Jane Hawking

Jane Beryl Wilde Hawking Jones (née Wilde, born 29 March 1944) is an English author and teacher. She was married for 30 years to Stephen Hawking. 2Early life and education Hawking was born to Beryl (née Eagleton) and George Wilde. She grew up in St Albans, Hertfordshire. She studied languages at the University of London's Westfield College. Jane and Stephen Hawking met through mutual college friends at a party in 1962. Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS) in 1963. Even aware of his consequent shortened life expectancy and limitations, the couple became engaged in 1964 and married in 1965 in their shared hometown of St Albans. They 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, Hawking received her PhD in medieval Spanish poetry in April 1981. She felt compelled to obtain a PhD to have her own academic identity within Cambridge.Jane and her husband separated in 1990, and divorced five years late