- Screen Colours:
- Normal
- Black & Yellow
hThe rose at the foot of the grave was brought over as seed from Khayyam’s mausoleum in Nishapur, Iran, by the Omar Khayyam Club of Great Britain, grown at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and transplanted here in 1893.
Edward FitzGerald is known worldwide for his translation of the Rubaiyat of the Persian poet, Omar Khayyam, and his tomb is situated in the churchyard next to the FitzGerald family mausoleum. This extraordinary Victorian eccentric wished to be buried seperately from the rest of his family because as he said, he could not get on with them in life, and did not wish to be associated with them in death!
Edward FitzGerald was born in nearby Bredfield on the 31st of March 1809 to John Purcell and Mary Frances FitzGerald. That Mary was the dominant person in the family was demonstrated in 1818, when the family assumed the name FitzGerald oin her father's death. Edward, the 7th of her eight children, was educated at the Edward VI grammer school, Bury st Edmunds and Trinity College Cambridge where he developed a passionate and lifelong interest in eastern culture. Among the poets and scholars in his circle of friends were Tennyson and Thackeray. As one of his biographers, G F Maine, reported :'FitzGerald had an engaging personality and indulged in the tastes of the patrician, the way of life of a scholar, and the habits of a bohemian'.
The FitzGerald family moved to Boulge Hall in 1835, but within two years, Edward had rebelled against the stuffiness of the aristocratic living and retreated to a small thatched cottage on the edge of the family estate, where he occupied himself reading in a variety of languages, writing countless letters and generally living the life of a dilittante bachelor.
He was not however a total recluse, but travelled around the countryside. He was often seen in Woodbridge, where his friends included Bernard Barton (the banker and Quaker poet) and Thomas Churchyard (solicitor and artist). Along with George Crabbe (the younger), they were known as the 'Woodbierdge Wits'. In 1859, after years of study, FitzGerald published privately his most famous work, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
In the same year, FitzGerald married Barton's daughter, Lucy, but the marraige was not a success and they decided to separate. Thereafter FitzgGerald lived alone, continuing his studies, seeing his friends, and occasionally going ot sea in a yacht, which he named 'Scandal'. 'That being the staple product of Woodbridge' he quipped.
'Fitz' as he became known, died peacefully in 1883, whilst visitng Revd George Crabbe (grandson of his poet friend). His grave in the churchyard is marked by a simple stone, bearing the text from psalm 100.3, which he had chosen himself:
'It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves'.
This was FitzGerald's riposte, literally from the grave, directed at the butcher in Woodbridge, who used to assert his superiority over the 'Woodbridge Wits' and the like, by referring to himself as a 'self made man'.
Near the head of the grave grows a rose bush, an inscription explains taht is was grown from a rose hip, taken from the tree on the grave of Omar Khayyam in Naishapur, and planted here in 1893. Six more rose trees from Iran (then Persia) were planted around the grave in 1972 as a mark of respect from the government.
Edward FitzGerald hardly hardly ever left his native suffolk, but his mind travelled afar, distilling the beauty of oriental poetry and the essence of its philosophy into a work of art, which he lovingly brought home for the enjoyment of his friends and fellow- countrymen.
For further reading, we might suggest the work of Hazhir Teimourian, who is a leading scholar on both Omar Khayyan and Edward Fitzgerald. His latest book '' The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyan'' is available on kindle amd provides a lively biography of both writers.