Oscar Wilde’s Friend and Benefactor, Helen Carew (c. 1856 – 1928) By James Robinson, M. Phil. The year 2004 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). It is fitting then, to recall a woman who is barely referenced, if at all, in published biographies of Oscar Wilde. Helen Carew was a stalwart friend to Oscar and his writings. She educated his sons to their father’s literary works, from which they had been kept apart, after Oscar’s imprisonment. Chiefly, she provided the funds for the magnificent monument that adorns Wilde’s grave in Père Lachaise cemetery, Paris. This paper also makes reference to Helen’s family, and in particular, to her son Coleridge, who was a friend of Vyvyan and Cyril Holland – Oscar’s sons. Much of what follows is quite simply stranger than fiction. Helen was born (circa 1856) and became the heiress to her parents James Wyllie and his wife (whose name is not known) who lived at Eilen Roc at Cap D’Antibes, France. The main street of Antibes, ‘Avenue James Wyllie’, is named after her father. Helen’s first husband was Hugh Downing Kennard, born (May 15 1859), a subaltern in the Coldstream Guards. They were married on September 7, 1883. Hugh’s father was Coleridge Kennard (1828-1890) who was conservative M.P. for Salisbury and owner of the Evening News. He married Ellen, only child of Captain John Wilkinson, and niece of Sir Joshua Rowe C.B., late Chief Justice of Jamaica. This line descends from John Kennard, born January 20 1775, of Clapham, Surrey – banker in the city of London. He married Harriet Elizabeth Pierse of Windsor on June 3 1797 and was the son of John Kennard (1732 – 1791) and Mary Hewitt, his wife.i Evidence of the circumstances in which both families lived is seen from a letter dated March 30 1883. In it, James Wyllie, Helen’s father, wrote to his prospective son-in- law’s father outlining his proposed marriage settlement on his daughter. He indicated his willingness to make an annual allowance to Helen of not less than £3,000 per year - a sum similar to that proposed to Hugh Kennard’s father on his son’s marriage. Wyllie also proposed to pay £50,000 plus securities over to his daughter, providing that Kennard senior did the same. Subject to these proposals being accepted, James Wyllie was quite willing that the young couple should consider themselves engaged. Coleridge Kennard did so approve and in a letter dated April 7 1883, Helen wrote to her prospective father-in-law a most heartfelt reply. It read: My dear Mr. Kennard, I do not know how to find words to thank you for the letter I received this morning, but I very deeply feel and appreciate the great kindness with which you tell me that you will accept me as a daughter and can only say how much I hope, in the days to come, to try and repay it by doing everything in my power to be a good and loving one to you. The future seems too bright, almost too good to be true! For I love Hughie with all my heart and long for the time when I can devote my life to make his a happy one and pray and trust that I may succeed. Believe me, every yours very affectionately, Helen Wyllie 1 However, Helen’s aspirations were not to be realised. After marriage and the birth of their son Coleridge Arthur Fitzroy Kennard in 1885, the couple quarrelled incessantly over trivialities. Hugh went on a long voyage to get away from it all and was drowned, aged 23, on April 9 1886. The young widow Helen Kennard, with her infant son, returned to live in Antibes, France. The death of their son Hugh was a dreadful loss to the Kennards. Ellen, his mother, Victorian and virtuous, went into wearing heavy black. She only emerged from this when she heard that her husband was to be honoured with a baronetcy. His chief parliamentary claim to fame was that he proposed a bill giving policemen the vote. He probably obtained the title because of his newspaper ownership while supporting Lord Salisbury. According to Frank Harris, editor of the Evening News, Coleridge Kennard told him that ‘he only wanted the baronetcy for his wife’s sake and that he had spent £70,000 to get it, though he was told £40,000 would suffice’. Harris was considered a hypocrite by Helen’s grandson, Sir George Kennard, who quoted a self- damning couplet. Now, as of old, men themselves are priced For silver Judas sold himself, not Christ Harris was one of a number of Wilde’s biographers who was considered to have betrayed Oscar with vivid sensualisation and questionable accuracy. Shortly after hearing of his baronetcy, Coleridge Kennard died. Again garbed in black, his widow Ellen fought long and hard until Queen Victoria capitulated to permit ‘the style, place and procedure of a baronet’s widow’ to be bestowed upon her and on her death, the title to be passed to her grandson, Coleridge Kennard. The motto with the title read, ‘At Spes Non Fracta’, which translates as ‘Hope Remains’.ii Thus Helen Kennard’s son was titled Sir Coleridge Arthur Fitzroy Kennard at the age of six. Most of his boyhood years were spent at Eilen Roc, France, where he was to inherit many miles of seafront from Juin-les-Pins to Antibes. In these opulent surroundings many distinguished visitors passed, including royalty and the leading political figures of the day, such as Salisbury and Gladstone. Educated at Eton and taking up service in the British Foreign Office, Sir Coleridge Kennard made his friends in England. These included; Duff Cooper, Beardsley, Lord Alfred Douglas, Ronald Firbank and Harold Nicholson. Kennard became a great dandy. His son George considered that his father’s title, money and brilliant friends could not disguise the fact that beneath his grand exterior, an uncertain artistic temperament struggled. Sir Coleridge was a member of the Bloomsbury Set, a group of self- appointed artists and intellectuals who were renowned for their bohemian attitudes to food, sexuality and art. Another famous member of this group was Virginia Woolf, who committed suicide in 1941.iii Few of Kennard’s beautifully written elegant volumes were commercially successful and he considered that authors who sold books for money were to be frowned upon. Somerset Maughan, who later lived nearby in France, was described as ‘that hack who wrote for money’. Coleridge Kennard, along with Ronald Ross, Oscar’s literary executor, and Oscar’s son Vyvyan Holland, attended the re-interment of Wilde’s remains from Bagneux to Père Lachaise in 1909. The French authorities insisted that the remains be moved in a 2 cemetery workshop coffin. The silver plate inscription on the plain oak coffin read: ‘Oscard Wilde, 1854 – 1900’. ‘Oscard’ rhymed with discard, as described by Vyvyan Wilde and when noticed, the letter ‘d’ was scratched out.iv Early in his diplomatic career, Sir Coleridge Kennard was posted to Bucharest where Sir George Barclay was British Ambassador. The latter’s daughter Dorothy captivated the young diplomat whose approaches were disapproved of by the ambassador. Elopement was followed by marriage to the same Dorothy Barclay. They had two sons, Laurence (born 1912) and George (born April 27 1915). However, Sir Coleridge and Lady Dorothy quarrelled frequently and he took up residence in Persia. He wrote Persian poetry and consumed hashish and opium while losing heavily at casino gambling. Their residence at Eilen Roc was gambled away in one night. Then, Sir Coleridge Kennard fell in love with Mary Graham Orr Lewis, for whom he built a house. It was named ‘The Villa Mary Graham’ and built on the remaining piece of coast that he had retained. Mary succeeded in weaning Sir Coleridge off both drugs and gambling. Tragically, while bathing in the nearby sea, she scratched herself on a jagged rock, developed lockjaw and died. Five months later, in November 1931, Sir Coleridge Kennard wrote her a broken-hearted letter, which included the following: Darling, I write these notes to try and ease the heartache, but all I really want to write, all I want to say, is just this and this alone:- I loved you more than I ever knew I could love anyone: from 7pm on July 6th 1931, everything for me ended; there can never be anything for me in this life again. Sir Coleridge again succumbed to drugs and gambling and he was minded by a dope nurse. When the Germans overran France, the British Government sent a vote to evacuate the residence. Sir Coleridge refused to leave and was subsequently arrested and interned in a concentration camp in Compiègne. His German captors considered his Persian transcripts were coded reports! Kennard’s request to have his nurse accompany him was refused and so he promptly married her, circa 1940, thereby allowing her to travel with him. Unlikely as it may seem, he survived the transition from ‘caviar to potato peelings’, as his son George put it, and was respected by the inmates. He latterly returned to his estates in Antibes and died in 1947, without making a will. Under French law, his estates passed to his second wife, who intended to leave his estates to his two sons Laurence and George. Incredibly, she too died within a few weeks and Sir Coleridge’s property, diminished by his drugs and gambling, passed to her sister. His first wife Dorothy, from whom he had separated, was too proud to ask for alimony and found it a struggle to rear her two sons.