by Franny Moyle
In some ways, her appearance on political platforms had become Constance’s response to her early desire to go on the stage. Serious and studious by nature, she must have worked hard to improve her stage presence and public speaking, efforts that some critics made note of. ‘I was astonished and delighted to notice yesterday … how very much Mrs Oscar Wilde has improved in public speaking,’ one critic noted after a WLF event. ‘She was always graceful and always charming, but now there is an earnestness and an ease about her which is the result of practice in platform speaking, and I shall not be surprised if in a few years Mrs Wilde has become one of the most popular among “platform ladies”.’12
But Constance the public speaker, whose activities were often reported nationwide, did not attract unanimous praise. One correspondent for the Birmingham Daily Post found himself horrified by Constance and her WLF associates, who took ‘subjects most vital to the existence of the Government’ and ‘discussed and dismissed them’ in what the ladies’ maids denominate ‘the twinkling of a stay-lace’. Mrs Wilde was accused of ‘solemn trilling’ upon subjects with which she had ‘no concern’.13
The writer Marie Corelli first encountered Constance at around this time, and she too found the combination of high fashionable society and radical politics somewhat hard to reconcile. But Corelli, who met Constance at a lunch party held by the socialite Mrs Skirrow, could not deny, in spite of her scepticism about Constance’s political efficacy, that Constance was strangely compelling. Just like Henry Fedden, Douglas Ainslie and many other admirers before her, Corelli, a lesbian, found herself falling under the spell of Oscar’s ‘pretty wife’.
On one occasion Constance and Marie found themselves at a ‘grand crush at Upper Phillimore Place’, and afterwards Corelli recorded Constance’s extraordinary outfit in her diary. Interestingly, Constance was using a stick at the time, which suggests that she was already being troubled with her back and legs.
Oscar Wilde was present and kept me no end of time talking on the stairs. Lady Wilde, his mother, was there in a train-dress of silver grey satin, with a hat as large as a small parasol and long streamers of silver grey tulle all floating about her! She did look eccentric. Mrs Oscar Wilde, a very pretty woman, interested me, in a Directoire costume with tall cavalier hat and plume, and a great crutch stick.14
In the course of the late 1880s the two women were seeing quite a lot of one another, not least because they shared a passion for the popular Spanish virtuoso violinist Pablo de Sarasate.15 Both made a point of attending soirées and parties where he was likely to be playing, and Constance certainly went to Corelli’s home to meet him in person.16
Corelli’s fascination with Constance comes across in one of her literary ventures. In 1892 she published The Silver Domino, or Side Whispers, Social and Literary, a series of satirical portraits of her famous contemporaries. Chapter 10, entitled ‘The Social Elephant’, presents a caricature of Oscar as a huge elephant and Constance as his dainty foil. Her account of Constance, portrayed as a fairy who sits on the elephant’s back and is responsible for managing this cumbersome responsibility, not only restores a sense of the public profile that Mrs Oscar held before her husband’s downfall but also gives an indication of the relationship that contemporaries observed between Oscar and his wife. Despite the condescending satire, it remains a vivid portrayal of a woman who was clearly captivating, not least to the author of the piece.
‘As for the Fairy, it is not too much to say that she is one of the prettiest things alive,’ Corelli notes.
She does not seem to stand at all in awe of her Elephant lord. She has her own little webs to weave – silvery webs of gossamer-discussion on politics, in which, bless her heart for a charming little Radical, she works neither good nor harm. Her eyes would burn a hole through many a stern old Tory’s waistcoat and make him dizzily doubtful as to what party he really belonged to for the moment. She has the prettiest hair, all loosely curling about her face, and she has a low voice so modulated as to seem to some folks affected; it is a natural music … she dresses ‘aesthetically’ – in all sorts of strange tints, and rich stuffs, made in a fashion which the masculine mind must describe as ‘gathered up anyhow’ – with large and wondrous sleeves and queer medieval adornments – it pleases her whim so to do, and it also pleases the Elephant, who is apt to get excited on the subject of Colour … she does not talk much, this quaint Fairy, but she looks whole histories. Her gaze is softly wistful, and often abstracted; at certain moments her spirit seems to have gone out of her on invisible wings, miles away from the Elephant and literary Castle, and it is in such moments that she looks her very prettiest. To me she is infinitely more interesting than the Elephant himself … one never gets tired of looking at the lovely Fairy who guards and guides him. We could not spare either of the twain from our midst – they form a picture ‘full of Colour’.17
On 28 April 1888 the colourful duo Constance and Oscar found themselves at a ‘political conversazione’ at 125 Queen’s Gate, South Kensington, the home of Mr and Mrs Charles Hancock. This time it was Mrs Gladstone who had been invited to meet ‘enthusiastic workers and friends in the Liberal cause’, and the evening was under the auspices of the South Kensington Women’s Liberal Association. One such enthusiastic Liberal attending the event was Margaret, Dowager Lady Sandhurst, an active member of the Women’s Liberal Associations and subsequently the Women’s Liberal Federation, and head of the Marylebone branch of the WLA.
Constance was susceptible to the influence of older women. She was already playing the devoted daughter-in-law to Speranza, whose company she clearly enjoyed. Constance visited Oscar’s mother regularly. The two would go on drives together, and Constance would assist Speranza in domestic matters. Their shared interest in literature and liberal politics did nothing but make their friendship stronger.
Perhaps her disappointment in her own mother had encouraged her search for alternative maternal figures and role models. In addition to Speranza, Viscountess Harberton had also played her part. But around this time, and almost certainly thanks to the WLF, with which they were both involved, it was to Lady Sandhurst, thirty years her senior, that Constance now became particularly attached.
Margaret Sandhurst was an active philanthropist. She had her own home for sick children in the Marylebone Road, and under her influence Constance was quickly recruited to various fundraising activities to support this and other causes. But more than anything, her friendship with Margaret Sandhurst led to Constance’s involvement in a landmark moment in the history of British politics, when she became instrumental in getting the first woman elected to the London County Council.
Since 1870 women had been able to sit on the School Board for London,18 but without a vote the idea of women in Parliament was almost inconceivable. In 1888, however, a new Local Government Act offered the opportunity for female representation at local government level at least. With this Act, the electoral body was established as all occupiers and freeholders in the relevant borough on the parliamentary list, with the crucial addition of peers, women ‘and a few others who are occupiers and ratepayers but who are not entitled to vote for members of Parliament’. With certain women able to vote, the press quickly raised the point that this ‘seems likely to raise the question as to whether women are not qualified to become a candidate’.19 This, in addition to the fact that the Act nowhere expressly said a candidate needed to be a ‘man’ – merely a ‘fit person’ – was the call to arms for which feminists such as Constance had been waiting.
Countess Aberdeen established a Society for Promoting the Return of Women as County Councillors and began seeking potential candidates. London became the battlefield. Jane Cobden, the daughter of politician and businessman Richard Cobden, put herself forward, as did the proprietor of the Old Vic Theatre, Emma Cons. And Lady Sandhurst determined to stand in Brixton.
Constance threw herself into Lady Sandhurst’s campaign. Her network of political connections was quickly buzzing with exci
tement at the forthcoming challenge. Constance was confident that they were on the point of making political history: ‘Lady Sandhurst was told that if her nomination was accepted … she would be returned by a large majority,’ Constance informed her colleague Mrs Stopes.20 Charlotte Stopes, a writer much interested in the issue of female suffrage and the mother of the birth control pioneer Marie Stopes, was a fellow member of the RDS and, like Constance, an active Liberal whose husband was standing for Norwood in the same election.
Oscar supported his wife’s political activities in his own way. The Woman’s World began to take on a more radical aspect in line with Constance’s political activities, and Oscar began commissioning articles from his wife’s political friends. Mrs Ormiston Chant – who shared the platform with Constance at WLF events – contributed an article on ‘The Gymnasium for Girls’, while Viscountess Harberton wrote an article on ‘Mourning Clothes and Customs’.
The influence Constance could apply to her husband had its limits, though. Mrs Stopes found her manuscript returned by The Woman’s World, forcing Constance to explain rather defensively, ‘I have nothing to do with the editing of the Woman’s World and did not know that my husband had returned mss of yours. I know however that he has enough for about 2 years hence, and his magazine, being an illustrated magazine he [sic] requires illustrated articles … I am sorry you should have been disappointed.’21
In the case of Lady Sandhurst, Constance was more efficacious. By far the most obvious concession to his wife’s agenda was Oscar’s inclusion of a speech delivered by Lady Sandhurst to a political society in Cambridge in the January 1889 issue of his magazine. With the council elections due in the middle of this month, Oscar’s decision to print Lady Sandhurst’s thoughts on ‘A Woman’s Work in Politics’ was little short of propaganda for this prospective candidate.
Sandhurst’s address encouraged women to become involved in politics. It encouraged them to read about politics, argue about politics and, when in the solitude of their own homes, at their needlework, to think about political issues. It suggested that, if they did not want to step into the front line of politics, women at least could make sure that they were guiding their husbands along the right political path.
Like Constance, Lady Sandhurst’s politics were inherently bound up with her own sense of Christian, moral duty. ‘Probably all will acknowledge that it is as much the duty of every woman as of every man to make the best use of every gift she may possess,’ she argued, adding that ‘the best use we can make of any gift is to devote it to the elevation of the human race … we must keep our minds fixed on the single object of good we can do, no matter the consequences to ourselves’.
Having urged women to engage in politics, having encouraged them to take ‘any topic of the day and show the righteous side of it’, Lady Sandhurst went on to practise what she preached, offering what she considered the right perspective on the Irish question. ‘For this kind of effort there can be no theme more valuable than the great question which hinders at the present moment all true progress – the Irish difficulty, how to give peace, prosperity, and happiness to Ireland, and true Unity to our Empire.’ Needless to say, the Sandhurst solution to this, much like Constance’s own, lay in Home Rule, a point of view shared by Constance. Margaret Sandhurst’s views in general, as they emerge in this speech, almost certainly offer arguments that Constance herself must have regularly presented.
To get a sense of some of the tactics Constance may well have employed when canvassing for her friend in the forthcoming election, the same issue of The Woman’s World conveniently provides a portrait of ‘Lady Canvassers at a Modern Election’. This article observed that ‘While men merely form small local committees and often flounder about in the utmost difficulty to find suitable helpers, the women are members of great national organizations, working upon almost Masonic lines, and ready to send down talented and efficient aid for reproof, for correction and for sound doctrine politically.’ The author recognized the value of organizations such as the WLF, far-reaching ‘political nerve systems that vitalise and direct feminine movements in the great active life of the state’. All this, the author conceded, ‘is rather humiliating to men’.
Certainly Constance’s letters to Mrs Stopes confirm this sense of network. Mrs Stopes proposed to Constance that members of her Chelsea branch of the WLA could be harnessed to campaign for her husband, a request that was denied because these women were already engaged in the support of their local Liberal candidate. Mrs Stopes then wondered if members of the New Somerville Club – exclusively for women – might serve a similar purpose on her husband’s behalf. Constance apologised that she was not a memeber of that club.
Despite his support for her work, the time Oscar could devote to his wife’s causes was limited. He was generally tired and over-committed, the pressures of editorship taking their toll. ‘Oscar is overworked and is very miserable at times,’ Constance confided to Otho. He needed ‘a change of air very badly. I wish I could get him away.’22
Editorial responsibilities and the usual round of theatre trips and social engagements aside, Oscar was also fighting his own personal campaign to do with the continuing demise of his mother’s finances. Income Speranza had realized in the past from her remaining property in Ireland had, according to Oscar, failed to be paid for some time, thanks to ‘the unhappy state of things’ in his homeland.23 Consequently he had begun a series of petitions in support of his mother. One was to secure a pension from the Civil List; another was for a one-off payment from the Royal Literary Fund. He wrote to Gladstone, appealing to his pro-Home-Rule sympathies, and asked for his support and signature. If Oscar had hoped that his recent meetings with the politician at Constance’s various WLF soirées might bear fruit, though, he was disappointed. Gladstone declined to play ball. Nevertheless, Oscar managed £100 from the RLF and eventually an annual pension of £70 from the Civil List.
Constance’s campaigning proved successful too. In January 1889 Lady Sandhurst was returned in Brixton with some 1,900 votes. The other female candidates also won their seats. The jubilation in Tite Street and other drawing rooms around town was considerable. This was a huge milestone in the women’s movement.
Their joy was, however, short-lived. One of the candidates who had stood unsuccessfully against Lady Sandhurst challenged her election. Mr Charles Beresford Hope, a Moderate candidate, took the case to the high court. By March 1889 there was a ruling that Lady Sandhurst’s election had been illegal. Extremely complex, the essence of the ruling was that, despite the ambiguous wording of the Local Government Act, if Parliament had intended that women could be elected, it would have made this intention clear. No such intention was clearly spelt out, and therefore no such right endowed. In June, after an unsuccessful appeal, Lady Sandhurst’s fate was sealed and her seat lost. Mr Beresford Hope took it over. To make matters worse, the Misses Cobden and Cons found themselves now caught in a political loophole. Technically also elected illegally, under the legislation of the time they faced a £50 fine each time they acted in their role as county councillor. They were therefore advised to attend meetings but refrain from voting. By the time the next county council elections came around in 1892, not a single woman bothered to stand. For the moment the cause was lost.
There were those who revelled in the failure of Constance and her associates. Punch, the magazine that had always been unkind to Oscar, offered his wife no sympathy whatsoever. In June, as soon as Lady Sandhurst’s appeal was lost, the magazine published a satirical poem at Constance’s and her fellow feminists’ expense:
The (County Council) Paradise and the (Liberal) Peri teased:
At three a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood disconsolate;
And as she listened to the Springs
Of talk within in torrents flowing,
And caught the light upon her wings
Through the half-opened portal glowing,
She sighed to think her subject race
> Should e’er have lost that glorious place.
‘How Happy’ exclaimed this outcast fair,
‘Are the many male members who wrangle there,
’Midst flowers (of speech) that freely fall;
Though I of the School Board now am free,
And parochial portals open for me,
The County Council were worth them all!
Though sweet an “At Home” graced by
Gladstone oration,
Of the Women’s Liberal Federation,
In the Grosvenor or the Memorial Hall;
Though dear are the platforms your sweet tones haunt,
Mrs Oscar Wilde, Mrs Ormiston Chant,
Let the Earl of Meath make it clear – I can’t –
How the County Council outshines them all!’
The Sandhurst affair proved a huge drain on Constance. The bouts of ill health and sleepless nights that had plagued her as a young woman had never properly left her. Now they were worse. There is also some suggestion that the mobility issues she suffered in the 1890s were already presenting. By March 1889, Constance found herself in the grips of an illness.24 Exhausted, she dispatched herself to Brighton for ten days’ rest, probably into the care of her mother, who lived there. But the poor relationship Constance had with Ada Swinburne-King could scarcely have been improved by the fact that Mr Swinburne-King had recently left his wife of ten years in favour of a solitary life in Hastings. Hardly surprising, then, that the sojourn did not provide the intended rest cure. Weeks later Constance was ill again.
