THOMAS HARDY

Evening Star, Issue 19765, 16 January 1928, Page 5

THOMAS HARDY

BURIAL IK THE ABBEY DORCHESTER PEOPLE SURPRISED A COMPROMISE EFFECTED. Press Association —By Telegraph— Copyright. LONDON, January 13. The Dorchester people are surprised at the decision that Mr Thomas Hardy should be buried in Westminster Jbbey instead of in lus own beloved Dorset. Hardy’s brother, sister, and cousin express the opinion that jus request to be buried among his own folk should have been respected, in view of the strength of this feeling locally tho rector of Stinsford approached the widow and suggested that instead of Hardy’s memory being perpetuated merely by a tablet his heart should bo buried in Stinsford churchyard. The widow gladly consented.

Hardy will leave his beloved Wessex, with no pageantry to bid him farewell, at 8 o’clock on Sunday morning The coffin will be carried from his home and taken direct to Woking, where the body will be cremated, the ashes going thence to Westminster Abbey to await burial in the poet’s corner, near the grave of Charles Dickens. The burial of the heart in Wessex effects a compromise dear to the hearts of the Dorset people. They felt deeply that the arrangement whereby a writer so peculiarly their own should not rest, in accordance with his own dearest wish, among them aftei ms death. His brother and sister, however, are still convinced that Hardy s spoken and written desire to be buried not further than a few fields from Ins birthplace should be honored. Mrs Hardy was entirely with them, and it was only after much perplexed discussion that she decided to allow her husband to be regarded as a national pos session. Throughout Dorset the same opinion prevailed. Miss Teresa Hardy, his sister, who grew up with him and knew him better than anybody else, said: “It is cruel to take Tom away.”

Tho Mayor of Dorchester says a mistake is being made in removing Hardy. “He was of Dorset, and it is wrong that he should be taken from Dorset.” The body lies to-night in the bedroom which he had not left since Christmas It is covered with the scarlet robe of Doctor of Literature, Cambridge, which will be bis funeral shroud. On his breast lies the Order of Merit. There lias been a stream of visitors all day to the remote cottage only a mile away from the spot where Hardy was born, and where ho wrote his earliest works.

THE PALL-BEARERS

A DISTINGUISHED LIST,

LONDON, January 4. The Prime Minister will he a pallbearer when Mr Hardy is buried in the Abbey, the others being Mr Ramsay MacDonald, Mr Rudyard Kipling, Sir James Barrie, Mr Bernard Shaw, Mr John Galsworthy, Sir Edmund Gosse, and Professor A. E. Housman, provost of Queen’s College, Oxford. The heart having been removed overnight, the body was taken early this (Saturday) morning from Dorchester to Woking, where _it was cremated in the afternoon without ceremony, among the few mourners being Sir James Barrie. A barrister friend later brought the ashes in a bronze urn to London and bore them to Westminster, where they now rest in St. Faith’s Chapel, near the Poet’s Corner, close to tho spot where they will bo buried on Monday, when three services will be held—firstly, at the Abbey; secondly, at the burial of the. heart in Stinsford Churchyard; and thirdly, in Dorchester. The French Government has sent condolences.

BURIAL OF THE HEART

CASES RECALLED

(British Official News.) Presa 4ssociation—By Wireless —Copyright. RUGBY, January 15. (Received January 16, at noon.) In reference to Mr Thomas Hardy’s burial arrangements it is stated that numerous other instances of the burial of the heart apart from the body are recorded by history, but such cases have been very rare in modern times. The tragic fate of the poet Shelley is recalled. When Shelley’s body was

cast ashore near Viareggio (Italy) in July, 1822, it was for a time buried in the sand. Later, in the presence of Byron, Hunt, and Trelawney, it was cremated to permit the interment of the ashes in the Protestant cemetery at

Rome. The heart, which would not burn, was snatched from the flames by Trelawney. It was given to Mary Shelley, and is now at Bournemouth.