Wilde, William Robert Wills (1815-1876), the father of the Irish author Oscar Wilde, won fame as a writer on antiquities and places of interest in Ireland. His works include The Beauties of the Boyne and the Blackwater (1849) and Lough Corrib and Lough Mask (1867). The latter is a study of the region around two lakes in Connacht. Wilde also wrote a two-volume catalog of the contents of the museum of the Royal Irish Academy. Wilde was born at Castlerea, in County Roscommon. He practiced as a physician in Dublin, where he founded an eye hospital and generously helped the poor. In 1851, he married Jane Francesca Elgee, an Irish essayist and poet. He was knighted in 1864 and died on April 19, 1876.
See also Wilde, Jane Francesca ; Wilde, Oscar .
