Page 19 - Fyne winter 2014

Wilde exhibition opens in Reading
To mark the 160th anniversary of the birth
of Oscar Wilde, Berkshire Records Office
has opened an exhibition which shows
documents and information relating to the
fellow inmates of Reading Gaol who Wilde
would have shared his incarceration with.
Professor Peter Stoneley, who works in
the English department at nearby Reading
University, has spent many hours going
through the records around the time that
Wilde was serving a two-year sentence for
‘gross indecency’ and uncovered details and
photos of the prisoners Wilde spent his time
with.
The archives includes a photo of a man who
Wilde is thought to have deeply admired
and described as having ‘dark eyes’ in the
writings from his cell. The man, called Harry
Bushnell, was a habitual criminal who spent
many years behind bars. Although prisoners
were not supposed to interact with each
other, Wilde became very fond of the man
who is thought to be Bushnell and after his
release, Wilde sent him money to help him
get back on his feet. However, Bushnell
spent the rest of his life in and out of prison
and was buried in a pauper’s grave in 1950.
The records also include details of a prisoner
called Charles Thomas Wooldridge, who
was executed while Wilde was in prison with
him. He was so moved by the execution
that Wilde included the incident in his
famous work The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
The documentation, which hasn’t ever been
on show before, also shows that children
as young as 7 were incarcerated in the gaol
and many were also subject to corporal
punishment. The forms and reports depict
the grim life of the Victorian prison system
like never before and illustrate what a shock
to the system it must have been for a well-off
man such as Wilde to enter.
The exhibition runs until 6th February at
the Berkshire Records Office in Reading.
www.fyne.co.uk
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