In 1840 the county of Dorset was still relatively little touched by the sweeping changes that were transforming the rest of England: the railway, for instance, which had spread its network across the country in the 1820s and 1830s, did not reach Dorset until seven years after Hardy's birth, and the folk traditions of a small and scattered population thus survived longer there than in most other places. Higher Bockhampton, though within walking distance of the county town of Dorchester, was no more than a hamlet; Dorchester itself, though an ancient town dating back to Roman times and an important center for the surrounding agricultural region, was small. During his early years Hardy was to witness the hand of change at work on landscape and rural community at the same time that his own intellectual and emotional development was leading him in directions for which family history offered no precedent. Intensely individual, he was also in many respects a representative member of his generation.
His father and grandfather, alike named Thomas Hardy, were builders; the family was long settled in the district and, while certainly not affluent, lived comfortably enough at a time when Dorset was something of a byword for rural poverty and wretchedness.
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