The Ballad of Reading Gaol
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"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand and Naples, after his release from HM Prison Reading on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading
Wilde's cell in Reading Gaol as it appears today
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1904)
Charles Thomas Wooldridge
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Charles Thomas Wooldridge was a Trooper in the Royal Horse Guards who was executed in Reading Gaol for uxoricide and who, as 'C.T.W', was the dedicatee of Oscar Wilde's poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
…with other men in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison. During his imprisonment, on Tuesday, 7 July 1896, a hanging took place. Charles Thomas Wooldridge had been a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards. He was convicted of cutting the throat of his wife, Laura Ellen, earlier that year at Clewer, near Windsor…
Reading Gaol in 1844