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Ontario
Wesleyan Ladies' College
Wednesday, May 31, 1882 (AM)
The Relation Of Art To Other Studies
Newspaper reports
Belleville Daily Ontario, June 2, 1882, 3
* A specially prepared talk not a regular lecture.
"Oscar Wilde visited the Wesleyan Female College (sic) at Hamilton and made a neat little speech to the girls."
Quoted in Oscar Wilde in Canada, Kevin O'Brien, 1882
Hamilton Spectator, June 1, 1882, 4
"Oscar Wilde was much pleased with the Ladies' College, or rather the ladies he saw there. In return for his perfectly lovely address they gave him a bouquet."*
* The flowers were presented by the principal's daughter Leda Burns.
Quoted in Oscar Wilde in Canada, Kevin O'Brien, 1882
Wesleyan Ladies' College
57 King St. East, Hamilton, Ontario (now 102-144 King St. E)
Built: 1854 (as the Anglo-American Hotel)
Hotel closed: 1861, converted to a college
College incorporated: May 18, 1861
Opened: September 1861 (Wesleyan Female College)
Name change: before 1882, Wesleyan Ladies' College
Principal 1882: Dr. Alexander Burns
Students: typically 144-163
Closed: 1897
Reconverted to a hotel: 1898 (the Waldorf Hotel)
Closed: 1913
Demolished: 1914
Replaced by: the Royal Connaught Hotel (opened 1916), extant as condominiums
College principal and literature professor, Dr. Alexander Burns had taken the school of 140 students to Wilde's lecture the previous evening at the Grand Opera House in Hamilton, and had invited Wilde to talk at the college the following morning.
Born: 1834, Castlewellan, Co. Down, Ireland (now N. Ireland)
Died: May 22, 1900, Toronto, ON
Wilde had stayed the previous night in Hamilton following his main lecture the day before, and he left after this morning talk at the college on the 11:30 am train for Boston.
Oscar Wilde In America | © John Cooper, 2024
