Cyril Holland
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Cyril Holland (Template:Ne; 5 June 1885 – 9 May 1915) was the elder of the two sons of Oscar Wilde and Constance Lloyd and brother to Vyvyan Holland.
Life
According to his brother Vyvyan Holland's accounts in his autobiography, Son of Oscar Wilde (1954), Oscar was a devoted and loving father to his two sons. Their childhood was a relatively happy one.<ref name=time>Template:Cite news</ref> However, after Wilde's well-publicized trials in Britain, conviction in 1895, and imprisonment for gross indecency, their mother Constance took their children to Europe.
She began using the surname Holland for both the boys and herself in order to protect them from public scrutiny. She relocated with the boys to Switzerland and enrolled them at Neuenheim College, an English-speaking boarding school in Heidelberg, Germany.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Oscar Wilde died in 1900; neither of his sons saw him again after he went to prison. When he was released, he went to France and never lived in the UK again.
From 1899 to 1903 Cyril attended Radley College, a private school then in Berkshire.<ref>Radley Register, 1847-1933</ref> After ending school, he became a gentleman cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.
Holland 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 for nearly three years. 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.<ref>List of Officers of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, 1862-1914</ref>
Death
When the First World War began, Captain Holland was posted to British forces on the Continent. He participated in the battle for Neuve-Chapelle, where he was killed in France by a German sniper on 9 May 1915, during the Battle of Festubert.<ref>TomFolio.com: Introduction, Wilde, Oscar. An Ideal Husband, H.A.S. Beane Books</ref><ref name="cwgc">CWGC :: Casualty Details, Commonwealth War Graves Commission</ref> His grave is maintained by the War Graves Commission in St Vaast Post Military Cemetery, Richebourg-l'Avoué, France.<ref name="cwgc"/>
References
External links
- 1885 births
- 1915 deaths
- British Army personnel of World War I
- British military personnel killed in World War I
- English people of Irish descent
- Oscar Wilde
- Place of birth missing
- People educated at Radley College
- Royal Field Artillery officers
- Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich
- Deaths by firearm in France
- Wilde family