Author: Wallace, Albany
Biography:
WALLACE, Albany (1788-1875: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 26 Jul. 1788 at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, London, the tenth of eleven children of John Wallace (1733-1810), of Sedcop House and Golden Square, a wealthy contractor, and his wife Elizabeth French (1746-1813), who had married in 1764. An elder brother, James (q.v.), went into the church, and his youngest brother, Robert Clerk (1789-1863), went into the army, but Albany Wallace seems to have lived most of his somewhat eccentric life as the beneficiary of his father’s will and family money. He lived for long periods in Worthing where he published his early works, before returning to London to publish, from a private press in his own house, six plays on The Reign of the Stuarts (1835-43) and Miscellaneous Poems (1834). He returned to Worthing, where he lived with his brother, Colonel Robert Clerk Wallace, and his family at 4 Liverpool Terrace. There he published Elfrida; A Drama (1850), Zaire. A Dramatic Poem (1854), The Athalia of Racine (1858) and Iphiginia. An Epic Drama (1861), again from his own private printing press. After his brother’s death in 1863, he stayed for several years with his nephew in Prendergast, Pembrokeshire, where he published an adaptation of Moliere’s The Miser (1868). He died in London on 10 Mar. 1875 at 7 St. Petersburgh Place, Bayswater, and left an estate of £8000 to his nephews and nieces. He never married. (ancestry.co.uk 31 Jan. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 31 Jan. 2022; Burke [1846] 2: 1495-6; French and Son’s Handbook and Directory of Worthing [1859], 75; The Hour [London] 17 Mar. 1875) AA