ABSTRACT
Thomas Hardy was born near Dorchester on
2 June 1840. His birthplace in Higher
Bockhampton was a substantial cottage, at the
end of a lane and on the edge of a piece of
heath-land. His father was a builder and
mason working on his own but, by the time
Hardy was twenty, employing half a dozen
men; his mother was a cook and serving-
maid. The marriage took place less than six
months before the child was born. Thomas
Hardy the elder was said to have got more
than one village girl into trouble, but
Jemima’s mother was more than a match for
him. She was the disowned daughter of a
yeoman farmer, left to a widowhood of great
poverty with seven children. These social
ramifications are of some importance,
because Hardy’s work, like the man himself,
was strongly marked by his origins. He was a
delicate child, after a difficult birth. He went
to the village school and then, for seven
years, to a school in Dorchester which he left
at the age of sixteen with a knowledge of
Latin. He was articled to an architect and
church-restorer, a man for whom his father
had done building work. During this time he
continued his education with the help of
Horace Moule, the son of a local clergyman,
and did some reading in the Greek dramatists.
There was a spell with an architect in
London, from 1862 to 1967; Hardy then
went back to his original employer in
