Christopher Sclater Millard
Christopher Sclater Millard | |
|---|---|
| Born | Error: Invalid birth date for calculating age Basingstoke, Hampshire, England |
| Died | 21 November 1927 (aged 55) London, England |
| Occupation(s) | Bibliographer, scholar, bookseller |
| Known for | Bibliography of Oscar Wilde's writings; defender of Wilde's legacy |
Christopher Sclater Millard (7 November 1872 – 21 November 1927) compiled the inaugural bibliography of Oscar Wilde's writings and authored several related publications. His bibliographic work played a crucial role in aiding Wilde's literary executor, Robert Baldwin Ross, to obtain copyright protection for Wilde's estate.
Early years and initial incarceration
Millard was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, as the second son of James Elwin Millard, an Anglican priest and Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford, and Dora Frances Sclater.
His education included time at Bradfield College, St Mary's Basingstoke, and Keble College, Oxford, where he pursued theology in accordance with his father's wishes. During his university years, he adopted strong Jacobite beliefs. After completing studies at Salisbury Theological College, he converted to Roman Catholicism.
Millard worked as an instructor at Ladycross Preparatory School in Bournemouth before managing a Catholic school in Woodford Wells, Essex, until 1904. Subsequently, he provided private tutoring in Sussex and near Oxford while writing on Jacobitism and engaging with socialist ideas and the Labour Party. He became a member of the Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland, a prominent organization within the Neo-Jacobite Revival movement.
In April 1906, Millard was apprehended at Iffley under the 1885 Labouchere Amendment on charges of gross indecency. To avoid facing a more severe sodomy accusation, he pleaded guilty and received a sentence of three months' imprisonment with hard labor.
Following his release, Millard resided with his brother at St Edmund's vicarage in East London. With support from Robert Ross, he secured employment at The Burlington Magazine, which was edited by More Adey and Roger Fry. During this period, he formed a friendship with Charles Scott Moncrieff, who would later gain recognition as a translator of Proust. Dissatisfied with life in England, Millard spent several months in France in 1907 before returning to London, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Oscar Wilde scholarship
Beginning around 1900, Millard embarked on assembling Wildeana, collaborating closely with Robert Ross and scholar Walter Edwin Ledger to gather materials throughout his lifetime. In 1904, he journeyed to Bagneux near Paris alongside Wilde's biographer Robert Sherard to visit Wilde’s gravesite—a visit he described as a "pilgrimage of love." (Wilde’s remains were subsequently relocated to Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.)
In 1905, under the pseudonym Stuart Mason, Millard published his initial book: a translation of Prétextes, André Gide’s analysis of Wilde. By November 1907, he released the first volume of his bibliography—a detailed catalogue focusing on Wilde’s poetic works—dedicated to Charles Scott Moncrieff.
The year 1908 saw Millard publish Oscar Wilde: Art and Morality, which offered a defense of The Picture of Dorian Gray. That same year also featured a privately printed bibliography of Wilde’s works. In 1910, he produced The Oscar Wilde Calendar, containing daily quotations and previously unrecorded sayings selected by Stuart Mason. Early in 1912, Millard published Oscar Wilde: Three Times Tried, the first comprehensive narrative of Wilde’s trials; this work later inspired the 1960 film The Trials of Oscar Wilde starring Peter Finch.
Millard’s July 1914 Bibliography of Oscar Wilde received widespread praise. He regarded it as "my life's work," while Ross lauded it as "an astonishing and ingenious compilation," asserting that it uncovered more about Wilde’s writings than even Wilde himself had known.
In 1920, Millard completed his final study on Wilde titled Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetic Movement, which analyzed caricatures portraying Wilde during the 1880s music scene.
Throughout his career, Millard remained a staunch defender of Wilde’s legacy and actively identified misattributed or counterfeit works. In 1926, he faced a libel lawsuit brought by Hutchinson and Methuen publishers after accusing Methuen of knowingly releasing the forged play For Love of the King, falsely attributed to Wilde but actually written by Mrs. Wodehouse Pearse, also known as Princess Chantoon. Although the play was acknowledged as fraudulent, the jury ultimately sided with Methuen.
Private secretary to Robert Ross
Millard assumed the role of private secretary to Robert Ross in 1911. Three years later, in 1914, he provided testimony supporting Ross in a libel case involving Lord Alfred Douglas and Thomas William Hodgson Crosland, who faced accusations of plotting to wrongly charge Ross with gross indecency relating to Charles Garratt.
In 1913, Millard formed a relationship with Garratt. When Garratt was taken into custody, Millard defended him during court proceedings. A trial report that connected their names caught the attention of Douglas. Subsequently, Garratt was coerced by solicitors representing Douglas and Crosland to acknowledge a relationship with Ross; although he initially resisted, he eventually signed a statement under pressure admitting to it.
Ross terminated Millard’s secretarial position upon discovering his involvement with Garratt. Despite losing the libel suit, Ross later reinstated Millard, recognizing his steadfastness in giving evidence even at personal cost.
Second imprisonment
To avoid facing a second charge of gross indecency in 1916, Millard left London and spent several months residing on a farm in Northumberland before enlisting as a private soldier with the Royal Fusiliers. After deployment to France, he was medically discharged in July 1917 and subsequently employed at the War Office as a telegram decoder.
In January 1918, Millard was arrested once more on charges of gross indecency. He was convicted and sentenced to twelve months in Wormwood Scrubs, though his poor health exempted him from hard labour. This conviction enabled Douglas to publicly criticize Ross during Maud Allan’s libel trial against conspiracy theorist Noel Pemberton Billing. Ross passed away that October while Millard remained incarcerated.
Later life
Following his release, Millard established himself as a dealer specializing in antiquarian books and rare manuscripts from his bungalow at 8 Abercorn Place, St John's Wood. There, he introduced Hadrian the Seventh to A. J. A. Symons, an encounter that inspired Symons’ celebrated biography The Quest for Corvo, centered on Frederick Rolfe.
In 1922, through his association with collector Anthony Powell, Millard gathered materials for a bibliography dedicated to artist and publisher Claud Lovat Fraser, which was published the subsequent year.
Millard died from an aneurysm at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, London, on 21 November 1927, and was interred at St Mary's Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green.