Today, 3rd February, marks the 123rd anniversary of the death of Jane, Lady Wilde, the mother of Oscar.
Lady Wilde, whose title stemmed from her husband’s knighthood, was a notable author. Writing under the pen-name of Speranza (“Hope”) her nationalist poetry inspired many an Irish patriot during the Young Ireland movement of the mid-19th Century.
She was supportive of both of her sons’ ambitions, but particular of Oscar’s (“Willie is all right, but as for Oscar, he will turn out something wonderful.”). While Oscar toured North America in 1882 she avidly collected newspaper clippings about his international exploits, and reported with glee that even her milkman had bought a photograph of the young aesthete.
Her literary salons were legendary not just for quality of the conversation but also for Lady Wilde’s eccentricities, such as insisting that the heavy curtains be drawn even during the hours of daylight, or her bizarre style of dress (one friend said that Jane’s habit of wearing on her chest a collection of miniature portraits of her ancestors “gave her the appearance of a walking family mausoleum”). Her circumstances were reduced after the death of Sir William, and she often complained of being short of cash. Like both of her sons, she was able to earn money but found it much more difficult to avoid spending it.
Lady Wilde died in 1896, while Oscar was imprisoned in Reading Gaol. Oscar’s wife, Constance, travelled across Europe to break the news to the devoted son, who reported that he already knew his mother was dead: her ghost had come to him in a vision.
Last last year I visited the grave of Speranza. The memorial was erected relatively recently (she had been buried in an unmarked paupers’ grave). It’s in Kensal Green Cemetery in London, and is not difficult to find. Click here for a map showing the location of Lady Wilde’s grave (as well as the grave of her niece, Dolly Wilde). Willie Wilde, Speranza’s elder son, was also buried in a paupers’ grave at Kensal Green, but I was told by a helpful woman in the main office that the cemetery’s crematorium was later built on this plot.
