BURIAL OF HARDY.

Grey River Argus, 17 January 1928, Page 6

BURIAL OF HARDY.

THE ABBEY CEREMONY. A Distinguished Assemblage. THREE SERVICES TO TAKE PLACE LONDON, January 14. The Premier will be a pall-bearer when the late Thomas Hardy is buried in the Abbey. The others will be Mr Ramsay MacDonald, Mr R. Kipling, Sir J. Barrie, Mr Bernard Shaw, Mr Galsworthy, Sir Edmund Goose, and Professor A. E. Housman, the Provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, and the Master 0f Magdalene College, Cambridge. 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, the only mourners being Sir J. Barrie and Mr Lennox Gilmour, a barrister friend, who later brought the ashes in a bronze um to London, and bore them to Westminster, where they now rest in St. Faith’s Chapel, near Poets’ Corner, close to the spot, where they will be buried on Monday, when three services arc being held, firstly at the Abbey, secondly at the burial of the heart in Stinsford Churchyard, and thirdly, a service in Dorchester.

HEART DEPOSITED AT STINSFORD. LONDON, January 15. Mrs Hardy and Sir James Barrie deposited the casket containing Hardy’s heart at Stinsford Vicarage, where it will remain until Monday’s service in the churchyard. The casket is an exact replica of the casket containing the ashes in the Abbey. Stinsford villagers to-day sang Hardy’s hymns, and the Rector included a prayer of thanksgiving, because the heart is to remain at Stinsford. The King and the Prince of Wales will bo represented at the Abbey tomorrow.