John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry
John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry was a
Scottish nobleman, remembered for lending his name to the "Marquess of Queensberry rules" that formed the basis of modern
boxing, and for his role in the downfall of author and playwright
Oscar Wilde.
Encyclopedia
John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry was a
Scottish nobleman, remembered for lending his name to the "Marquess of Queensberry rules" that formed the basis of modern
boxing, and for his role in the downfall of author and playwright
Oscar Wilde.
Biography
He was born in
Florence in
Italy, the eldest son of Archibald, Viscount Drumlanrig, eldest son of the 7th Marquess of Queensberry. He was briefly styled
Viscount Drumlanrig following his father's succession in 1856, and on his father's death in 1858 he inherited the
Marquessate of Queensberry. He is occasionally referred to as 8th rather than 9th Marquess, as the 3rd Marquess, a cannibalistic homicidal maniac, is sometimes erroneously omitted from the numbering. He was educated at the Royal Naval College and married Sibyl Montgomery in 1866. The couple had four sons and one daughter, and divorced in 1887. Queensberry married Ethel Weeden in 1893, but they were divorced the following year.
Contributions to sports
Queensberry was a patron of sport and a noted boxing enthusiast. In 1866 he was one of the founders of the Amateur Athletic Club, now the Amateur Athletic Association of England, one of the first groups that did not require amateur athletes to belong to the upper-classes in order to compete. The following year the Club published a set of twelve rules for conducting boxing matches. The rules had been drawn up by John Graham Chambers but appeared under Queensberry's sponsorship and are universally known at the "Marquess of Queensberry rules". Queensberry, a keen rider, was also active in
fox hunting and owned several successful
race horses.
Political career
In 1872, Queensberry was chosen by the Peers of Scotland to sit in the
House of Lords as a
representative peer. He served as such until 1880, when he was again nominated but refused to take the religious oath of allegiance to the Sovereign. An outspoken
atheist, he declared that he would not participate in any "Christian tomfoolery" and that his word should suffice. As a consequence neither he nor
Charles Bradlaugh, who had also refused to take the oath after being elected to the
House of Commons, were allowed to take their seats in
Parliament. This prompted an apology from the new
Prime Minister,
William Gladstone. Bradlaugh was re-elected four times by the constituents of
Northampton until he was finally allowed to take his seat in 1886, but Queensberry was never again sent to Parliament by the Scottish nobles.
In 1881, Queensberry accepted the presidency of the British Secular Union, a group that had broken away in 1877 from Bradlaugh's National Secular Society. In 1882, he was ejected from the theatre after loudly interrupting a performance of the play
The Promise of May by
Lord Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, because it included a villainous atheist in its cast of characters. Under the auspices of the British Secular Union, Queensberry wrote a pamphlet entitled
The Religion of Secularism and the Perfectibility of Man. The Union, always small, ceased to function in 1884.
His divorces, militant atheism, and association with the boxing world made Queensberry an unpopular figure in
London high society. In 1893 his eldest son, Francis, Viscount Drumlanrig, was created Baron Kelhead in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, thus giving the son an automatic seat in the House of Lords, from which the father was excluded. This caused a bitter dispute between Queensberry and his son, and also between Queensberry and
Lord Rosebery, the patron who had promoted Lord Drumlanrig's ennoblement and who shortly thereafter became Prime Minister. Drumlanrig was killed in a hunting accident in 1894.
Queensberry sold the family seat of Kinmount in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, an action which further alienated him from his family.
Dispute with Oscar Wilde
In March 1895, Queensberry was sued for defamatory libel by
Oscar Wilde, whom he had accused of "posing as a
somdomite" : Queensberry made the allegation because he was angered by Wilde's relationship with his son,
Lord Alfred Douglas. Soon after the trial opened, the libel case was withdrawn. Wilde was later convicted of gross indecency under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885.
Death
Lord Queensberry died in London, aged 55, nearly a year before Oscar Wilde's death.
He was, allthough he wrote a poem starting with the words" When I am dead cremate me...", burried in Scotland.
Anecdote"
Eccentric to the last his last will stipulated that he was to be burried upright. The grave-diggers are rumoured to have burried him with his head down.
References
