Eddie Redmayne leads tributes at Stephen Hawking funeral
Cambridge, UK: Friends, family and colleagues of Stephen Hawking gathered on Saturday to pay their respects at his private funeral in Cambridge, where the British science great spent most of his extraordinary life.
Hawking, who died on March 14 at the age of 76, was famously an atheist but his children Lucy, Robert and Tim chose St Mary the Great, the church of Cambridge’s prestigious university, to say their farewell.
“Our father’s life and work meant many things to many people, both religious and non- religious. So, the service will be both inclusive and traditional, reflecting the breadth and diversity of his life,” they said. Tributes poured in from around the world upon Hawking’s death, from Queen Elizabeth II to Nasa, reflecting his huge impact as a physicist and an inspiration, in his refusal to give up in the face of his crippling motor neurone disease.
The funeral service — held a short distance from Gonville and Caius College where Hawking worked for more than 50 years — was only open to around 500 guests who knew him.
A private reception was to follow at Trinity College. A wider audience will attend a thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey in London on June 15, when Hawking’s remains will be buried near the grave of another legendary scientist, Isaac Newton. Actor Eddie Redmayne, who played Hawking in the 2014 biographical drama The Theory of Everything, was to give a reading from the Bible, followed by a reading by Martin Rees, Britain’s astronomer royal. Eulogies were to be delivered by Robert Hawking, the physicist’s eldest child, and Professor Fay Dowker, one of Hawking’s ex- students.
White lilies representing universe, and another of white roses as the polar star were placed on his coffin. The church bell tolled 76 times, once for each year of Hawking’s life.