A Victorian Tragedy

WILLIAM AND OSCAR Wilde’s father, Sir William Robert Wills Wilde, had three illegitimate children before his marriage to Oscar’s mother, the poet and writer Jane Francesca Elgee, whose ‘nom de plume’ was Speranza.

His first child, Henry Wilson, was born when Sir William was twenty-three. Sir William educated him and took him into St. Mark’s Ophthalmic Hospital, which he had founded, to work alongside himself. Oscar used to refer to

Henry as his cousin.

Two daughters followed Henry: Emily was born in 1847 and Mary in 1849. None of the children’s mothers’ identities are known.

Each of these children was acknowledged and supported privately by their father.

Sir William’s eldest brother, the Reverend Ralph Wilde, adopted the two girls as his wards. This enabled them to keep the surname Wilde. Apart from William and Oscar, Sir William and his wife, Jane, had a daughter, Isola Francesca, who died of a fever at the age of nine years. Her death deeply affected Oscar who was then twelve years old. He carried a lock of her hair with him and later wrote the poem, Requesciat, in memory of her.

Each summer, legitimate and illegitimate children, would gather in Glenmacnass, County Wicklow. This perhaps explains Oscar’s interest in foundlings and orphans, illustrated in the mystery hanging over Jack Worthing’s birth in his play, ‘ The Importance of Being Earnest’.

Henry Wilson, who succeeded his father as a senior surgeon in Dublin’s St. Mark’s Ophthalmic Hospital, outlived his father, dying in 1877, but the two girls were less fortunate. Boarding with the Rector of Drumsnatt, which is three miles southwest of Monaghan town, Emily and Mary were popular with the local inhabitants.

One Hallowe’en they were invited to attend a ball in Drumaconnor House, an imposing two-storey manor, situated between Monaghan town and Clones. This ball was being held to welcome the two vivacious sisters to the area.

LATER ON, when most of the guests had left, the host, Andrew Reid, took Emily for a final waltz around the sitting room. Both girls were wearing crinolines.

When crinoline was popular, over three thousand women lost their lives in Britain and Ireland from this flammable dress material. That is exactly what happened to Emily’s dress. As the dancers passed the open fireplace, a spark set Emily’s crinoline on fire.

Andrew Reid wrapped his coat around Emily in an attempt to extinguish the flames and Mary dashed to her sister in an attempt to assist but her dress also caught on fire. Fleeing down the stairs, the sisters rolled on the dirt outside the house but both women had acquired third degree burns to large portions of their bodies.

This tragedy occurred on October 31st 1871 and the two siblings endured prolonged physical and psychological pain. There was no medical help available to alleviate their situation, as a result of which Mary died on November 8th and Emily on November 21st.

The whole affair was kept in obscurity for around seventy years. There was only a small death notice in the local Monaghan Northern Standard’s November 25th1871 edition:

Died at Drumaconnor, on 8th inst. Mary Wilde

Died at Drumaconnor, on 21st inst. Emma Wilde

Such a tiny notice was so discreet that it succeeded in not drawing attention to the actual event and the fact that Emily’s name was changed to ‘Emma’ added to the confusion. The coroner’s report on both deaths had their surnames changed to Wylie. They are simply called Miss M. Wylie and Miss L. Wylie.

All of the above was the result of Sir William Wilde’s efforts to keep what had happened private. There was a stern request to the county coroner that no inquest was to be held. Instead there were two inquiries, which stated that everything possible had been done to preserve the lives of the deceased.

As a prominent physician, Sir William did not wish to have the news of his illegitimate children and their horrible deaths to be widely known. He did, however, attend both their funerals. A veiled woman in black made regular train journeys to Monaghan to visit the graves. Whether she was the girls’ mother is not known, but a similar woman dressed in black arrived at William Wilde’s bedside five years later when he was dying.

Buried at St. Molua’s Church of Ireland graveyard, Drumsnatt, years later a tombstone was erected in the girls’ memory using their real names. The epitaph reads:

In memory of

Two loving and beloved sisters Emily Wilde aged 24

Mary Wilde aged 22 who lost their lives by accident in this parish in November 1871. ‘ They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death they were not divided.’ ÷