Wallace, William (1272–1305)

Scottish nationalist who led a revolt against English rule in 1297, won a victory at Stirling, and assumed the title ‘governor of Scotland’. Edward I defeated him at Falkirk in 1298, and Wallace was captured and executed. He was styled Knight in a charter of 1298.

Wallace, William (1860–1940)

Scottish music author and composer. He was educated at Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities and in Vienna as an eye specialist. He began to practise in 1888, but gave up his profession for music except during World War I. In 1889 he entered the Royal Academy of Music in London for a brief course in composition, and later he became successively secretary and trustee of the Philharmonic Society. His books include The Threshold of Music (1908), The Musical Faculty (1914), Richard Wagner as He Lived (1925), and Liszt, Wagner and the Princess (1927).

Works Opera Brassolis.

Orchestral symphony Koheleth for chorus and orchestra, symphony The Creation; symphonic poems The Passing of Beatrice (after Dante's Paradiso, 1892), Anvil or Hammer (after Goethe's Koptisches Lied), Sister Helen (after D G Rossetti), To the New Country, Wallace, AD 1305–1905, Villon; suite The Lady from the Sea (after Ibsen); symphonic prelude to Aeschylus' Eumenides.

Other cantatas, chamber music, and songs.

Wallace, William (1825–1904)

English-born US inventor and manufacturer. In 1874 Wallace introduced dynamo-electric machinery into his factory. Eventually his dynamos could copper-plate 100 miles of steel wire at a time. He later designed the first commercial arc light. He sold his business and retired to Washington, DC, in 1896. Wallace was born in Manchester, England, and emigrated to the USA with his parents as a boy. The family eventually settled in Derby, Connecticut, and there Wallace, Sr, went into the wire-drawing business. His son became president upon his death and built a large and flourishing copper, brass, and wire enterprise.