Bradford People: William Charles Bonaparte-Wyse
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Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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William Charles Bonaparte-Wyse(1826-1892) was an Anglo-Irish-French poet who wrote in provençal and was one of those who campaigned to maintain it as a literary language. He was a grandson of Napoleon’s brother Lucien. He lived at Woolley Hill House in Bradford during the 1860s, returning to his native Ireland in 1872. While he was in Bradford, he became briefly the Captain of the local army volunteer force, the 9th Wiltshire Rifle Volunteer Corps, in July 1866.
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Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) the French symbolist poet, best known for L’après-midi d’un faune which inspired Debussy’s musical piece of that name, was a visitor to Bradford. He was staying with his friend and fellow poet William Bonaparte-Wyse at Woolley Hill House in August 1871 when he wrote the poem Dans le jardin for Bonaparte-Wyse’s wife Ellen Linzee Prout (1840-1915).