Editing Thomas Hardy (section)

=== Early life ===
[[File:2780theHardyTreeOldStPancrasChurchyard.jpg|thumb|"The Hardy Tree", a [[Great Trees of London|Great Tree of London]] in [[St Pancras Old Church|Old St Pancras]] churchyard in London, growing between gravestones moved while Hardy was working there. The tree fell in December 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Matt |date=2022-12-28 |title=The Hardy Tree Of St Pancras Has Fallen |url=https://londonist.com/london/latest-news/the-hardy-tree-of-st-pancras-has-fallen |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=Londonist}}</ref>]]
Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton (then Upper Bockhampton), a hamlet in the parish of [[Stinsford]] to the east of [[Dorchester, Dorset|Dorchester]] in Dorset, England, where his father Thomas (1811–1892) worked as a stonemason and local builder. His parents had married at [[Melbury Osmond]] on 22 December 1839.<ref>Copy of marriage certificate in Melbury Osmond parish church.</ref> His mother, Jemima (née Hand; 1813–1904),<ref>{{cite web |date=13 October 2006 |title=Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/oct/13/thomashardy |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170729175642/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/oct/13/thomashardy |archive-date=29 July 2017 |access-date=13 December 2016 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> was well read, and she educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at the age of eight. For several years he attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester, where he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential.<ref>{{Citation |first=Claire |last=Tomalin |title=Thomas Hardy: the Time-torn Man |publisher=Penguin |year=2007 |pages=30, 36}}.</ref>

Because Hardy's family lacked the means for a university education, his formal education ended at the age of sixteen, when he became apprenticed to James Hicks, a local architect.<ref>{{Citation |last=Walsh |first=Lauren |contribution=Introduction |title=The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy |place=New York |publisher=Barnes & Noble |series=Classics |year=2005 |type=print}}.</ref> He worked on the design of the new church at nearby Athelhampton, situated just opposite [[Athelhampton House]] where he painted a watercolour of the Tudor gatehouse while visiting his father, who was repairing the masonry of the dovecote.

He moved to London in 1862 where he enrolled as a student at [[King's College London]]. He won prizes from the [[Royal Institute of British Architects]] and the [[Architectural Association School of Architecture|Architectural Association]]. He joined [[Arthur Blomfield]]'s practice as assistant architect in April 1862 and worked with Blomfield on Christ Church, East Sheen [[Richmond, London]] where the tower collapsed in 1863, and All Saints' parish church in [[Windsor, Berkshire]], in 1862–64. A [[reredos]], possibly designed by Hardy, was discovered behind panelling at All Saints' in August 2016.<ref>{{cite news|last=Flood|first=Alison|title=Thomas Hardy altarpiece discovered in Windsor church|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/16/thomas-hardy-altarpiece-discovered-in-windsor-church|access-date=17 August 2016|work=The Guardian|date=16 August 2016|archive-date=16 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816234632/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/16/thomas-hardy-altarpiece-discovered-in-windsor-church|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.windsorobserver.co.uk/news/14679029.Legendary_author_Thomas_Hardy_s_lost_contribution_to_Windsor_church_uncovered/|title=Legendary author Thomas Hardy's lost contribution to Windsor church uncovered|website=Royal Borough Observer|date=15 August 2016 |access-date=17 August 2016|archive-date=26 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826151838/http://www.windsorobserver.co.uk/news/14679029.Legendary_author_Thomas_Hardy_s_lost_contribution_to_Windsor_church_uncovered/|url-status=live}}</ref> In the mid-1860s, Hardy was in charge of the excavation of part of the graveyard of [[St Pancras Old Church]] before its destruction when the [[Midland Railway]] was extended to a new terminus at [[St Pancras railway station|St Pancras]].<ref name="cornerstone">{{cite journal |last=Burley |first=Peter |year=2012 |title=When steam railroaded history |journal=Cornerstone |volume=33 |issue=1 |page=9 }}</ref>

Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was acutely conscious of class divisions and his own feelings of social inferiority. During this time he became interested in social reform and the works of [[John Stuart Mill]]. He was introduced by his Dorset friend [[Horace Moule]] to the works of [[Charles Fourier]] and [[Auguste Comte]]. Mill's essay ''[[On Liberty]]'' was one of Hardy's cures for despair, and in 1924 he declared that "my pages show harmony of view with" Mill.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wilson |first=Keith |title=A Companion to Thomas Hardy |date=2009 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |page=55}}</ref> He was also attracted to [[Matthew Arnold]]'s and [[Leslie Stephen]]'s ideal of the urbane liberal freethinker.<ref>{{cite book |last=Widdowson |first=Peter |title=Thomas Hardy and Contemporary Literary Studies |date=2004 |publisher=Springer |page=132}}</ref>

After five years, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, settling in [[Weymouth, Dorset|Weymouth]], and decided to dedicate himself to writing.