C.3.3
Maker: Unknown
C.3.3 Secret Society, circa 1901
Screen printed Drill
Museum no: L.40
This uncommon item appears to be a badge made from a penal issued uniform of the late 19th Century with a silver safety pin attached from the same period. The lettering C.3.3 stands for the third cell on the third landing of C block. These markings refer to the location of Oscar Wilde’s cell in Reading Gaol, where once admitted the prisoner lost his name and henceforth would be known only by the cell number. It is under this given identity "C.3.3." that Wilde published The Ballard Reading Goal, in which the poignant line "Yet each man kills the thing he loves" appears.
It is thought to belong to a member of a secret Wildian appreciation society that clandestinely met at Cambridge University. These students would pay homage to Wilde by pinning his prison identity to their clothes; serving as a badge and a means of gaining entry to the illicit club. To belong to such an underground homosexual brotherhood held grave consequences if caught and it is to the societies credit that so little is known of it to this day.
