His greatest geographical achievement was ‘Wyld's Great Globe,’ which was exhibited in Leicester Square between 1851 and 1862. The globe, sixty feet high, lighted with gas and approached by galleries, was about forty feet in diameter, and far the largest hitherto constructed. Upon its interior side were delineated the physical features of the earth, the horizontal surface being on the scale of an inch to ten miles, and mountains, shown by mechanical devices, on thrice that scale. The concave surface was made of some six thousand casts taken in plaster of Paris, three feet square and an inch thick, screwed to beams and joined together, and afterwards painted over. The top of the globe outside was painted with stars. It was surrounded by a large circular building, approached by four loggias opening into each side of the square. The walls of the circular passages were hung with the finest maps, and atlases, globes, and geographical works were displayed upon tables.
The great railway mania of 1836–7 was of some service to Wyld, who supplied prospectus, maps, and plans for parliamentary deposit. But when, two years later, the collapse came he was left with heavy claims against unsuccessful companies, and he and other creditors were unable to obtain favourable decisions from the courts (see A Consideration of the Judgment of the Court of Exchequer, by a Barrister of the Middle Temple, 1846).
Wyld's interests were not confined to geography. He represented Bodmin in parliament as a liberal from 1847 to 1852, and again from 1857 to 1868 (except for a few months in 1859), having in the meantime unsuccessfully contested Finsbury. He was instrumental in passing the mines' assessment bill, and introduced the first county financial boards bill. He was an active supporter of vote by ballot. As a governor of the city and guilds institute and as master of the Clothworkers' Company, he took a leading part in the promotion of technical education; and the cities of Manchester, Leeds, and Bristol are largely indebted to him for their technical schools. He had a wide reputation as a man of science, and possessed no fewer than seventeen European orders, including the Legion of Honour, and a gold medal for scientific merit from the King of Prussia.
Wyld died at his house in South Kensington on 17 April 1887. He left a daughter and a son, Mr. James John Cooper Wyld, a barrister of the Inner Temple.
[Gent. Mag. 1836, ii. 656; Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Times, 19 April 1887; Athenæum, 11 June 1887, by C. H.; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. and Men at the Bar. For lists of maps and charts see Cat. of the Map Room of the Roy. Geogr. Soc. 1882, where there are sixty-five entries under J. Wyld; see also ‘The Great Globe itself,’ an art. in Chambers's Journal (1851), copied in Littell's Living Age (Boston, Mass.), October 1851; Journal of the Roy. Geogr. Soc. vol. xxi. p. lxix; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 488.]
WYLDE, HENRY (1822–1890), Gresham professor of music, son of Henry Wylde, was born at Bushey, Hertfordshire, on 22 May 1822. At the age of thirteen he became organist of Whitchurch, near Edgware, and three years later a pianoforte pupil of Moscheles. From October 1843 to December 1846 he was a student at the Royal Academy of Music, of which institution he subsequently became a professor of harmony. Wylde was organist of Eaton Chapel and St. Anne's, Aldersgate Street (now demolished). In 1851 he accumulated the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Music at the university of Cambridge. In 1852 he was one of the founders of the now defunct New Philharmonic Society, whose concerts he, in co-operation with Hector Berlioz, Lindpainter, and Spohr, conducted for three seasons; in 1858 Wylde assumed the entire responsibility of the undertaking until 1879, when he retired in favour of Mr. Wilhelm Ganz.
Wylde founded in 1861 the London Academy of Music, a private teaching institution which still exists. Its locale was first at St. James's Hall, but in 1867 it was removed to a building in Langham Place erected by Wylde, and named by him St. George's Hall. In 1863, on the death of Edward Taylor [q. v.], Wylde was appointed Gresham professor of music. This post he held till his death, which took place at 76 Mortimer Street, Regent Street, on 13 March 1890. He was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.
Wylde composed a few pianoforte pieces and songs, and wrote a setting of ‘Paradise Lost’ (1850) and a cantata, ‘Prayer and Praise’ (1850). His musico-literary productions include: ‘Harmony and the Science of Music’ (1865 and 1872); ‘Music in its Art Mysteries’ (1867); ‘Modern Counterpoint in Major Keys’ (1873); ‘Occult Principles of Music’ (1881); ‘Music as an Educator’ (1882); and ‘Evolution of the Beautiful in Music’ (1888).
[Grove's Dict. of Music and Musicians, iv. 492, ii. 452; Brown and Stratton's British Musical Biography; Musical Times, April 1890; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
