Author: Wallace, George
Biography:
WALLACE, George (1730-1805: ODNB)
His birth year is sometimes given as 1727 but 1730 is confirmed by genealogical records. He was the youngest son of Robert Wallace, a Church of Scotland minister and prominent writer on population, and his wife Helen Turnbull. He was born at Moffat, Dumfriesshire, where his father had charge of the parish. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1754. He was a member, with his father, of the Rankenian Club, a society of intellectuals in Edinburgh; he also joined the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1754 he published Fragments of a Prospect from a Hill in Fife (reprinted 1780 and 1790); reworked and with additions, it was the basis for his 1796 Prospects from Hills in Fife. He also published A System of the Principles of the Law in Scotland (1760), Thoughts on the Origins of Feudal Tenure (1783), and The Nature and Descent of Ancient Peerages Connected with the State of Scotland (1785). He was made a Commissary of Edinburgh in 1792. He seems not to have married. He died at Edinburgh and was buried in Greyfriars churchyard. (ODNB 10 Dec. 2020; DNB; ancestry.co.uk 10 Dec. 2020) SR