Today we had a lovely London Historians outing to the Watts Gallery and Watts Cemetery Chapel in Compton, Surrey. I’m hoping other members of our group will write about it the main attractions of the day.
In the cemetery itself is the family grave of the Huxley family, as in Aldous. It’s the last resting place of the author himself, he having died in the USA in 1963 (22 November, same day as JFK).
Look at the writing below Huxley’s name. You can barely make it out. But it says “And Maria his wife, 1898 – 1955. ” Someone has deliberately removed the metal inlay, someone presumably not a fan of Maria Nys, Huxley’s first wife. Does anyone know the reason? Or have a theory?
Before we leave the Huxleys, I must share with you an unintendedly hilarious letter written by Huxley to George Orwell in 1949, congratulating him on Nineteen Eighty-Four, but explaining too why Brave New World is superior. (HT: LH Member Will Watts.)
Update: Two of our Members have done lovely write-ups of our outing, completely different perspectives, and both with beautiful photos (mind you, hard to fail, given the subject matter!). Caroline Derry here. (follow this excellent blog). And novelist Wendy Wallace here. (buy her new novel The Sacred River!). And finally we get to the main reason for our trip: Tina tells us about the Frank Holl exhibition.
How intriguing. But is this really the last resting place of either of them? Both of them died in California – would it be usual to send the ashes back to the UK? Or maybe Aldous’ ashes were sent back to rest in the family plot, but Maria (née Nys) was Belgian. When she died in 1955, it seems more likely she was buried in Hollywood – in which case, could the removal of her name on the gravestone be a rather crude correction of an inaccurate statement?
You know what? I think that’s the obvious answer and that is the answer. So no malice afoot, after all.
Judging by the third photo on this page, added in 2006, removing her name was a long-term project: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8707127
Mmm…. So. I wonder if the photo is roughly contemporaneous with the web page? Why would somebody be removing the words some forty years after Huxley’s death and half a century after Maria’s?
Lead was used for the inlay in many tombstones of the period. My grandfather’s was similar and last time I saw his grave twenty years ago many of the letters had just fallen out. I think it’s caused by efflorescence of the stone, plus maybe acid rain. If that part of the stone had a different hardness or chemical make-up than the rest I guess it could deteriorate worse than the rest.
I also think that if someone had taken a pointed tool to it it would have done more damage to the stone.
Charles, per this and the above, I don’t think that works because not one letter of all the other “occupants” is missing. No, I believe Maria’s name and dates systematically and deliberately removed. Whether through malice or simply a rational explanation we haven’t thought of yet, well, that’s the thing.
What a mystery….
I reckon a bit of sleuthing would get to the bottom of it, but who has the time?
Having at your instigation (thanks for the reference!) read the letter from Huxley to Orwell, the thought that comes to my mind is that I would dearly love to know what our two heroes would make of the current revelations about government prying into citizens’ privacy as revealed by Snowden et al. I am sure both would have something pithy to say. Both in their different ways would probably see this as confirmation of their respective visions of future worlds. And maybe they would be right…