John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry
The Marquess of Queensberry | |
|---|---|
 Lord Queensberry in 1896 | |
| Tenure | 6 August 1858 – 31 January 1900 |
| Born | 20 July 1844 Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Italy |
| Died | 31 January 1900 (aged 55) London, England |
| Spouse(s) | Sibyl Montgomery
(m. 1866; div. 1887)Ethel Weeden
(m. 1893; ann. 1894) |
| Issue | Hereditary Peerage |
| Preceded by | Archibald Douglas, 8th Marquess of Queensberry |
| Succeeded by | Percy Douglas, 10th Marquess of Queensberry |
John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (20 July 1844 – 31 January 1900), was a
Biography
John Douglas was born in
In 1864, Lord Queensberry entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, which he left two years later without taking a degree.[3] He was more distinguished in sport, playing college cricket as well as running, hunting, and steeplechasing.[4] He married Sibyl Montgomery in 1866. They had four sons and a daughter; his wife successfully sued for divorce in 1887 on the grounds of his adultery.[5] She survived him to the age of 90, dying in 1935.[1] Queensberry married Ethel Weeden in 1893, but this marriage was annulled the following year.[6]
Queensberry sold the family seat of Kinmount in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, an action which further alienated him from his family.
He died, two months after a stroke, and after a period of mental decline believed to be caused by syphilis, in his club room in Welbeck Street, west London,[4] aged 55, nearly a year before Oscar Wilde's death. He wrote a poem starting with the words "When I am dead cremate me." After cremation at Woking Crematorium, his ashes were buried at Kinmount[1][4] in the Douglas Mausoleum outside Cummertrees Parish Church, a Church of Scotland.[7]
His eldest son and
Douglas's second son, Lord Percy Douglas (1868–1920), succeeded to the peerage instead.[8] Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, his third son, was a close friend of famous author and poet Oscar Wilde. Eventually it became known that Lord Alfred and Wilde had engaged in sexual intercourse on multiple occasions, severely damaging the reputation of both men and enraging Queensberry. Queensberry's efforts to end that relationship ultimately led to his famous dispute with Wilde, which would culminate in Wilde's eventual imprisonment, decline, and fall.
Contributions to sports
Queensberry was a patron of sport and a noted
He was one of the first people to bring association football to Scotland, forming his own team—called Kinmount—of which he was captain to take on the Annan N.B. team in matches in 1868.[10] As the Annan side wore red caps, the Kinmount side wore blue caps.[11]
A keen rider, Queensberry was also active in
Political career
In 1872, Queensberry was chosen by the
In 1881, Queensberry accepted the presidency of the
His divorces, brutality, atheism, and association with the boxing world made Queensberry an unpopular figure in London high society. In 1893 his eldest son Francis was made a baron in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, thus giving him an automatic seat in the House of Lords. Queensberry resented his son sitting in a chamber that had refused to admit him, leading to a bitter dispute between himself and both his son and the Earl of Rosebery, who had promoted Francis's ennoblement and who shortly thereafter became prime minister. Francis was killed in a shooting accident in 1894; the inquest returned an "accidental death" verdict,[13] but his death may have been a suicide. Queensberry believed, as he put it in a letter, that "snob queers like Rosebery" had corrupted his sons, and held Rosebery responsible for Francis's death.[14]
Dispute with Oscar Wilde
In February 1895, angered by the apparent ongoing homosexual relationship between his son Alfred and Oscar Wilde, Queensberry left a calling card reading "For Oscar Wilde, posing Somdomite [sic]" at Wilde's club.[15] Wilde sued for criminal libel, leading to Queensberry's arrest.
The trial opened at the
Queensberry then sent the evidence collected by his detectives to Scotland Yard, which resulted in Wilde being charged and convicted of gross indecency under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 and sentenced to two years' hard labour, which he served (1895-1897). Upon release, Wilde immediately went into exile in France, his health and reputation destroyed.
Queensberry died on 31 January 1900. Ten months later, Oscar Wilde died at the Hotel d'Alsace in Paris.
Screen portrayals
Queensberry has been portrayed by a number of actors in later dramatisations of the Wilde-Alfred Douglas affair, notably:
- 20th Century Fox movie Oscar Wilde(1960).
- Lionel Jeffries in United Artists movie The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960)
- Rolling Stones song, “We Love You” (1967)
- Tom Wilkinson in biographical film Wilde (1997).
- Tom Andrews in historical drama A Thousand Blows (2025).
An effeminately flamboyant caricature of him, voiced by Jim Rash, is featured as a main character in the Adult Swim cartoon Mike Tyson Mysteries in which he serves as a lifestyle coach to Mike Tyson.[16]
References
Notes
- ^ a b c Cokayne, Doubleday & Howard de Walden 1945, p. 706.
- ^ Kelly's Handbook 1899, p. 1078.
- ^ "Queensberry, John Sholto (Douglas), Marquess of (QNSY864JS)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ a b c d Davis 2004.
- ^ "The Queensberry Divorce Case". The Times. 24 January 1887. p. 4.
- ^ Davenport-Hines, Richard (17 April 2013). "The Marquess of Queensberry: Wilde's Nemesis by Linda Stratmann – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
- ^ "Cummertrees Parish-Lychgate". Imperial War Museums. Britain.
- New York Times. 3 August 1920. Archived from the originalon 9 November 2012.
- ^ Harris 2008, p. 182.
- ^ "Annan v Marquess of Queensbury's team". Field: 22. 28 March 1868.
- ^ Alcock, Charles (1870). Football Annual. London: Sportsman. p. 60.
- ^ Dowling 1994, p. 141.
- ^ Cokayne, Doubleday & Howard de Walden 1945, p. 707.
- ^ John Queensberry to Alfred Montgomery, 1 November 1894, quoted in Murray 2000.
- ^ Holland 2004, p. 4.
- ^ Burlingame, Russ (14 October 2014). "Robot Chicken and The Mike Tyson Mysteries Release New York Comic Con Trailers". comicbook.com. Retrieved 30 January 2025.
- Cokayne, G.; Doubleday, H. A.; Howard de Walden, T., eds. (1945). The Complete Peerage, or a history of the House of lords and all its members from the earliest times. Vol. X: Oakham to Richmond (2nd ed.). London: The St. Catherine Press.
- Davis, John (23 September 2004). "Douglas, John Sholto, ninth marquess of Queensberry". .
- Dowling, Linda (1994). Hellenism and Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-2960-6.
- Harris, Brian (2008). Intolerance: Divided Societies on Trial. Wildy, Simmonds & Hill. ISBN 978-0-85490-025-1.
- ISBN 978-0-00-715805-8.
- Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes (25th ed.). London: Kelly's Directories. 1899.
- Murray, Douglas (2000). Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-0-340-76770-2.
Further reading
- McGee, John Edwin (1948). A history of the British secular movement. Haldeman-Julius.
External links
