Frank Miles: Victorian Artist And Jack the Ripper Suspect
George Francis Miles was born on April 22 1852 and died in an asylum near Bristol on July 15 1891.
He was the son of the Rev. Robert Henry William Miles, rector of the Church of St. Mary and All Angels, Bingham, Nottinghamshire, and his wife Mary Ellen
Like another Jack the Ripper suspect, Walter Sickert, Frank Miles was an artist.
His portraits included those of Lillie Langtry, Sir George Sitwell, Princess Victoria, Princess Maud and Princess Louise. But today he is probably best known as a friend of Oscar Wilde.
Thomas Toughill believes that Oscar Wilde knew Frank Miles had committed the murders in Whitechapel in 1888. He believes that Wilde then deliberately incorporated clues into some of his writing, most especially in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
In 2008, The Ripper Code by Thomas Toughill was published.
The Foreword was written by Robin Odell, who wrote Jack the Ripper in Fact and Fiction and, with Colin Wilson, Jack the Ripper: Summing Up and Verdict.
Odell explains that the book is the culmination of two decades of work and research. He says Toughill “takes a refreshing look at the murders themselves, examining new angles and perspectives and analysing the way events have been interpreted.”
At around halfway through his book, Toughill writes that he wants “to get straight to the heart of the matter and consider which suspects match the picture of the sort of man experience and common sense suggest the Ripper to have been, and which tally broadly with the conclusions reached in the section concerning evidence. That picture is summed up here as follows:
Jack the Ripper was male; he was a sex maniac who acted out of a hatred for the female sex; he worked alone; he was, as George Hutchinson believed, in his thirties; he was an Englishman; and soon after the last murder he either committed suicide or was p[laced under some form of detention.”
This seems to be what most ‘ripperologists’ would contend in support of their favoured candidate.
Toughill, of course, considers some of the more popular suspects. He devotes quite a bit of time to Montague John Druitt, ending by writing:
“All of which leads to the conclusion that, if the Ripper was not Druitt, he was another member of the vice rings then operating in London.”
That man was Frank Miles.
Miles was a leading artist with no shortage of commissions, including the Prince of Wales. As Toughill writes, “His pencilled drawings of pretty female faces and heads were reproduced cheaply and sold in great numbers. In this way, he, more than any other artist, made Lily Langtry, the late nineteenth-century phenomenon, famous and successful.”
Sadly, this success did not continue. Toughill says his failure to prosper was exacerbated by syphilis. “He was reportedly removed to Brislington asylum near Bristol on 27 December 1887 where he died on 15 July 1891 of general paralysis of the insane.”
If anybody remembers Frank Miles today it is less likely to be because of his artistic talents and more because of his friendship with Oscar Wilde.
Wilde moved in with Miles in 1878. Then, in 1881, they had a violent quarrel
Toughill explains that the quarrel between the two men at 1 Tite Street, Chelsea, was sparked by Oscar agreeing to a tour of America. A tour that would mean abandoning his friend and helpmate of three years. Abandoning him for more than a year.
From 1881, Wilde went on to enjoy enormous success, as did Lily Langtry, while Miles faded into obscurity.
An interesting question is why Oscar Wilde, after his marriage in 1884, chose 16 Tite Street, Chelsea, as his home. Although there is no evidence that the two men ever spoke after their quarrel why did Oscar choose to live just a few doors from Frank Miles?
Toughill says that It has been suggested that “The few accounts of Miles vary so greatly that it is impossible to separate fact from fiction.”
Which might make him a tricky subject for a researcher to get to grips with.
Toughill says he wants to explain the mystery as to why Wilde kept silent about Frank Miles.
“The solution offered here is that Miles was Jack the Ripper; that he was motivated by his break with Wilde and the resentment he felt at his failure in life; that Wilde came to learn that his friend was the Whitechapel murderer and dropped hints about it in several of his works, most notably, The Picture of Dorian Grey.”
Toughill goes on to explain that Miles was not charged because it would have revealed “an embarrassing affair concerning the Royal Family”.
This makes it fascinating. One of literature’s great figures placed a coded message in his work. A message that explained one of the world’s great murder mysteries.
On top of that there is a Royal scandal for us to discover.
This has to be a story worth reading.
Toughill says The Picture of Dorian Grey, like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, is a study of good and evil.
“Dorian Grey differs from Stevenson’s work though in that the contrast is made not by two men occupying the same body, but by two separate characters, Basil Hallward, the painter, and Dorian Grey, his handsome young friend.”
The third character is Lord Henry Wotton, “who leads Dorian towards his downward spiral into degeneracy and crime. As Wotton says to Dorian, ‘I should like to know someone who has committed a real murder.”
The murder comes about when Basil Hallward finally confronts Dorian with the life of indulgence and vice that he has lost himself in. Dorian then shows Hallward the painting.
The artist is appalled. Dorian, in a fury, stabs Hallward. Later in the story, he uses the same knife to slash the painting but succeeds only in killing himself.
When the servants enter the room, they see the portrait showing the master as young and handsome as they had last seen him. They don’t recognise the man lying on the floor, stabbed through his heart.
“He was withered, wrinkled and loathsome of visage. It was not until they had examined the rings that they recognised who it was.”
Toughill says that Wilde based both the painter Basil Hallward and the character Dorian Grey on Frank Miles.
He says the real-life quarrel between Wilde and Miles is played out in the argument between Basil Hallward and Dorian.
In the real-life quarrel, Wilde says, “I will leave you. I will go now and I will never speak to you again as long as I live.”
In the novel, Dorian tells Hallward, “On my word of honour, I will never speak to you again as long as I live.”
Toughill goes on to point out other episodes in the novel based on incidents that occurred between Oscar and Frank Miles.
Of course it is also true that the East End and Whitechapel itself are mentioned often in the novel as Dorian visits it frequently in search of any diversion. Of this, Toughill says:
“It is remarkable that although writing about the East End the year after the Ripper murders, Wilde made no reference in his novel to the killings which had caused such a sensation.”
Near the end of the book, on page 279, Toughill writes:
“If Frank Miles was Jack the Ripper, how did the name of Montague John Druitt end up in the memoranda? The simple answer could be that Macnaghten originally learned of Druitt from his Tite Street neighbour, Oscar Wilde.’
Then, on page 297:
“Can it be seriously challenged that Macnaghten was somehow fed information on his Ripper suspects in order to divert attention away from the real killer, Frank Miles?”
Some will say yes it can be seriously challenged. Where is the proof? There is only the assumption that because they were neighbours Oscar might have spoken to Macnaghten.
And Toughill’s whole assumption begins with that ‘If.’
“If Frank Miles was Jack the Ripper, how did the name of Montague John Druitt end up in the memoranda?”
The reader will have to agree that the book shows that Oscar Wilde included plot, character and background from his own experience, his acquaintances and background information, including the endless accounts of the impoverished East End that the reading public had been inundated with as a result of the media coverage of the Whitechapel murders.
So are we persuaded that Oscar included all of that simply to reveal Frank Harris as Jack the Ripper?
Or are we rather persuaded that writers use their own real experiences when crafting their art?
Some writers we know are more biographical than others.
So, where does Oscar stand in the spectrum?
Well, according to Thomas Toughill, “Oscar Wilde was a highly autobiographical writer.”
Oscar was opposed to art being used as a vehicle for social or political change.
"All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”
Which may well be a warning against searching for hidden clues to a series of brutal murders.
Oscar wrote, “The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.”
The idea put forward by Thomas Toughill is that Oscar, in writing The Picture of Dorian Grey, was not creating ‘a useless thing’. He was writing a coded message to posterity that Frank Miles was Jack the Ripper.
Oscar’s words, “The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.” Appear in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Grey.
I suppose it could be argued that the devious writer was just trying to put the reader off the scent. Alythough then we would have to ask why?
What about the Royal conspiracy?
Toughill writes:
“Why, for example, did Macnaghten write in his Home Office Memorandum that the Ripper was never seen when George Hutchinson’s statement, which was supported by Inspector Abberline, strongly suggested otherwise? Was it because what Hutchinson saw was Frank Miles picking up Mary Kelly, a woman Miles knew as his former model and whose adopted French name, Marie Jeanette, was so strikingly similar to that of Jeanne Marie, the product of Lily Langtry’s adultery with a member of the Royal family?
Hutchinson and his evidence are mentioned a number of times in The Ripper Code. Click here to get some background on the man and his evidence.
Do the many instances cited by Thomas Toughill show that Oscar Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Grey to identify the world’s most famous serial?
If they do, then why?
Did Oscar hope that at some time in the future, a man would arrive who would see this and, on the 120th anniversary of the Whitechapel murders, would publish a book to reveal all?
Did Lily Langtry’s adultery with Prince Louis of Battenberg really pose a serious problem for the Royal family? The relationship ended with the birth of their daughter, Jeanne Marie, in 1881. Seven years before Jack the Ripper appeared.
Adultery among the Royals was hardly unheard of.
While the last Saxon king of England became known as ‘Edward the Confessor’ in recognition of his piety, the Prince of Wales became known as 'Edward the Caresser’ in recognition of his adultery.
Lily Langtry was among those who were ‘caressed.’
Thank you for checking out this post.