Full Name Cyril Wilde Nationality British | Citizenship British Cousins Dorothy Wilde Name Cyril Holland | |
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Born 5 June 1885 ( 1885-06-05 ) Grandparents Jane Wilde, William Wilde, Horace Lloyd, Adelaide Atkinson Lloyd Similar People Oscar Wilde, Vyvyan Holland, Constance Lloyd, Merlin Holland, Jane Wilde | ||
Cyril Holland (born Cyril Wilde, 5 June 1885 – 9 May 1915) was the older of the two sons of Oscar Wilde and Constance Lloyd and brother to Vyvyan Holland.
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Life
According to Vyvyan Holland’s accounts in his autobiography, Son of Oscar Wilde, Oscar was a devoted and loving father to his two sons and their childhood was a relatively happy one. However, after Wilde's imprisonment for gross indecency in 1895, Constance chose to take on the surname Holland for both the boys and herself. She took the boys to Switzerland and then enrolled them in an English-speaking school in Germany. Oscar Wilde never saw either of his sons again.
From 1899 to 1903 Cyril attended Radley College. After leaving school he became a Gentleman Cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant, Royal Field Artillery, on 20 December 1905. He was promoted to lieutenant on 20 December 1908 and served in the United Kingdom until he was posted to India, where he served from September 1911 until 1914 with No. 9 Ammunition Column, RFA at Secunderabad. He was promoted to Captain on 30 October 1914.
Death
When the First World War broke out, Captain Holland was posted back to Europe and took part in the battle for Neuve-Chapelle, where he was killed by a German sniper on 9 May 1915, during the Battle of Festubert. He is buried at St Vaast Post Military Cemetery, Richebourg-l'Avoué.