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Exploring Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd
Exploring Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd

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1 Biography and context

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was a novelist and poet, famous in his own lifetime with a well-deserved reputation that endures into the twenty-first century. He was born in Upper Bockhampton, a small village in Dorset and as a child went to the Church of England school in the next village. As a young man he was articled to an architect in Dorchester, and in 1862 moved to London where for five years he was employed as a draughtsman before returning to Dorset, where he worked restoring churches. He also started writing fiction which he based on the countryside he came from and lived in, and the country people that he knew best.

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Figure 1 Image of Thomas Hardy in about 1870.
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This is a black-and-white photograph of Thomas Hardy.

Figure 1 Image of Thomas Hardy in about 1870.
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Figure 2 Thomas Hardy’s birthplace in Upper Bockhampton (Dorset).
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This is an illustration of a house.

Figure 2 Thomas Hardy’s birthplace in Upper Bockhampton (Dorset).

Activity 1

Watch this short video now which was filmed in and around the cottage where Hardy was born, and where he wrote Far From the Madding Crowd. As you watch, pay attention to information about the Hardy family, and anything in his background that is discussed here that you think might have contributed to his future career a writer.

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Transcript: Video 1

CHARLOTTE LILLEY
So we're at Hardy's Cottage, the home of the novelist Thomas Hardy. And it was where he was born. So he lived in a very small country cottage with his family, his four siblings and his mother and father. And he lived here from 1840 when he was born until the age of 34 when he had finally gotten money from his novel to marry his first wife Emma. So the original cottage was actually a simple two-up, two-down cob building. And in 1857 it was passed on to Thomas Hardy's father. And a separate cottage was built next door for his grandmother Mary. That was up for about 20 years as two individual cottages until 1857 when it was knocked through when she passed away and made into the one cottage that we have today.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR
Hardy's father was a builder who employed workmen of his own and was thus in social status a cut above the labourers who worked for Bathsheba in Far from the Madding Crowd. Hardy's mother had been a maid servant. She was a great reader who enjoyed Sir Walter Scott's and Byron's poetry and had been allowed to read books in her employer's library.
CHARLOTTE LILLEY
When Hardy was 22 years of age he got an architectural job up in London.
NARRATOR
Over the next decade, Hardy went on to write four novels, three of which were published, before writing the book that would make him famous, Far from the Madding Crowd. Although he'd moved to London, Hardy kept returning to Higher Bockhampton. He wrote Far from the Madding Crowd here, eating meals cooked by his mother and helping his father with the cider making. His room looked down on what's now the front garden but was then his father's building yard. For Hardy, writing this book was a return to Dorset, to Higher Bockhampton and the world of his childhood after his years in London.
CHARLOTTE LILLEY
He wrote Far from the Madding Crowd up in his room upstairs. He shared this room with his brother Henry. But he would go up there, sit at his desk, take inspiration from the surroundings, the people. There's a lovely story where for his novels he'd go round church yards and pick out names of country people from the tombstones that had a direct relation to the area. And he'd use their jobs for inspiration, names. So this place for him was his ultimate area. It's what he could write about. He knew the place inside out, the people, their roles, the rural life.
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Discussion

There are several interesting pieces of information in that film clip that might be significant in fostering Hardy’s interest in writing. First, his mother Jemima had been a servant, but unusually seems to have been allowed access to the family’s library where she was in service. She read works by Dr Johnson, Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, and it seems likely that she passed on her love of reading to her son. His father was a builder with his own yard employing other working men, which put the Hardy family’s social standing a cut above that of other labouring families. The parents may well have encouraged aspirations in their children and clearly Thomas had a sound education, after working in London he returned to the family home. That father and son worked their cider press together suggests one way in which the family was steeped in local tradition, and Hardy’s interest in the community is evident when we learn that he took jobs and names of country people from churchyards in the area, using them as inspiration for his fiction.