Mary Austen suffered a stroke on August 2, 1843, from which she never recovered consciousness. She died the following day. She is buried at Steventon, in James Austen’s vault.
Anne Sharp died on January 8, 1853. Before her death, she passed Jane’s last letter to Dr. Zechariah Sillar, physician to the Northern Hospital, Liverpool. He passed it down to his granddaughter, and on February 8, 1954, it was auctioned at Sotheby’s. The purchasers were Mr. and Mrs. Henry G. Burke of Baltimore. On Mrs. Burke’s death in 1975, it was bequeathed to the Pierpoint Morgan Library, New York.
On May 3, 1948, a lock of Jane Austen’s hair was auctioned at Sotheby’s. It was bought by the same American couple who purchased Anne Sharp’s letter. The following year, the cottage at Chawton where Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life was opened as a museum. Mrs. Alberta Burke presented the lock of hair as a gift to be displayed alongside other artifacts collected by the Jane Austen Society. Before handing it over, however, her husband had the hair tested in a bid to discover the cause of death. It contained levels of arsenic far exceeding that observed in the body’s natural state.
Lindsay Ashford, Chawton, 2011