Frank Miles - Life and Career

Life and Career

He was the son of the Rev. Robert Henry William Miles (1818–1883), rector of the Church of St. Mary and All Angels, Bingham, Nottinghamshire, and his wife Mary Cleaver. He was the grandson of Philip John Miles (1773–1845) by his second marriage to Clarissa Peach (1790–1868). Philip John Miles was an English landowner, banker, merchant, politician and collector, who was elected MP for Bristol from 1835 - 1837 having earlier been elected for Westbury from 1820–1826 and Corfe Castle from 1829 - 1832. Frank Miles was therefore brother of Charles Oswald Miles, cousin of Philip Napier Miles and half-cousin of Sir Philip Miles, 2nd Baronet.

Today, Frank Miles is best known for being a friend (and many believe a lover) of Oscar Wilde whom he met at Oxford in 1874 or 1875, where Miles had family connections to the colleges and friends, but was never an undergraduate after being schooled at home (rather than at Eton as his father and uncles were). Miles introduced Wilde to Lillie Langtry, and to his friend and patron Lord Ronald Charles Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, who later became the model for the worldly Lord Henry Wotton in Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

If rumours of this relationship being physical are true, then Miles must have been bisexual as he was well known for his interest in women as well, both "society ladies" with whom he associated through his family connections and the working class girls he often used for his models. In the year leading up to his final illness, Miles was engaged to be married to Miss Gratiana Lucy Hughes (known as Lucy), daughter of Alfred Hughes (later Sir Alfred Hughes, 10th Baronet), of East Bergholt Lodge, Suffolk, but his incarceration led to this falling through. A letter of 1887 from Miles to the wife of the artist George Broughton reads

"...As soon as I have given up my house for three years, I and my girl will find a cottage and live close to London... we think of the S.E. edge of Epping Forset... L and I expect we shall have many friends... we shall be near the best nursery gardens - and I spend half my life growing new rose plants I introduce and send to Kew. ... soon a baronetcy, when an old man dies, will come to my future father in law."

Miles commissioned Edward William Godwin to build him a house at what was then No 1 (but later renumbered to 44) Tite Street, Chelsea and moved in from his previous residence off the Strand. Oscar Wilde had been living with him since leaving Oxford in 1878 but it is clear that Miles, two years older than Wilde, was by far the dominant partner. Wilde, although ambitious, had no money and few social connections, while Miles had both, with a generous allowance from his wealthy father and the royalties from his drawings, Miles was able to keep his friend in style. The Court Directory and the Post Office London Directory for 1881 list Miles as the occupant but do not mention Wilde. The 1881 Census names Miles as head of the household and describes Wilde as merely a "boarder". The house is on the market in 2011 for £15,500,000.

His paintings and drawings included Lillie Langtry, Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick (another mistress to King Edward VII), the Countess of Lonsdale, Sir George Sitwell and his wife Ida and Princess Victoria, Princess Maud and Princess Louise. His work can also be seen in the church at Bingham, Nottinghamshire where he designed the stained glass windows; at Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club where his 1875 portrait of Richard Daft, the Club's captain, is kept and at Nottinghamshire City Museum and Gallery where his 1878 landscape of Cenarth Falls is on display.

He imported many species of plant and cultivated new varieties.