Hardy’s heroine and a prison grave protest
Julian Fellowes attacks plan to build on prison grave of murderess who inspired Thomas Hardy heroine
The author Julian Fellowes has called on property developers to exhume the body of the murderess who inspired Thomas Hardy to write Tess of the D’urbervilles. The Thomas Hardy Society has been monitoring plans to build 185 homes on the site of Dorchester Prison, where Martha Brown, the last woman to be hanged in Dorset, is buried. Brown, who killed her abusive husband, was executed in 1856, a hanging Hardy is believed to have witnessed as a 16-year-old.
THE author Julian Fellowes has called on property developers to exhume the body of the murderess who inspired Thomas Hardy to write
The Thomas Hardy Society has been monitoring plans to build 185 homes on the site of Dorchester Prison, where Martha Brown, the last woman to be hanged in Dorset, is buried. Brown, who killed her abusive husband, was executed in 1856, a hanging which Hardy is believed to have witnessed as a 16-year-old.
Lord Fellowes, who is president of the society, has called on developers to exhume and re-inter her remains elsewhere. The writer and Conservative peer told the
BBC: “It would be very disrespectful not to exhume all the bodies. Although they were largely executed criminals, they were human beings.
“Hardy was a world famous novelist and it is our responsibility to ensure something as important as the grave of Martha isn’t simply buried under a pavement to be trodden on.” Mike Nixon, the secretary for the society, echoed Lord Fellowes’s comments. “Hardy was a compassionate man and he would also support what Julian is saying. We would like to think that the body would be exhumed by the developers,” he said.
The developer, City & Country, would have to apply for a faculty from the Diocese of Salisbury to allow it to exhume bodies buried in consecrated ground and to the Government for unconsecrated ground. The land where the bodies are buried is thought to be a mixture of both. Planning permission for the development was granted in February. A spokesman for the diocese said: “As we understand it there are no plans to disturb the ground where the bodies are buried. We have seen the outlined plans and from what we have seen there are no plans to disturb that ground.”
If a faculty application were to be submitted, it would take several months to be examined and there is no guarantee it would be approved, he said, adding that there is a “strong presumption against disturbing graves if you don’t have to”.
Executed murderers are thought to have been buried outside the consecrated area from 1832 onwards, according to a report by Cotswold Archaeology, which is carrying out the archaeological works. The exact location
of Martha Brown’s grave is not
known. Hardy published Tess of the D’urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented in 1892. It was criticised by contemporaries for its sympathetic portrayal of the title character, who falls from grace after losing her virginity while unmarried. At the end of the novel she is executed after stabbing her lover to death.
Richard Winsborough, the director of planning at City & Country, said: “While we appreciate the public interest in the Dorchester Prison site, we are still at a very early stage of the project.
“As such, the method for excavating human remains that might be disturbed has not yet been confirmed.
“What is undoubtedly clear is that human remains should always be treated with dignity and respect.”