William Wilde

For other uses, seeWilliam Wilde (disambiguation).

Sir William Wilde FRCSI
Born	William Robert Wills Wilde March 1815 Castlerea,County Roscommon,Ireland
Died	19 April 1876(1876-04-19)(aged 61) Dublin,Ireland
Occupation(s)	Surgeon,otolaryngologist,ophthalmologist
Spouse	Jane Elgee ​ (m.1851)​
Children	6, includingWillieandOscar

Sir William Robert Wills WildeFRCSI(March 1815 – 19 April 1876) was an Anglo-Irishoto-ophthalmologicsurgeon and the author of significant works on medicine,archaeologyandfolklore,particularly concerning his native Ireland. He was the father ofOscar Wilde.

Early life and career

Sketch of William Wilde by J.H. Maguire, 1847

William Wilde was born at Kilkeevin, nearCastlerea,inCounty Roscommon,the youngest of the three sons and two daughters of a prominent local medical practitioner, Thomas Wills Wilde, and his wife, Amelia Flynne (d. c.1844).His family were members of theChurch of Ireland,and he was descended from a Dutchman, Colonel de Wilde, who went to Ireland withKing William of Orange's invasion army in 1690, and numerousAnglo-Irishancestors. He received his initial education at the Elphin Diocesan School inElphin, County Roscommon.In 1832, Wilde was bound as an apprentice toAbraham Colles,the pre-eminent Irish surgeon of the day, at Dr Steevens' Hospital inDublin.He was also taught by the surgeons James Cusack andSir Philip Cramptonand the physician Sir Henry Marsh. Wilde also studied at the private and highly respected school of anatomy, medicine, and surgery in Park Street (later Lincoln Place), Dublin.In 1837, he earned his medical degree from theRoyal College of Surgeons in Ireland.In the same year, Wilde embarked on an eight-month cruise to theHoly Landwith a recovering patient, visiting various cities and islands throughout theMediterranean.Porpoiseswere flung on board the ship,Crusader,and Wilde dissected them. Taking notes, he eventually composed a two-volume book on the nursing habits of the creatures.Among the places he visited on this tour wasEgypt.In a tomb, he found the mummified remains of a dwarf and salvaged the torso to bring back to Ireland. He also collected embalmed ibises.

Once back in Ireland, Wilde published an article in theDublin University Magazinesuggesting that one of the "Cleopatra's Needles"be transported to England (eventually in 1878 one of the Needles was transported to London, and in 1880the other onewas brought to New York's Central Park).In 1873 he was awarded the Cunningham Gold Medal by theRoyal Irish Academy.

Recognition

He ran his own hospital, St Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital for Diseases of the Eye and Ear, inDublinand was appointed to serve as Oculist-in-ordinary toQueen Victoria.At one point, Wilde performed surgery on the father of another famous Irish dramatist,George Bernard Shaw.

Wilde had a very successful medical practice and was assisted in it by his natural son, Henry Wilson, who had been trained in Dublin,Vienna,Heidelberg,Berlin, and Paris. Wilson's presence enabled Wilde to travel and he visitedScandinavia,where he received an honorary degree fromUppsala,and was welcomed inStockholmbyAnders Retzius,among others.King Karl XV of Swedenconferred on him the Nordstjärneorden (Order of the North Star). In 1853, he was appointed Surgeon Occulist in Ordinary to the Queen in Ireland, the first position of its kind, probably created for him.

He was awarded aknighthoodin a ceremony at Dublin Castle on 28 January 1864more for his involvement with the Irish census than for his medical contributions, although he had been appointed medical commissioner to the Irish census in 1841. In 1845, he became editor of theDublin Journal of Medical Science,to which he contributed many articles.

A marble bust of William Wilde on the main staircase of theRoyal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital,Dublin, Ireland

There is a plaque at 2 Merrion Square, Dublin dedicated to Wilde.

Marriage and children

On 12 November 1851, Wilde married the poetJane Francesca Agnes Elgee,who wrote and published under the name of Speranza. The couple had two sons: William (Willie) andOscar,and a daughter, Isola Francesca, who died in childhood.

In addition to his children with his wife, Sir William Wilde was the father of three children born out of wedlock before his marriage: Henry Wilson, born in 1838, and Emily and Mary Wilde, born in 1847 and 1849, respectively, of different parentage to Henry. Sir William acknowledged paternity of his illegitimate children and provided for their education, but they were reared by his relatives rather than with his wife and legitimate children.Emily and Mary both died in 1871 following a Halloween party at which their dresses accidentally caught fire.

From 1855 to his death in 1876, William Wilde lived at No. 1 Merrion Square, now the headquarters ofAmerican College Dublin.The building is named Oscar Wilde House after William Wilde's son, who also lived at the address from 1855 until 1878.

Sir William Wilde

Later life

Memorial to Sir William Wilde and his wife located inMount Jerome Cemetery,Dublin

Wilde's reputation suffered when Mary Travers, a long-term patient of his and the daughter of a colleague, claimed that he had raped her two years earlier.She wrote a pamphlet crudely parodying Wilde and Lady Wilde as Dr and Mrs Quilp, and portraying Dr Quilp as the rapist of a female patient anaesthetised under chloroform. She distributed the pamphlets outside the building where Wilde was about to give a public lecture. Lady Wilde complained to Mary's father, Robert Travers, which resulted in Mary bringing alibelcase against her. Mary Travers won her case but was awarded a merefarthingin damages by the jury. Legal costs of £2,000 were awarded against Lady Wilde. The case was the talk of all Dublin, and Wilde's refusal to enter the witness box during the trial was widely held against him as ungentlemanly behaviour.

From this time onwards, Wilde began to withdraw from Dublin to the west of Ireland, where he had started in 1864 to build what became Moytura, his house overlookingLough CorribinConnemara,County Galway.He died aged 61 in 1876,and is buried inMount Jerome Cemeteryin Dublin.

Publications

• Narrative of a Voyage to Madeira, Teneriffe, and Along the Shores of the Mediterranean,1840.
• The beauties of the Boyne and its tributary the Blackwater,1849.
• The closing years ofDean Swift's life,1849.
• The Epidemics of Ireland,1851.
• Practical observations on aural surgery and the nature and treatment of diseases of the ear,1853.
• Lough Corrib,its Shores and Islands,first published 1867, republished 2002.
• 'The Early Races of Mankind in Ireland',The Irish Builder,1874.
• Selected writings of Speranza and William Wilde,edited by Eibhear Walshe, 2020.

Books about

• Victorian Doctor: the Life of Sir William Wilde,T.G. Wilson(Methuen, London, 1942.)

External links

• Online text ofLough Corrib
• Wilde in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics
• Portrait of Sir William R. Wilde in the Dublin Magazine, Vol 85 (1875)