Reading the Regency

Courtship - Dowries and Marriage Settlements

Dowry Size

"Of course I grew angry, and reminded him, with an indelicacy which his want of generosity justified, that an heiress, who had brought a hundred thousand pounds into his family, had some right to amuse herself, and that it was not my fault if elegant amusements were more expensive than others."
[Chapter 3, Belinda, by Maria Edgeworth]

The amount of a dowry depended on the financial situation of the bride's father, and whether her mother had bought any money or property to her own marriage. Dowries were most common among daughters of the gentry class or above, but a successful tradesman or merchant, who may have married a wife without a dowry early in his working life, could put aside money from his income to provide portions for his daughters in the hope that they might be able to attract a husband above his social level.

Parents could also take the money they had inherited from another family member and put it aside to provide dowries or portions for their children.

It didn't always follow that a daughter of a duke would always have a larger dowry than a country gentleman's daughter. In 1799, Miss Bevan of Devises had £10,000 at the time of her marriage to Mr Hughes, a druggist of London, while in In 1809, Lady Henrietta Cavendish, daughter of the Duke of Devonshire, brought £10,000 to her marriage to Granville Leveson-Gower. Only when her father died in 1811 did her brother, the new duke, raise her dowry to £30,000. This put it on an equal footing with the dowry given by their father to his illegitimate daughter Caroline St Jules when she married Charles Lamb.

In 1803, Lady Georgina Gordon, daughter of the Duke of Gordon, had a dowry of £20,000.

Yet, in 1804, Lord Rodney was reportedly going to marry a Miss Davis "who comes into a fortune of 80,000l on the day of her marriage, besides being heiress to Croft Castle and the noble domains around, which are supposed to be worth around 12,000l a year".

Similarly, in January 1805, when the Earl of Ormond married Miss Anna Maria Clarke, she possessed a fortune of £20,000 per annum, plus £100,000 in "ready cash". The annual income was most likely the rents from Sutton Scarsdale Hall, which Anna Maria's mother had inherited from her unmarried brother. Ownership of the hall passed to the Earl of Ormond upon their marriage.

Providing a respectable dowry for your daughter did not guarantee that marriage to some suitable landowning gentleman would follow. In 1808, Miss Priscilla Thackthwaite, who had a fortune of £4,000, married a chimney sweep in Hertfordshire, while in 1804 Miss Nancy Pitcher wed an army sergeant she had fallen in love with after seeing him on parade, providing him with her fortune of £5,000.

"Mrs. Tilney was a Miss Drummond, and she and Mrs. Hughes were schoolfellows; and Miss Drummond had a very large fortune; and, when she married, her father gave her twenty thousand pounds, and five hundred to buy wedding-clothes."
[Chapter 9, Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen]

Dowries were frequently the subject of gossip in society. In Maria Edgeworth's books, Miss Hunter has a fortune of £200,000, while Lady Delacour described herself as a great heiress, bringing £100,000 to her marriage.

Grace Nugent has a more modest £5,000, while Belinda Portman earns £100 per year in interest from her fortune, which must have been around £2,000 or £2,500, depending on the interest rate. Miss Moreton has no fortune at all.

In Jane Austen's works, Miss Darcy had a dowry of £30,000, which would have generated an income of up to £1,500 a year for her fortunate husband. The Bingley sisters had £20,000 each. Miss Mary King was an heiress with £10,000, as was Miss Moreton in Sense and Sensibility and Miss Augusta Hawkins, later wife of Mr. Elton in Emma.