is a silly thing to do. I absolutely do not support it.’
And Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: ‘I can’t think of a worse time to do this with a war waging in Europe.’
However Churchill’s granddaughter, Emma Soames, disagreed with accusations the Bank of England’s move was wokery and said her family knew his appearance on the currency was not going to last forever.
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