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I want to get to the point when I shall be
able to say , quite simply and without affectation, that the two great turning
points of my life were when my father sent me to Oxford, and when society sent
me to prison.
Oscar Wilde in De Profundis,
Today no one will
deny the genius of Oscar Wilde. Yet during his own lifetime he was spurned and
humiliated in spite of the success of much of his work. He was a victim of the
society into which he was born. The Victorian
middle-class, whose sacred
institutions of morality Wilde was to infringe, simply had no patience
or tolerance for him. The saddest of the
tragedies that Wilde was to write could not match the events that were to unfold
and Freemasonry, which did play a significant part during his time at Oxford,
was also to reject him and let him down.
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde
(who dropped his middle names in 1877) was born in Dublin, Ireland on 16
October 1854 and from a young
age showed all the promise of becoming an impressive academic. In 1871 he was admitted
into Trinity College, Dublin University and won the scholarship, which
catapulted him directly from Ireland to Magdalen College, Oxford in October of
1874. He was barely 20 years old.
Talent and intellect attract powerful
friends and Oscar Wilde, a brilliant undergraduate by any standards, was befriended by various individuals of
consequence who influenced his future in many ways. Amongst them were Walter Pater, John Addington Symonds, and John Ruskin. He was also very likely to have been on
friendly terms with Prince Leopold, sixth son of Queen Victoria, and this
acquaintance will have encouraged his introduction to Freemasonry.
Prince Leopold was
an accomplished Mason. It was the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, that had
proposed, in 1874, HRH
Prince George Duncan Albert Leopold, Duke of Albany for initiation into the Apollo University Lodge No 357, when still an undergraduate at Christ Church. The Prince’s advancement was rapid. He
was made Senior Warden of the Lodge the year after his initiation and in the
same year, 1875, was nominated as Provincial Grand Master for Oxfordshire
(wrongly interpreted by some historians, notably Richard Ellmann in his
comprehensive biography, as having become Grand Master of the Order). He waited,
however, until the day after his installation as Worshipful Master of the Apollo
University Lodge on 22nd February 1876, to be formally installed as
the new Provincial Grand Master. The ceremony on 23rd February took
place, as was customary for Masonic conferment, at the Sheldonian Theatre. In
1877 Prince Leopold was honored as Junior Grand Warden and sadly died at the age
of only 30, suffering from haemophilia.
Oscar would have felt on familiar ground
when, in February 1875, his
colleague John Edward Courtenay Bodley (always called Courtenay by family and
friends) an undergraduate at Balliol College, who had been only initiated the
year before, approached him with a view to his joining the Apollo University
Lodge No 357. Bodley was much involved with Masonic
administration, responsible for several fêtes and balls and was appointed
Junior Secretary of the Apollo University Lodge, Director of Ceremonies of the
Churchill Lodge and later became the Provincial Grand Secretary for Oxfordshire.
He was also closely associated with Prince
Leopold. As for Oscar Wilde, in addition to his acquaintance with prince Leopold, Oscar’s father, Sir William Robert Wills Wilde (1815-1876) had been an active Mason
in Ireland. Initiated in
the Shakespeare Lodge Number 143 in
Dublin on 12 December 1838,
passed on 16 march 1839 and raised on 21
June 1839, he became Master
of the Lodge in 1841 serving for just 6 months, as was
the practice in Ireland at the time. Sir William also became a joining member
of the St Patrick Lodge no 50 on 29 June 1844. There is no evidence to show that Willie,
Oscar’s elder brother by two years, ever became a freemason.
On 16 February
1875 Oscar was proposed in the Apollo University Lodge by Sinclair Frankland
Hood of Magdalen College and seconded by J E C Bodley. The ballot proved in his favour. Prior to his initiation a week later, Oscar was primed on Freemasonry
by a group of friends, which included Bodley. In his diary entry for Sunday 21
February 1875 Bodley writes: Fitz & Wilde breakfasted with me at the
Mitre at 11. Went down with W(ilde) to Corpus found the Count (W. O.
Goldschmidt) dressing & screwed him round to Ch(rist) Ch(urch) where he was
lunching. We called on Williamson where we had a long talk on Masonry. He
produced his properties and Wilde was as much struck by their gorgeousness, as
he was amazed (dismayed?) at the mystery of our conversation. Being under
age Oscar was initiated by special dispensation on Tuesday 23rd
February. Because the Oxford and Cambridge University Lodges, Apollo University
and Isaac Newton respectively, enjoy blanket dispensation (automatically renewed
annually) to initiate candidates under the age of 21, there are no records in
Grand Lodge for dispensation applications for individual candidates.
The meeting at
which Oscar was initiated was a busy one indeed. His friend Bodley acted as
Secretary for the first time and combined his duties with that of Treasurer. The
evening began early, at 4.45 pm with a third degree ceremony in which Frederic E
Weatherly was raised. This was followed by the passing to the second degree of
Guy, Lord Brooke of Christ Church, (later Member of Parliament for Somerset from
1880) and Algernon H Mills, among others. After which Charles William Cross of
Trinity College, William Henry Grenfell of Balliol and Wilde were initiated. Bro
the Rev H A Pickard of Christ Church College was Master of the Lodge. No wonder
Bodley comments on the day ‘…Pickard is very energetic -
3 ceremonies a day…’. Oscar Wilde’s Craft and Rose Croix
Certificates, together with considerable other memorabilia, were acquired by
various individuals in the mid-1900s when Vivian Holland, Oscar’s impoverished
son sadly had to sell his personal items to survive financially. The
certificates are now in the hands of Mary, Lady Eccles in the USA.
Oscar Wilde’s
Masonic career only spanned the four-year period that he studied at Magdalen
College in Oxford. It began and ended there but he did take freemasonry as
second nature to his character. He was fascinated by the Craft and the degrees
beyond and participated in many of them. Insight into Oscar Wilde’s
participation is to be found in Bodley’s diaries in which he reports on the
festive board following Oscar’s initiation. J & B are interpreted
by Oscar, at the instigation of Bodley, as St John the Baptist on which Oscar,
in his maiden speech to the Brethren and other non-Masonic guests, says: …I
have heard that St J(ohn) the B(aptist) was the founder of this order. I hope we
shall emulate his life but not his death – I mean we ought to keep our
heads!’ his comments and wit are responded to with ‘Yells of laughter’.
Scholars have been at a loss to understand why Oscar’s comments should have
caused ‘Yells of laughter’, as recorded by Bodley in his diary. The
explanation may lie in that the Masons present would have appreciated the
substitution and thus the misinterpretation of the letters J & B as
referring to John the Baptists. The words used in the Masonic ritual refer to
the two pillars in King Solomon’s Temple as described I
Kings 7:15-22 . . .He erected the pillars at the portico of the temple. The
pillar to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz
The capitals on top were in the shape of lilies. And so the work on the
pillars was completed’. Oscar himself will
have remained unaware, having only gone through one single ceremony, of the
correct words used in the ritual and thus his reference to John the Baptist will
have been all the more amusing to those familiar with the correct wording. On
another festive occasion Bodley comments his (Oscar Wilde’s) only attempts
at practical harmony were on occasions when the Brethren having adjourned from labour to refreshment, he would lift his voice in
chorus in a well-meaning but unsteady monotone.
The Apollo
University Lodge was then, as it is still today, a prestigious Lodge. The
original Lodge of Alfred in the University of Oxford No 455 was founded in 1769 and
lapsed 1783. It was revived in May 1818 and in December was constituted as the
Apollo Lodge number 711 - without
explanation as to the adoption of the name. A year later the word University
was added to the title. The Apollo University Lodge, now number 357, continuous
to practice its ritual in an historic style and traditional costume. Officers wear knee breeches, tailcoats and white tie
and silk stockings and pumps as they have done for two centuries. An attire that
would have very much appealed to Oscar Wilde’s embellished sense of dress. So
much so that he took to wearing his Masonic attire in public, his audience
unaware of the significance of what was, effectively, Apollo Lodge dress. On the
9th of January 1882, just a week after his arrival in America for his
extended literary tour, Wilde was on stage for the first time at the famous
Chickering Hall on 5th Avenue and 18th
Street. The 1247 seating capacity theatre was filled to the brim and even
standing room tickets were sold out. Colonel W F Morse, the manager of the
lecture tour, introduced Oscar Wilde who slowly walked unto the stage wearing
the very conspicuous knee breeches and silk stockings and low shoes with bright
buckles. The audience did not know what to make of it. Some thought this was an
English court dress and no one knew that the last time Oscar had worn this
attire was at a meeting of the Apollo Lodge in Oxford.
Oscar took his freemasonry seriously and
was a keen and active participant in Lodge affairs. Having been passed to the
second degree on 24 April and made a Master Mason on the 25th of May 1875, he joined Churchill Lodge in November of the same
year, although he was not present at the meeting in which his membership was
announced. The Churchill Lodge number 478 was and still is the University Lodge frequented by past graduates and
senior members of the
University staff. His introduction by his very good friend William Ward and by
Bro James Harding, will be seen as an indication of the high regard he had
already gained as an undergraduate student. In February 1876 Oscar proposed Mr Richard R Beard of Magdalen College as a member, who was duly initiated in March. Oscar began to
take office in the Churchill Lodge as Inner Guard in 1876 and Junior Deacon in 1877. Although he was not
present on Monday 7th May, the day of the elections in Lodge, he did make the trip especially from
London to attend the Lodge’s festival the next day, Tuesday 8th
May. The two events were combined in the report on page 8 of the Oxford
Chronicle for Saturday May 12 1877 (repeated verbatim in Jackson’s
Oxford Journal of the same date) under the heading:
THE CHURCHILL MASONIC LODGE:
The anniversary festival of this Lodge was held on Tuesday [8 May] at the
Masonic Hall, Oxford, when there was a large and influential attendance both of
members and visitors. Among the brethren present were the Deputy Provincial
Grand Master of Oxfordshire, Br R Bird MA., fellow of Magdalen College; Colonel
the Hon W E Sackville West, MA., Worshipful Master of the Apollo University
Lodge; Sir Offley Wakeman, Bart., MA.; F P Morell, MA.; Past Grand Masters (sic) the Rev H Pickard MA.; the Rev R W Pope,
MA.; T C Tatham, E R Owen, Jules Bué, E M Wakeman, H R Cooper-Smith &c.;
Bros Slade J Baker, T Hyde, E Risley, Major Crowder, MA., Captain Cook and
others. The Worshipful Master, Br H O Wakeman, MA., fellow of All Souls College,
presided and at the conclusion of the initiations, &c a handsome Past
Master’s jewel was presented by him, on behalf of the Lodge, to Br H R
Cooper-Smith MA of Magdalen College, the immediate Past Master, in recognition
of the valuable services he had rendered the Lodge. The Worshipful Master Elect
(Br S Frankland Hood, BA., of Magdalen College) was duly installed as Master for
the ensuing year, the ceremony being most admirably performed by the retiring
Master. The new Master appointed and invested his officers as follows; - Senior
Warden, Sir Offley Wakeman, Bart., MA. ; JW, Thomas F Plowman; Chaplain, the Rev
L K Hilton MA, Magdalen; Treasurer, F P Morrell, MA, St John’s; Secretary, W
Peppercorn; Senior Deacon, J S O Robertson-Luxford, BA,; Junior Deacon, O F W Wilde,
Magdalen,
Directors of Ceremonies, J E Bodley, Balliol and F Hedges, BA, Exeter; Inner
Guard H P Symonds; Organist, E Cholmley Jones, B A Magdalen; Stewards, R R
Beard, Magdalen, J P Brandreth, and Major Crowder, Corpus Christi. The opening
banquet, which was of a very recherché character, was served at half-past
seven, when the usual Masonic toasts were felicitously introduced by the new
Master, who occupied the chair, and suitably responded to. Mr Hippy, of St
Aldate’s, supplied the banquet and his catering was thoroughly satisfactory.
Meanwhile, as his second year in Oxford began, his Masonic activities took
on new vigor. For reasons that are unexplained, considering the affinity of the
Royal Arch to Craft Masonry, Oscar Wilde never became a Royal Arch Mason.
Instead, on 27 November 1876 he was perfected into the 18th degree of the Rose Croix – The Ancient and Accepted (Scottish) Rite – at the
Oxford University Chapter
No 40, a new Chapter consecrated only 4 years earlier.
This year in
Oxford was a period of religious consequence to Oscar. The Roman Catholic Church was an especially strong
influence on him and he had
decorated his rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford
with pictures of the Madonna and various Saints, stating that he had been "caught in the fowler's snare, in the
wiles of the Scarlet Woman". The
Rose Croix and the strong religious Trinitarian content of its ritual
(particularly so under the English Constitution) will have appealed to him. This
Masonic Order in particular allowed his spirituality to surface and in it he
found the High Church
with Christ, death and resurrection, which
suited him at this time in his life.
Oscar took active office
to participate in the ceremonial ritual. He acted as Chamberlain, an
office that no longer exists, as well as Raphael, which would have
entailed his conducting the candidates in the perambulations during the
perfection ceremony. He introduced four new members to the Order, all from
Magdalen College. Oscar Wilde, within the confines of the Masonic ambiance, was
in his element. Some months after
his perfection, in a letter dated 3
march 1877, he wrote to his
close friend and fellow Mason, William Ward, nicknamed ‘Bouncer’: I have got rather keen
on Masonry lately, I believe in it awfully – in fact would be awfully sorry to
have to give it up in case I secede from the Protestant Heresy. Hunter Blair had
had to give it up for this reason.
The Order seems also to have brought out in Oscar his extravagant streak
and tendency to overspend, which was to cause him some embarrassment. On three
separate occasions, on 8th and 22nd November 1877 and on
22nd May 1878 he was summoned before the University Chancellor’s Court where action was brought against
him for non-payment of outstanding debts. The second of these summonses is of
direct relevance because it entailed the purchase of Masonic regalia. In November of 1876 he spent a total of £15.18.6, a vast amount at the time, equivalent
to some £650.00 in today’s terms, to purchase from George Henry
Osmond, Watch and Clock Makers of 118 St Aldate Oxford, various items which included: 18 carat gold
and ivory studs, a lamb skin Rose Croix apron & collar, a Rose Croix jewel,
sword and belt as well as a Masonic leather jewel case, lettered with his initials O
F O’F W W. He paid £ 10.00 on account and Osmond’s Solicitors, Mesrrs Morrell,
Peel and Gamlen sued a year later for the remainder. The court ordered that he pay the
difference plus twenty-five shillings costs. This unique legal entity known as the
Chancellor’s Court, later referred to as the Vice-Chancellor’s Court, was
originally set up in the 15th Century as a student’s privilege court,
where members of the university were exempt
of civil jurisdiction and
the chancellor took on all legal responsibilities,
somewhat like the Ecclesiastical courts and jurisdiction of the time. The
Vice-chancellor’s court heard its last case in 1968 and was
formally abolished in the 1970s.
On 22nd March1878 Oscar progressed further in the Orders
beyond the Craft. He was advanced, with no less than 12 additional candidates,
into the Mark degree at University Mark Lodge
No 55. This seems, however, to
have been merely in response to a temporary burst of enthusiasm. Oscar’s friend
and proposer, Bodley was elected Master of the Lodge at the same meeting but
neither Oscar nor Bodley ever apparently returned to the Lodge. Bodley resigned
as Master Elect at the next meeting. The only interesting aspect in his rather
uneventful association with this particular Order is the elaborate ‘mark’ he
chose for himself. It is a standard procedure in the Mark
degree, as part of the ceremony of advancement, for each candidate to choose an
identifying ‘mark’ in imitation of the Mason’s Marks which appear on
stones in the fabric of medieval and even earlier buildings. Oscar Wilde chose a mirror image
of his initials O-F-W. It would appear that Oscar’s membership in the Mark expired naturally, so to speak,
as this is the one order in which there is no evidence of his expulsion or
exclusion, as was the case in the Rose Croix. As an interesting aside, there is
a Mark referred to in various letters written by Oscar to different individuals.
The person in question has never been satisfactorily identified, as there were
no Magdalene undergraduates with that Christian name during the period in
question. Merlin Holland reached the conclusion that it was most likely Clement
Hemery Lindon (see page 14 note 3 The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, Fourth
Estate London 2000). One letter, however, has caused particular confusion. On 30th
December 1876, in a letter to William Ward, Oscar Wilde writes: ‘…Except
the Mark I think few people would set laborious industry on any footing with
brilliant and original thought.’ This
reference to the Mark has still not been explained.
Whereas Oscar’s membership of the Apollo University Lodge ceased in
1878, due to non payment of dues, his demise from the Churchill Lodge was a more
deliberate expulsion. In 1881 when Bro Lt Col Thomas Moseley
Crowder was appointed
Secretary to the Lodge he decided on an 'efficiency
drive' to collect arrears of subscriptions due to the Lodge. Amongst the eleven members who were
finally excluded in 1883, were also the two brothers, the Marquess of Blandford and Lord Randolph Churchill, in
addition to C W Spencer-Stanhope, Aretas Akers Douglas and Oscar Wilde. Whilst explanations and excuses of active
service abroad were accepted from all the Brethren concerned who were readmitted
to the Lodge, Oscar Wilde’s fate is recorded in the Lodge minutes for 4th
June 1883 'Bro. Crowder
Secretary proposed and Bro GL Hawkins seconded that the expulsion from the Lodge
of Bro. Oscar Wilde be reported to Grand Lodge, he having failed to acknowledge
the three communications forwarded to him.
This was carried unanimously.'
The expulsion from
the Churchill Lodge effectively sealed and ended Oscar Wilde’s Masonic
activities. He had not yet been disgraced by society and the action taken
against him in the Churchill Lodge and the remainder of the Orders from which he
was finally excluded, appear to have been a matter of neglect on his part rather
than deliberate action taken against him.
His rather brief
albeit concentrated involvement with Freemasonry only once inspired his work.
His very first play Vera or the Nihilists, A Drama in a Prologue, and Four Acts written in 1880
and first produced in New York in 1883
has Masonic connotations.
The play is about the people
of Russia who suffer greatly under the tyranny of the Czar. The Nihilists, a band
of conspirators, have sworn an oath to kill the Czar and establish a Republic in
which power will be given to the people. Vera Sabouroff, a young Russian peasant
girl, converts to the Nihilist creed in order to revenge her brother Dmitri, a
Nihilist who got captured and was sent to Siberia.
The first act opens with a
meeting of the conspirators who exchange
passwords after which a catechetical opening ceremony follows. The President, equivalent to the Worshipful Master,
asks:
President:
What is the Word?
First
Conspirator:
Nabat
P:
The answer?
2nd
C:
Kalit
P:
What hour is it?
3rd
C:
The Hour to suffer
P:
What day?
4th
C
The day of Oppression
P:
What year?
5th
C:
The year of Hope
P:
How many are we in number
6th
C:
Ten, Nine and three
There is little
doubt of the influence of the Masonic ritual on the above. It appears to be a
combination of the Mark degree – the only degree in which 6 principal Officers
are involved in the opening of the Lodge - and some indirect Rose Croix ritual,
giving a spiritual flavour to the ceremony. This is the sum of the Masonic
influence to be found in Oscar Wilde’s works. There has been some Masonic
interpretation given to the rose used as an emblem in the title page to his poem
‘Hélas’, published in 1881, but it is not a convincing attribution.
By September of 1880 Oscar Wilde had
divested himself from both
Roman Catholicism and any overt interest in Freemasonry. Having left Oxford
for London in 1878, with the self proclaimed title of professor of aesthetics,
he was soon on world tours covering
the USA and Canada, spending time in Paris before marrying Constance Lloyd in
1884. The next decade was spent with Oscar Wilde balanced on that fine dividing
line between what was and what was not morally acceptable to the late Victorian
London society. In meeting Alfred Douglas, affectionately referred to as Bosie,
in June 1891, Oscar was to be put to the test and he failed.
In February of
1895 Queensberry left the famous open card
at the Albemarle Club
accusing Wilde of sodomy. Oscar’s failed trial against Queensberry
on 3rd April,
lead to his arrest just two days later. His subsequent trials ended with his
imprisonment, first at Pentoville in May, followed by his transfer to Wandsworth
in July and his final move to Reading Gaol in November, a month after being
officially declared bankrupt.
Oscar Wilde,
whilst serving hard labour in Reading gaol, made a last direct reference to
Freemasonry. There are two versions of the verbal comment allegedly made by
Oscar about an incident that occurred at the Reading gaol prison yard. In the
unpublished preface to Robert Ross’ planned collection of Oscar Wilde’s letters
addressed to him, he states that in May 1897, a few days after Oscar’s release
from jail, he asked him whether he had met any Freemasons in prison, to which
Oscar replied:
Yes, it was very
terrible. As I was walking round the yard one day I noticed that one of the men
awaiting trial was signaling to me by Masonic sign. I paid no attention until he
made me the sign of the widow’s son, which no mason can ignore. He managed to
convey a note to me. I found he was in for fraud of some kind and anxious that I
should get my friends to petition for his release. He was quite mad, poor
fellow. As he would always insist on signaling and I was afraid the warders
would get to notice it, I persuaded Major Nelson to let me wear black goggles
until he was convicted and sent to Portland.
An alternative
version, clearly of the same incident, is to be found in Robert Sherard’s book
The Real Oscar Wilde published in 1917, where he states that Oscar told a
friend (clearly Robert Ross) of
meeting a fellow mason in jail. The incident is described in much greater detail
and varies somewhat from Ross’ account.
It was toward the end of my time and one
day as I was walking round and round the prison yard at exercise I noticed a
man, another prisoner, signalling to me. He was a perfect stranger to me. I
could see from his clothes – he was not in prison dress – that he was a
prisoner on remand. I took no
notice of him at first because at the time I was on the
Governor’s good books, Major Nelson had
been very kind to me and I did not want to get reported for communicating with
another prisoner in the exercise yard. It is a grave offence,. I had been
punished once before. But when he had again attracted my attention he made that
Masonic sign to me which is known as The Sign of the Widow’s Son. Which is an
appeal from one brother mason to another when in direct distress which cannot be
disregarded under any circumstances and must be responded to. So I was obliged
to respond to the man and very fortunately escaped attracting the attention of
the warders, but I was determined not to run the risk again, especially as it
was quite out of my power to help the brother mason. I asked to see the Governor
after I got back to my cell and I told him how I was placed between my desire
not to break the prison regulations and my pledged duty to my order. I did not,
of course, indicate in any way who was the man who had signalled to me. And a
ruse was decided upon. If my eyes were bad and I couldn’t see well I could not
be expected to respond to Masonic signals. So next time I went out to exercise I
had been fitted by the prison doctor with a pair of dark blue goggles, and after
that the man left me alone.
In 1895 the
Masonic fraternity will have been aware though unperturbed by Oscar Wilde’s
sad and tragic circumstances. He had, after all, ceased membership of the last
of the Masonic Orders in 1879 and had left Freemasonry behind that same year
when he went down from Oxford. Why then was there a need a decade and a half
later for his name to be erased, as it was, from Masonic records in Oxford?
It was, and still is, customary for Rose Croix Chapters to inscribe the
names of their members in what is known as the Golden Book. This is normally
done following the ceremony of Perfection and Oscar Wilde appears to have
signed the Golden Book of his Chapter somewhat belatedly after he was perfected
on 27 November 1876. A note against the signatures of Henry Deane and Oscar
Wilde states: Signed in error – Names should be immediately above
‘Richard Fort’ 2 pages before this. Oscar Wilde’s name has been
stricken through with a note underneath: Erased – P Colville Smith MWS Dec
5th 1895. The letters ‘MWS’, standing for Most Wise
Sovereign, indicate that Sir Philip Colville Smith, as he later became, was in
the ‘Chair’ of the Chapter at the time. His action was no doubt a
consequence of the earlier entry in the minute
book of the Supreme Council 33°
under the heading ‘Report of the Committee of Supreme Council’ dated
9 July 1895 which states ‘The erasure
from the Golden Book of the name of Oscar Wilde who has been sentenced to a term
of imprisonment with hard labour’. It
should be noted that regulation 11 of
the Order provides that any member being convicted of felony or crime, whatever
its nature, shall be deprived of
all Masonic Rights and Privileges, namely
expelled from the Order. Thus Oscar Wildes’s expulsion was in line with this
regulation, irrespective of the nature of the act of which the imprisonment was
served. The same regulation states that the Member’s name shall be erased from
the Golden Book. Nonetheless Oscar was no longer a member of the Order and the
erasure of his name, such a long time after he ceased all his Masonic
activities, seems quite futile and unnecessary. The explanation may lie in the coincidence of two
peculiar circumstances. In 1895 Oscar Wilde’s name was removed from the
billboards of two West End theatres in London where An Ideal Husband and The
Importance of being Earnest were showing to large audiences. In fact, as
public feeling against Wilde increased, the plays were taken off the West End
theatres altogether. The same happened in New York, where Wilde had gained fame
and notoriety during his successful lecture tours several years earlier. This
public rejection of Oscar Wilde combined with the highly puritan mind of
Colville Smith may have been the determining factor in disassociating Oscar
Wilde’s name from that of the fraternity. It so happened that W Bro Colville
Smith, who became Grand Secretary of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1918,
already had considerable influence at the time of Wilde’s imprisonment. In
addition to being the Most Wise Sovereign of the Rose Croix University Chapter
No 40, he had served twice as Master of the Apollo University Lodge and was
known as a disciplinarian, a puritan and strict conformist. John Mandelberg in his voluminous Ancient and Accepted
Rite, published by
QCCC Ltd in 1995,
states on page 1047
…(P Colville Smith) was a martinet who would
tolerate no irregularity. His forceful erasure of the signature of Oscar Wilde
in the Golden Book of that Chapter is a striking testimony to his righteous
zea.l
On his release from prison in May 1897
Oscar Wilde made his way directly to Dieppe. He was to spend the last three
years of his life in exile and hiding, his fate not eased by the untimely death
of his mother a year earlier, his wife Constance in April 1898 and his brother
Willie a year later. Oscar died in his room at the Hotel d’Alcase on 30th
November 1900, diagnosed as having suffered from cerebral meningitis. He was
forty-six years old.
How much more of his extraordinary talents
we might have enjoyed, had he only been born in our present tolerant, if not
permissive, generation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY & SOURCES
Bodley, J E C Journal of J E Courtenay
Bodley, Bodleian Library, Oxford
Bodley, J E C Oscar Wilde at Oxford New York Times 4 February 1882
Elmann, Richard Oscar Wilde 1987
Hart, John From Oscar Wilde to Jim Daniel: Reminiscences of Oxford Masonry
unpublished lecture.
Hart-Davis, Rupert ed. The
Letters of Oscar Wilde, pub
Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962
Hill, Tracey ed The
Importance of Being a Freemason: The Trials of Oscar Wilde
Bath 1997
Holland, Merlin & Hart-Davis, Rupert The
Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde Fourth
Estate
, (2000)
Perrin, Dennis A Tale of Two Princes
– The Life and Times of H R H Prince Leopold
1997
Schroeder, Horst
Additions and Corrections to Richard Ellman’s Oscar Wilde 1989
Sherard, Robert The Real Oscar Wilde
1917
Vernier, Peter ‘Oscar’s Mental
Photograph Revisited’ The Wildean 15 (Journal of the
Oscar
Wilde Society) July 1999
Wood, Anthony, ‘Oscar Wilde the
Mason’ article in the Oxford Mail 23 February
1970
CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to the following for the
kind assistance given me with this paper:
Bryan Bailes the archivist at the Grand Lodge of Mark
Master Masons in London, Simon Bailey of the Oxford University Archives at the
Bodleian Library in Oxford, Mathew Christmas,
Secretary of the University Mark Lodge No 55, Oxford and Bob Good, Past
Secretary of the Churchill Lodge No 478, Oxford. John Hart has provided me with
a large number of articles and booklets and is the
author of the unpublished and excellent lecture: From Oscar Wilde to Jim Daniel: Reminiscences of Oxford Masonry’. Merlin
Holland, Oscar Wilde’s grandson, author and compiler of Oscar’s
letters has allowed me a fascinating insight and my colleague John Mandelberg in
Cheshire made relevant correspondence available to me. Peter Vernier has given
me more of his time than I deserve and finally the staff of the Library and
Museum of Freemasonry in Great Queen Street, London have, as always, been as
helpful as they can.
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