A grandson of the Canadian reform leader Robert Baldwin, and son of John Ross and Augusta Elizabeth Baldwin, Ross was a pivotal figure on the London literary and artistic scene from the mid-1890s to his early death, and mentored several literary figures, including Siegfried Sassoon.

Ross's father, John Ross, was a Baldwinite and a Toronto lawyer who had a very successful political career, serving as Solicitor General for Upper Canada, Attorney General, Speaker of the Legislative Council, President of the Legislative Council, director, and, for a time, president, of the Grand Trunk Railway, and Canadian senator.

In 1888, Ross was accepted at King's College, Cambridge,[2] where he became a victim of bullying, probably because of his sexuality, of which he made no secret, and perhaps also his outspoken journalism in the university paper.

After a good deal of panic and frantic meetings with solicitors, the parents were persuaded not to go to the police, since at that time their son might be seen as equally guilty and face the possibility of going to prison.

His son, Travers Humphreys, appeared as junior counsel for the prosecution in the subsequent case of Wilde v Queensberry.

[citation needed] Ross was assisted in this task by Christopher Sclater Millard, who compiled a definitive bibliography of Wilde's writings.

Ross gave Wilde's sons the rights to all their father's works along with the money earned from their publication or performance while he was executor.

As a result of his faithfulness to Wilde even in death, Ross was vindictively pursued by Lord Alfred Douglas, who repeatedly attempted to have him arrested and tried for homosexual conduct.

[9] The Carfax held exhibitions of works by such artists as Aubrey Beardsley, William Blake, Sylvia Gosse, and John Singer Sargent.

[11] During the First World War, Ross mentored a group of young, mostly homosexual, poets and artists including Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

Maud Allan, an actress who had played Wilde's Salome in a performance authorised by Ross, was identified as a member of the "cult".

[citation needed] Later, in 1918, Ross was preparing to travel to Melbourne, to open an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, when he died suddenly in London on 5 October 1918.