Jane Hawking
| Jane Hawking | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Jane Beryl Wilde 29 March 1944 |
| Occupation | Author, educator |
| Spouse(s) |
Stephen Hawking (m. 1965; div. 1995) Jonathan Hellyer Jones (m. 1996) |
| Children | 3, including Lucy Hawking |
Jane Beryl Hawking Jones, Ph.D. (née Wilde, born 29 March 1944, known publicly as Jane Hawking) is an English author and educator. She is the ex-wife of Stephen Hawking and the author of the autobiography Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen.
Jane Hawking (née Wilde) was born to Beryl (née Eagleton) and George Wilde. She grew up in St Albans, Hertfordshire and later studied languages at the University of London's Westfield College.
Jane and Stephen Hawking met through mutual college friends at a party in the early 1960s. Even in the face her fiance's diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) and resulting in short life expectancy, the couple married in 1965 in their shared hometown of St. Albans. Together, the couple had three children: Robert, born in 1967, Lucy born in 1970, and Timothy born in 1979.
After years of working on her doctoral thesis through Westfield College, Jane received her PhD in medieval Spanish poetry in April 1981. Jane was compelled to do a PhD, so that she would have an academic identity of her own within Cambridge. Jane and her husband separated in 1990, and divorced five years later. In 1996, she married musician Jonathan Hellyer Jones. Following her remarriage, Jane continued to support her ex-husband through his health problems as he continued to work.
During her marriage to her first husband while dealing with the progression of his illness, Jane suffered from depression. In a 2004 interview, she cited her Christian faith as giving her hope during her marriage and the depression she experienced as a result of being her then-husband's caregiver. In the same interview, Jane noted an "irony" in her faith-based strength to support her ex-husband in light of his well-known atheism.
In 1999 she wrote an autobiography about her first marriage, Music to Move the Stars: A Life with Stephen. Hawking and her first husband established a working relationship following his separation and divorce from his second wife. In 2007, an updated version of the autobiography was re-published under the title Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen. and was subsequently made into the award-winning film The Theory of Everything.
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