Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet (
September 4,
1843 -
January 26,
1911) was an English
Liberal and reformist politician, son of
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 1st Baronet, and husband of the feminist art critic
Emilia Dilke. Despite being an imperialist he was also a leading and determined radical within the party, helping to pass the 1884â€"85 parliamentary
Reform Acts as well as supporting laws giving the municipal
franchise to women, legalizing
labour unions, improving working conditions and limiting working hours , as well as being one of the earliest campaigners for universal schooling . Touted as a future prime minister, his political career was effectively terminated in 1885, after a notorious and well-publicised divorce case.
He was educated at
Westminster School and
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was President of the
Cambridge Union Society.
He became a
Liberal Member of Parliament for
Chelsea in
1868, serving that seat until 1885. He later became MP for
Forest of Dean in 1892, serving until his death in 1911. He was elevated to the
Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1882.
Dilke had, both before and after his first marriage, been the lover of Ellen, wife of Thomas Eustace Smith and his late brother's mother-in-law. That fact notwithstanding, in July 1885 he was the subject of accusations that he had seduced the Eustace Smiths' daughter Virginia in the first year of her marriage to Donald Crawford MP. This was supposed to have occurred in 1882 when Virginia was 19 and she claimed that the affair had continued on an irregular basis for the next two and a half years. The accusations had a devastating effect on Dilke's political career, leading to his eventual loss of his parliamentary seat (
Chelsea) in the
1886 UK general election.
Crawford's inevitable
divorce was heard on
12 February,
1886 before The Hon. Mr Justice Butt in the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. Virginia Crawford was not in court and the sole evidence was her husband's account of Virginia's confession and some fairly insubstantial circumstantial accounts of servants. Dilke, largely on the advice of his confidante
Joseph Chamberlain and aware of his vulnerability over the affair with Virginia's mother, did not give evidence. Butt said "I cannot see any case whatsoever against Sir Charles Dilke" and found that Virginia had been guilty of adultery with Dilke, but that there was no admissible evidence to show that Dilke had been guilty of adultery with Virginia (
sic). He therefore dismissed Dilke from the suit with costs, and pronounced a
decree nisi dissolving the Crawfords' marriage.
Investigative journalist William Thomas Stead then launched a public campaign against Dilke. Such a paradoxical finding by the court left doubts hanging over Dilke's respectability and in April 1886, he sought to clear his name and re-open the case through the device of the
Queen's Proctor being made a party to the case and opposing the
decree absolute. Unfortunately, Dilke and his legal team had badly miscalculated. Though they had planned to subject Virginia to a searching
cross-examination, Dilke, having been dismissed from the case, had no
locus standi. The consequence was that it was Dilke who was subjected to severe scrutiny in the witness box and he proved to be an unconvincing witness. The
jury found that the decree absolute should be granted and that Victoria had presented the true version of the facts. Dilke was ruined and for a time seemed likely to be tried for
perjury.
Dilke spent much of the remainder of his life and much of his fortune in trying to exonerate himself and it does appear likely that Virginia lied. It further seems probable that someone other than Dilke was her lover and a number of
conspiracy theories have been put forward over the years including
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery and Chamberlain himself.
*
Jenkins, Roy (1996).
Dilke: A Victorian tragedy. London: Papermac. ISBN 0333620208
*Gwynn, Stephen & Tuckwell, Gertrude (1917).
The life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke. London : John Murray.
*
Online copy of 1917 biography*Jenkins, Roy "Dilke, Sir Charles Wentworth, second baronet (1843â€"1911)",
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [
1], accessed 24 Nov 2005 (subscription required)
Crawford v. Crawford and Dilke (The Queen's Proctor intervening) (1886) 11 PD 150
* Juries were still used in civil trials in the UK until the
1930s.
