Trial Verdict

Today in 1886 was the final, 18th day of the divorce trial of Campbell vs Campbell, with the agonising wait until the verdict finally came at 10.15pm. Crowds had gathered outside to hear the verdict and cheered as word spread that both parties had been found innocent of all charges.

New Oscar Wilde letter mentioning Lady Colin

The July edition of The Wildean, a journal of the Oscar Wilde Society, has just published my article, providing context to a letter, dated May 1887, from Oscar Wilde to Alsager Vian, editor of The Court & Society Review.

The letter, one of five which came up for auction at Bamfords in September 2010, had not previously been published. It is mainly about Lady Colin Campbell and provides further evidence of the animosity between the two writers, who both contributed to The Court & Society Review.

Oscar Wilde and Lady Colin Campbell were not friends. She called him “the great white slug” or “the great white caterpillar.” He said she had “exhausted all her powers of imagination in the witness box” after reading her novel, published in 1889, three years after her notorious divorce trial.

The new letter indicates that Oscar did not know that Lady Colin was already writing for The Court & Society Review. Perhaps the editor, knowing the animosity between the pair, had not told Wilde they were fellow contributors.

Wilde also writes that Walter Herries Pollock, editor of The Saturday Review, was “outraged” at Lady Colin saying at her divorce trial that she wrote for the Saturday, as the title had a policy of anonymity, and said “he won't have any thing to do with her.” One can image Pollock was annoyed, but there is no evidence of a permanent rift, indeed in 1890 W.E. Henley wrote that Pollock had “a grand passion for Lady Colin!”  Perhaps Oscar was exaggerating Pollock’s annoyance, due to his dislike of Lady Colin.

The May 1887 letter from Wilde to Vian Alsager is an interesting addition to the evidence of the animosity between these two Irish writers, but unfortunately provides nothing new to help discover the root of their feelings.

For readers who want to find out more, The Wildean published an initial article about the five letters in its January 2011 edition and my article in July 2011. The journal is free to members of the Oscar Wilde Society (UK membership £25 per year).

Wedding day blues

Today in 1881 Gertrude Blood married Lord Colin Campbell, fifth son of the Duke of Argyll, and became Lady Colin Campbell. The night before, she was out at a dinner and sat next to the writer, poet and traveller Wilfrid Blunt who noted her subdued attitude. No wonder, after all the delays, the insults to her pride, and Colin's inexplicable health problems.

The pair lived together for two years before the marriage broke day. Looking at the marriage certificate, her signature can be seen on the bottom left, ominously smudged.

Chinese Whispers

A newly published book on the Churchills has once again repeated the unfounded gossip about a non-existent nude painting of Lady Colin Campbell in the Duke of Marlborough’s dressing room.

It is widely documented that Lady Colin Campbell and the Duke of Marlborough were lovers, but it is less well known that they had a long and enduring relationship that went beyond the physical. However, he was the brother of Lord Randolph Churchill, uncle of Winston Churchill, and head of the huge Blenheim estate; she was married to a husband she no longer loved.

It is not known when Lady Colin and the Duke became lovers – before or after her judicial separation and divorce petition. They both denied any involvement in court, but there is plenty of evidence of the affair later on.

When the Duke died suddenly and unexpectedly in November 1892, a friend of Lady Colin’s wrote that it was “the greatest blow” in her life and that “he was more devoted to her than any man that ever came into her life.”

The Duke’s affair with Lady Colin had continued after he had married an American heiress – according to some, to finance a new roof at Blenheim – and they had not hidden their relationship. Understandably, this had upset Duchess Lily. When the Duke died, some sources state that Lily tore up photographs she found of Lady Colin. However, later sources change this to nude photographs and then it becomes a life-sized portrait and finally a nude portrait by Whistler! I have seen no original source nor any evidence to back up any of these claims or lend any truth to them. Whistler had famously painted Lady Colin in 1886 – but in a white evening dress. It is as unlikely that Gertrude would have consented to be painted naked, as it is that Whistler would have undertaken such a work.

The constant repetition of the gossip by respected authors is annoying from a research point-of-view. (The last time it happened I got no answer to my request to the author for his source – not surprisingly!) But what is more galling, is that something that Lady Colin held so dear is cheapened.

This photo of Lady Colin was taken within a year of his death and although she is attempting a smile for the camera, you can still see the sadness in her eyes.

Lord Colin's grave in Mumbai

Today in 1895 Lord Colin Campbell (aged 42) died in India after a brief illness. His death finally freed Lady Colin Campbell from her fateful marriage, almost 10 years after the divorce trial had left them separated, but still married. She had described that tie as her “clanking chains.”

The cause of Lord Colin’s early death was registered as pneumonia following influenza, but may well have been indirectly a result of a venereal disease, generally presumed to be syphilis.

I tracked down the grave at Sewri Cemetery in Mumbai.