Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Ashes - Westminster Abbey

Death: 11th January 1928
Location: Westminster Abbey, London, England (ashes) and Saint Michael’s Church, Stinsford, Dorset, England (heart)
Cause of death: Pleurisy
Photos taken by: DeadGoodBooks and Clive and Chris
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English novelist, poet and short story writer. He set the majority of his work in the semi-imaginary county of Wessex and he is remembered for the pessimistic tone of his novels which use working class characters. His first important work was Far from the Madding Crowd and its success allowed him to give up working as an architect.

Heart - Stinsford, Dorset

His later works, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, were criticised by the Victorian middle-class who believed that they undermined the institution of marriage by the sympathetic portrayal of a fallen women and his frank depiction of sex. Hardy reacted badly to this criticism of his greatest work and gave up writing novels.

Hardy married twice; to Emma Gifford in 1884, she died in 1912, and then to Florence Dugdale in 1914, she was forty years younger than Hardy.

His funeral was held at Westminster Abbey and was controversial as his friends had wanted him to be buried in Dorset, but his executor insisted that he should be buried at Poets’ Corner. It was agreed that his heart should be buried in Dorset and his ashes buried in the Abbey.