ROBERT (“ROBBIE”) BALDWIN ROSS, born on this date (d: 1918) was a British journalist, art critic and art dealer, best known for his relationship with Oscar Wilde, to whom he was a devoted friend, lover, and literary executor. A grandson of the Canadian reform leader Robert Baldwin, and son of John Ross and Augusta Elizabeth Baldwin, Ross was a pivotal figure on the London literary and artistic scene from the mid-1890s to his early death, and mentored several literary figures, including Siegfried Sassoon. His open homosexuality, in a period when male homosexual acts were illegal, brought him many hardships.
In 1888, Ross was accepted at King’s College, Cambridge, where he became a victim of bullying, probably because of his sexuality, of which he made no secret, and perhaps also his outspoken journalism in the university paper. Ross caught pneumonia after being dunked in a fountain by other students who had, according to Ross, the full support of Arthur Augustus Tilley, the Junior Tutor of King’s. After recovering, he fought for an apology from his fellow students, which he received, but he also sought the dismissal of Tilley. The college refused to punish Tilley (though he resigned as Junior Tutor) and Ross dropped out. Soon after that, he chose to “reveal his sexuality” to his parents.
Ross found work as a journalist and critic but he did not escape scandal. He is believed to have become Oscar Wilde’s first male lover in 1886, even before he went to Cambridge. In 1893, a few years before Wilde’s imprisonment, Ross had a sexual relationship with a boy of sixteen, the son of friends. The boy confessed to his parents that he had engaged in sexual activity with Ross and also admitted to a sexual encounter with Lord Alfred Douglas while he was a guest at Ross’s house. After a good deal of panic and frantic meetings with solicitors, the parents were persuaded not to go to the police, since at that time their son might be seen as equally guilty and face the possibility of going to prison.
In March 1895, Wilde, Douglas, and Ross approached a solicitor, Charles Octavius Humphreys, with the intention of suing the Marquess of Queensberry, Douglas’s father, for criminal libel. Humphreys asked Wilde directly whether there was any truth to Queensberry’s allegations of homosexual activity between Wilde and Douglas, to which Wilde replied “No.” Humphreys applied for a warrant for Queensberry’s arrest, and approached Sir Edward Clarke and Charles Willie Mathews to represent Wilde. His son, Travers Humphreys, appeared as junior counsel for the prosecution in the subsequent case of Wilde v Queensberry.
Finding Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel, in Knightsbridge, with Reginald Turner, both men advised Wilde to get a boat-train to France, but he refused. His mother had advised him to stay and fight, and Wilde reportedly said: “The train has gone. It’s too late.” Following Wilde’s imprisonment in 1895, Ross went abroad but he returned to offer both financial and emotional support to Wilde during his last years. Ross remained loyal to Wilde and was with him when he died in Paris on November 30, 1900.
Ross became Wilde’s literary executor, which meant that he had to track down and purchase the rights to all of Wilde’s texts, which had been sold off along with Wilde’s possessions when Wilde was declared bankrupt. It also meant fighting the rampant trade in black market copies of his books and, in particular, books, usually erotic, that Wilde did not write, but which were published illegally under his name.
Ross was assisted in this task by Christopher Sclater Millard, who compiled a definitive bibliography of Wilde’s writings. Ross gave Wilde’s sons the rights to all their father’s works along with the money earned from their publication or performance while he was executor. In 1905, he attended the first performances in England of Wilde’s Salome at the Bijou Theatre. One of the actors was Frederick Stanley Smith (1885–1953) with whom Ross had a relationship.
About 1902, he arranged for the transfer of Wilde’s remains “from the obscure Bagneux cemetery to Père Lachaise, the most celebrated cemetery in France” and later instructed his heirs to have his own ashes buried in Wilde’s tomb.
During the First World War, Ross mentored a group of young, mostly homosexual, poets and artists including Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. He was also a close friend of Wilde’s sons Vyvyan Holland and Cyril Holland.
In early 1918, during the German spring offensive, Noel Pemberton Billing, a right-wing member of Parliament, published an article entitled “The Cult of the Clitoris” in which he accused members of Ross’s circle of being among 47,000 homosexuals who were betraying the nation to the Germans. Maud Allan, an actress who had played Wilde’s Salome in a performance authorised by Ross, was identified as a member of the “cult”. She unsuccessfully sued Billing for libel, causing a national sensation in Britain. The incident brought embarrassing attention to Ross and his associates.
Later, in 1918, Ross was preparing to travel to Melbourne, to open an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, when he died suddenly in London on October 5, 1918.
In 1950, on the 50th anniversary of Wilde’s death, an urn containing Ross’s ashes was placed into Wilde’s tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.