Constance Lloyd

Who was Constance Lloyd?

Constance Wilde, born Constance Mary Lloyd, was the wife of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde and the mother of their two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. The daughter of Horace Lloyd, an Irish barrister, and Adelaide Atkinson Lloyd, she married Wilde on 29 May 1884, and had both her sons within the next two years. In 1888 she published a book based on children's stories she had heard from her grandmother, called There Was Once. She and her husband were involved in the dress reform movement.

It is unknown at what point Constance became aware of her husband's homosexual relationships. In 1891 she met his lover Lord Alfred Douglas when Wilde brought him to their home for a visit. Around this time Wilde was living more in hotels than at their home in Tite Street and since the birth of their second son they had become sexually estranged. It is claimed that on one occasion, when Wilde warned his sons about naughty boys who made their mamas cry, they asked him what happened to absent papas who made mamas cry. Nevertheless, by all accounts, she and Wilde remained on good terms.