26 September 2024

TS Eliot’s marriage
in Hampstead and
the ‘gloomy’ house
‘with long dark corridors’

The former Hampstead Register Office on Haverstock Hill where TS Eliot and Vivienne Haigh-Wood were married in 1915 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Today marks the birthday of TS Eliot, who was born 136 years ago in St Louis, Missouri, on 26 September 1888. I was in Hampstead this week to discuss the launch of a book in London next week, and I found myself in an irresistible search for some of the connections in Hamstead with TS Eliot.

Thomas Stearns Eliot married Vivienne Haigh-Wood in Hampstead Register Office on 26 June 1915 and they lived for two years with her parents in Compayne Gardens in West Hampstead.

Three of us met earlier this week at Hampstead Underground station, which was built in 1907 and is the deepest station on the London Underground network, and had lunch around the corner in Flask Walk – a narrow pedestrianised Regency street with antique shops and cafés.

It had been many years since I had spent any time in Hampstead, which is known for its bohemian and literary connections and for what is sometimes labelled dismissively as ‘Hampstead Liberalism’. ‘Hampstead Liberals’ are supposed to be a Guardian-reading North London subspecies of ‘Champagne Socialists’. In its obituary of Peter Jay on Tuesday, the Guardian referred to him being ‘born into the Hampstead Labour aristocracy.’

Certainly, during the Brexit referendum in 2016, it is said 75% or more in Hampstead voted to remain in the EU, so that alliterations sometimes invite comparisons between Hampstead and Hartlepool and Hull, post-industrial northern ‘red wall’ towns that voted to leave and turned from Labour to the Conservatives.

Hampstead has its coffee shops, an eclectic mix of restaurants and bars, Georgian and Regency architecture, antique shops, niche furniture outlets, colourful cobbled side-streets and centuries-old churches.

Hampstead also has many literary associations, with numerous plaques to writers from Agatha Christie to Edith Sitwell. John Keats lived in a Regency Villa beside Hampstead Heath now known as Keats House, where it is said he wrote ‘Ode To a Nightingale’ in the garden. George Orwell worked at a second-hand bookshop in Hampstead called Booklovers’ Corner around 1935-1936. John Betjeman wrote with affection about North London and his childhood in Hampstead and his feelings of ‘being safe in a world of trains and buttered toast.’

Evelyn Underhill, one of only 18 modern women whose lives are commemorated in the Church of England Calendar of Holy Days, is buried in the Additional Burial Ground of Hampstead Parish Church. Penelope Fitzgerald, Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer, lived in Hampstead and is buried in the churchyard.

The house at 3 Compayne Gardens where TS Eliot and Vivienne Haigh-Wood lived after their marriage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The poet Thomas Stearns Eliot, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century and a central figure in English literature, was married in Hampstead and lived in south Hampstead for about two years.

Eliot was born 136 years ago today, on 26 September 1888. He was a visiting student at Merton College, Oxford, when he met Vivienne Haigh-Wood, and they were married in Hampstead Registry office on Haverstock Hill with no formal announcement. They were both 26 and had known each other for just three months. The witnesses were Lucy Ely Thayer, a sister of the poet and publisher Scofield Thayer who introduced the couple, and Vivienne’s aunt, Lillia C Symes.

The couple moved in with her parents at 3 Compayne Gardens, an 1870s house in South Hampstead that Eliot found ‘rather gloomy, with long dark corridors.’ Her father, the artist Charles Haigh-Wood (1854-1927), inherited a property portfolio from his Irish-born mother Mary (Haigh) Wood, including the rental from a group of six houses on Haigh Terrace, between the Mariners’ Church and Upper George’s Street in Dún Laoghaire, and a seventh house on Upper George’s Street, on the corner with Haigh Terrace.

During Eliot’s two years in South Hampstead, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock was published in Chicago in 1915, although Eliot had written it four years earlier in 1911.

The actor and writer Edward Petherbridge has produced a short film, While the Music Lasts, about Eliot’s time in South Hampstead during World War I. He claims that during those two years the seeds were sown of The Waste Land. It was later published in 1922 and is one of Eliot’s most seminal works, his eulogy to culture in a world he felt had forgotten its roots.

Petherbridge’s film features a portrait of Eliot and some London street scenes by another former resident of South Hampstead, photographer Bill Brandt, whose work offers documentary of 20th century British life. The film also refers to the life of Mina Loy, the woman known as the ‘forgotten Modernist’, who grew up in Compayne Gardens.

The marriage was difficult, and ended in separation in 1933. Eliot said later: ‘To her the marriage brought no happiness … to me it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land.’ Vivienne died in 1947, and the story of their tumultuous marriage is told in the film Tom and Viv (1994).

Three years after their separation and 20 years after he had lived at Compayne Gardens, Eliot recalled Hampstead as one the ‘gloomy hills of London’. In Burnt Norton (1936), he speaks of

… the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

Next year marks the 110th anniversary of Eliot’s marriage in Hampstead Register Office on 26 June 1915 and 60th anniversary of his death on 4 January 1965.



Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024:
139, Thursday 26 September 2024

‘It was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, by some that Elijah had appeared’ (Luke 9: 7-8) … the Prophet Elijah by Phyllis Burke in the Carmelite Church in Clarendon Street, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (26 September) remembers Wilson Carlile (1942), founder of the Church Army.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

A hilltop chapel dedicated to the Prophet Elijah in a small graveyard east of Georgioupoli (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 9: 7-9 (NRSVA):

7 Now Herod the ruler heard about all that had taken place, and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, 8 by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the ancient prophets had arisen. 9 Herod said, ‘John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?’ And he tried to see him.

‘It was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, by some that Elijah had appeared’ (Luke 9: 7-8) … Elijah in the Chariot of Fire, depicted in a window in the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Newport, Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Prophet Elias (Hλίας) or Elijah is a popular dedication for mountain-top and hill-top churches and chapels throughout Greece, because of his association with hilltops and mountains, including, in the New Testament, the mountain of the Transfiguration.

Elijah, one of the most studied prophets in the Old Testament, is perhaps too the loftiest and the most worthy of all the prophets.

Of all the Biblical prophets, the New Testament mentions Elijah more than any other: he is mentioned by name 29 times in New Testament and he is alluded to a few other times.

Some English translations of the New Testament use Elias, a Latin form of the name, and in the King James Version the name Elias appears in texts translated from the Greek.

In the New Testament, both Christ and Saint John the Baptist are compared with Elijah and on some occasions they are thought by some to be manifestations of Elijah.

In the Annunciation narrative in Saint Luke’s Gospel, an angel appears to Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist, and tells him that John ‘will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God,’ and that ‘the spirit and power of Elijah will go before him’ (Luke 1: 16-17).

In Saint John’s Gospel, Saint John the Baptist is asked by a delegation of priests and Levities from Jerusalem if he is the Messiah or Elijah. He replies: ‘No’ (John 1: 19-21).

Saint John the Baptist preaches a message of repentance and baptism. He predicts the day of judgment, using imagery similar to that of Malachi, and he preaches that the Messiah is coming. For those who hear him, he does all this in a style that immediately recalls the image of Elijah. He wears a coat of animal hair secured with a leather belt (see Matthew 3: 1-4; Mark 1: 6), and he preaches frequently in wilderness areas near the River Jordan (see Luke 3: 4).

Christ says that for those who believe Saint John the Baptist is like Elijah, who would come before the ‘great and terrible day’ as predicted by the Prophet Malachi (see Malachi 3: 1; Malachi 4: 5-6). In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Christ compares Saint John the Baptist with Elijah, fulfilling his office but not being recognised for this, yet greater than Elijah (see Matthew 11: 7-14, 17: 10-13).

In Saint Luke’s Gospel, Herod Antipas is perplexed when he hears some of the stories about Christ. Some people tell Herod that Saint John the Baptist, whom he had executed, has come back to life, others tell him that Christ is Elijah, and still others think that one of the ancient prophets has risen from the dead (see Luke 9: 7-9).

Later, Christ asks his disciples who do people say he is, and their answers include Elijah, other prophets and Saint John the Baptist (see Matthew 16: 13-14; Mark 8: 27-30; Luke 9: 18-20).

Christ is associated with miracle stories similar to those of Elijah, such as the raising of the dead (Mark 5: 21-23; Luke 7: 11-15, 8: 49-56; John 11) and miraculous feeding (Matthew 14: 13-21, Mark 6: 34-45; Luke 9: 10-17; John 6: 5-16; see II Kings 4: 42 ff). Yet Christ implicitly separates himself from Elijah when he rebukes James and John for desiring to call down fire on an unwelcoming Samaritan village in a similar manner to Elijah calling down fire on the Samaritan troops (Luke 9: 51-56; cf II Kings 1: 10).

Similarly, Christ rebukes a potential follower who wants first to return home to say farewell to his family, whereas Elijah permitted his successor Elisha to do this (Luke 9: 61-62; cf I Kings 19: 16-21).

We might also ask whether the cup Christ blesses at the Last Supper is the Cup of Elijah.

During the Crucifixion, some of the onlookers mistakenly think Christ is calling out to Elijah and wonder whether Elijah will come to rescue him, for in the folklore of the time Elijah was seen as a rescuer of Jews in distress (Matthew 27: 46-49; Mark 15: 34-36).

In all three Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration, the Prophet Elijah appears with Moses at the Transfiguration (see Matthew 17: 1-9; Mark 9: 2-8; Luke 9: 28-36).

Elijah’s appearance in glory at the Transfiguration does not seem to startle the disciples, and it appears they are overcome by fear only when they hear the voice from the cloud.

At the summit of the Mount of the Transfiguration, Christ’s face begins to shine. The disciples who are with him hear the voice of God announce that Christ is ‘My beloved Son.’ The disciples also see Moses and Elijah appear and talking with Christ.

Saint Peter is so struck by the experience that he asks Christ if they should build three booths or tabernacles – one for Elijah, one for Christ and one for Moses.

Saint John Chrysostom explains the presence of Elijah and Moses at the Transfiguration in three ways:

• They represent the Law and the Prophets – Moses receives the Law from God, and Elijah is a great prophet.
• They both experience visions of God – Moses on Mount Sinai and Elijah on Mount Carmel.
• They represent the living and the dead – Elijah, the living, because he is taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire, and Moses, the dead, because he does experience death.

Moses and Elijah show that the Law and the Prophets point to the coming of Christ, and their recognition of and conversation with Christ symbolise how he fulfils ‘the law and the prophets’ (Matthew 5: 17-19). Moses and Elijah also stand for the living and dead, for Moses dies and his burial place is known, while Elijah is taken alive into heaven in order to appear again to announce the time of God’s salvation.

It was commonly believed that Elijah would reappear before the coming of the Messiah (see Malachi 4), and the three interpret Christ’s response as a reference to John the Baptist (Matthew 17: 13).

Elijah is mentioned on three other occasions in the New Testament: in Saint Luke’s Gospel, in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans, and in the Epistle of James:

1, After he reads from the scroll in the synagogue in Nazareth and is criticised for his teaching, Christ cites Elijah as an example of the rejected prophets when he says: ‘No prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town’:

24 And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ (Luke 4: 24–27).

2, Saint Paul cites Elijah as an example that God never forsakes his people:

1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 3 ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.’4 But what is the divine reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ 5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace. (Romans 11: 1-6)

3, Saint James says: ‘The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.’ He then cites as examples Elijah’s prayers which start and end the famine in Israel (see James 5: 16-18).

Inside a hilltop chapel dedicated the Prophet Elias in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Elijah is honoured as a saint in the calendars of both the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church on 20 July. In Greece, chapels and monasteries dedicated to the Prophet Elias (Προφήτης Ηλίας) are often found on mountaintops, which themselves are often named after him.

Elijah is revered as the spiritual Father and traditional founder of the Order of Carmelites. In addition to taking their name from Mount Carmel where the first hermits of the order established themselves, the Carmelite traditions about Elijah focus on his withdrawal from public life.

It could be said that to read Saint Luke’s Gospel with insight we also need to read the story of Elijah and Elisha. To read their story, keeping in mind the miracles, the actions, and the teachings of these two prophets, is to add a richness to our reading of Saint Luke, but also brings with it a vital understanding of the continuity and discontinuity of God’s ways in the Old Testament and New Testament.

Where do you find Elijah and Elisha in Saint Luke’s Gospel?

What are similarities and contrasts between Jesus and them?

Why is it easier to face a dilemma with the questions ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ rather than the questions ‘What Would Elijah Do?’

What richness does it add to your understanding of the kingdom?

‘It was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, by some that Elijah had appeared’ (Luke 9: 7-8) … an icon of the Prophet Elijah in a hilltop chapel near Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 26 September 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Our God is Able.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday in reflections by the Revd Thanduxolo Noketshe, priest in charge at Saint Mary and Christ Church, Diocese of North East Caribbean and Aruba, Province of the West Indies.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 26 September 2024) invites us to pray:

Bless our journey with you Lord. May we walk the path that you have laid before us, singing your praises.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord, we pray that your grace
may always precede and follow us,
and make us continually to be given to all good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious God,
you call us to fullness of life:
deliver us from unbelief
and banish our anxieties
with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The Monastery of Profitis Elias near Pyrgos on the Greek island of Santorini

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The Skete of Prophet Elias near the Monastery of the Pantokrator Monastery on Mount Athos