A memorial service for Professor Stephen Hawking took place today at Westminster Abbey, as the world-renowned scientist was laid to rest among other prominent individuals in British history.

The service included prayers and readings from close family and friends, as well as various well-known figures in the worlds of academia and film. Professor Hawking’s first wife, Jane, read a prayer, as did his daughter Lucy – an alumna of Newnham College. Eddie Redmayne, who studied at at Trinity and played Hawking in his biopic The Theory of Everything, was also there for a reading.

Eminent scientists were also there to pay their respects: Major Tim Peake, the first British person to travel to the International Space Station, gave a reading, whilst Lord Rees of Ludlow, the Astronomer Royal, whom Professor Hawking met while studying at Cambridge, gave the address at the service of Thanksgiving.

Numerous Cambridge figures were also in attendance. The Reverend Dr Carolyn Hammond, the Dean of Gonville & Caius, where Professor Hawking was a fellow for more than 50 years, offered a prayer. She was joined in this by Professor Stephen Toope, the University’s new vice-chancellor.

The service ended with Professor Hawking’s ashes being interred between Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. Words from Hawking were set to an original score by the composer Vangelis, which will be beamed into the ‘nearest black hole’ after the service.

25,000 people from more than 100 countries applied to receive one of the 1,000 tickets that allowed members of the public to attend the service.

Hawking, a former Lucasian professor of mathematics and one of the most influential and famous scientists in recent decades, died in March at the age of 76, having first been diagnosed with motor neurone disease over 50 years ago.

His funeral took place at Great St Mary’s Church on 31st March, where thousands of spectators lined the streets of central Cambridge to pay their respects to one of Cambridge’s best-known scientists, with Hawking known for his huge contributions to theoretical physics and cosmology. Thousands of people signed a public condolence book for Hawking at Gonville & Caius, where he worked.

The memorial service began at Westminster Abbey in Central London at around noon today.