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January 2012

From the moment she first met Thomas Hardy in 1905, having written him an admiring letter, Florence Dugdale seemed destined for controversy. Her presence at Max Gate, both before and after the death of his first wife Emma, and her clandestine courtship with a man nearly forty years her senior, sparked suspicion among the locals and scorn from the Gifford family. She had wanted to be a writer herself, but was drawn into Hardy’s life as his ‘secretary’ and companion, and within a year of their own marriage was humiliated by his publication of poems commemorating the late Emma and his painful relationship with her.

florence mistress of max gate, peter tait

FLORENCE
Mistress of Max Gate
by Peter Tait

"All of this was to the chagrin of Thomas who was concerned lest the newspapers found out he was there also and in Florence’s company. The great joy of Aldeburgh, as he told Florence, was its anonymity. It was somewhere he could be himself and Wells had no right jeopardising that because of his careless meanderings. ... It appeared to be an unwritten rule of the house that what happened in Aldeburgh stayed in Aldeburgh, and with that in mind Thomas appeared keen that they spend as much time together as possible. "