LATE THOMAS HARDY

Hokitika Guardian, 16 January 1928, Page 2

LATE THOMAS HARDY

FUNERAL OBSEQUIES. (Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, Jan. 11. Dorchester people are surprised at the dec iso n that the late Air Thomas Hardy should be buried in Westminster Abbey, instead of in his own beloved Dorset. The late Mr Hardy’s brother, sister, and cousin expressed the opinion that his request to he buried among his own folk should have been respected. In view of the strength of this feeling locally, the Rector of Stinxl'ord has approached the widow, and suggested that, instead of Mr Hardy’s memory being perpetuated merely by a tablet, his heart should he buried in StiusI'ord Churchyard. The widow gladly consented.

The late Mr Hardy will leave his beloved Wessex with no pageantry to hid him farewell, at 8 o’clock on Sunday morning. The coffin will he carried from his home and taken direct to Woking, where the body will he cremated, the ashes going thence to Westminster Abbey to await burial in the Poet's Corner, near the grave of Dickens. 'The burial of the heart in Wessex effects a compromise dear to the hearts of Dorset, people. They felt deeply that the arrangement whereby a writer so peculiarly their own should not rest in accordance with (Mr Hardy’s own dearest wish, among them after his death.

His brother fand sister, are still convinced that Air Hardy’s ■spoken and written desire, to he buried not further than a few fields from his birth-place should he honoured. Mrs Hardy was entirely with them, and it was only after much perplexed disousson that she decided to allow her husband to he regarded as a national possession. Throughout Dorset the same opinion prevailed. Miss Teresa Hardy, his •sister, who grew up with him. and knew him l>etter than anybody, said “It is cruel to take Tom aivay.” The Mayor of Dorchester says a mistake is being made in removing Mr Hardy’s remains. He was Dorset born and it is wrong that he should he taken from Dorset. The body lies to-night in a bedroom which he had not left since Christmas, covered with the scarlet robe of a Doctor of Literature (Cambridge), which will he his funeral shroud. On his breast lk-.i the Order of Merit. There has been a stream of visitors all dav to the remote cottage, only a mile away from the spot where the late Mr Hardy was born,' and where he wrote his earliest works. LONDON, Jan. 14.

The Premier will be pall-hearer when Hardy is buried at the Abbey. The others will lie Ramsay MacDonald. Kipling. Barrie, Bernard Shaw, Galsworthy, Sir Edmund Gosso. Professor A. E. Rousman Provost of' Queen’s College. Oxford. Master of Magdalene College. Cambridge). The heart having been removed overnight. the Isidy was taken early this (Saturday) morning front Dorchester to Wolfing, where it was cremated in the afternoon without ceremony, the only mourners being Barrie. Lennox., Gilntour, a barrister friend who 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 the spot where they will he buried on Monday, when three services are being held, firstly at the Abbey, secondly at the burial of the heart in Stinsford Churchyard, -thirdly. a service in Dorchester. The French Government sent condolences.