Robert Baldwin Ross - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

"ROBERT BALDWIN ROSS (1869-1918), British art critic and writer, was born at Tours May 25 1869, the son of the Hon. John Ross, Q.C., attorney-general for Upper Canada, his mother being a daughter of the Hon. Robert Baldwin, premier of Upper Canada. He was educated privately, and later at King's College, Cambridge. After leaving the university he took to journalism. As a judge of pictures he was in very high repute, and from 1912 to 1914 he acted as adviser to the Board of Inland Revenue on picture valuations for estate duty. The most noteworthy feature of many years of his life, however, was his friendship with Oscar Wilde, whose literary executor he ultimately became. He was responsible for the publication of Wilde's De Profundis (1905), and subsequently for a complete edition of Wilde's works. Not long before his death Ross received from his admirers a presentation of plate, and also a sum of money which, at his request, was applied to the foundation of a scholarship at the Slade school of art. He died in London Oct. 5 1918.