First World War Memorial, St Margaret’s Church, Oxford

Alexander Moultrie WALLACE (1881–1915)

© Images & Voices,
Oxfordshire County Council

See also Alexander’s younger brother, Cyril Walter Wallace

Alexander Moultrie Wallace was born at South Leigh, Oxfordshire in 1881 and baptised there on 5 June.

His father Walter Edward Wallace was born in India on 12 September 1856, the son of Major General John Duncan Campbell Wallace and Emily Hogg, and was baptised at Cannanore, Madras on 23 October 1856. He had come up to Worcester College, Oxford in May 1877 at the age of 20, and at the time of his marriage in 1880 he was still an undergraduate, but working as a tutor at East Ravendale, Lincolnshire.

Alexander's mother Eleanor May Moultrie was born in Houghton-le-Spring, Durham and baptised there on 9 July 1856, the daughter of the Revd Gerald Moultrie. In 1871 her father was appointed the first Vicar of South Leigh in Oxfordshire, and in 1875 started St James's College (now Holyrood House) with a view to improving the literacy of the choir boys.

Alexander’s parents were married at South Leigh on 11 August 1880. At the time of the 1881 census they were living at The College, South Leigh, with 15 boy boarders aged between 10 and 15. They had the following children:

• Alexander Moultrie Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 5 June 1881)
• Hugh Duncan Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 6 August 1882;
  died aged two and buried there on 29 January 1885)
• Gerard Percy Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire on 29 March 1885 and baptised there on 2 May)
• Margaret Wallace (born in South Leigh, Oxfordshire and baptised there on 16 June 1887)
• Cyril Walter Wallace (born in Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire in 1890).

Alexander's father continued to work as a tutor until he obtained his B.A. in 1884, and then when his son Gerard was baptised in 1885, he was described as a Clergyman of St James's College, South Leigh.

By 1890 Alexander’s parents had moved to Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire, where they appear to have run a small boarding school for boys in their home.

At the time of the 1891 census Alexander (9) was living at The Green, Stoney Stratford with his father Walter (34), his mother Eleanor (34), and his siblings Gerard (6), Margaret (3), and Cyril (six months). Also living in the family home were six boy pupils aged between 13 and 16, and four servants (a nurse, cook, parlourmaid, and nursemaid.

Alexander Wallace in the Rugby XV of 1899
© St Edward’s School Archives

Alexander entered St Edward’s School in north Oxford in Christmas Term 1894. He was a School Prefect, and a member of the Rugby Fifteen and Cricket Eleven.

Alexander’s father Walter Edward Wallace died at 16 Nottingham Place, Middlesex at the age of 38 on 9 July 1895, leaving effects of £752 1s. His executor was the Revd John Duncan Clement Wallace, clerk.

Alexander left St Edward’s School in 1899.

Alexander then travelled widely in Africa and Mexico, and probably joined the regular army, as he served in the South African War in 1901: hence he does not appear in the 1901 census. Meanwhile his widowed mother Eleanor Wallace was living again at The College, South Leigh with her with her daughter Margaret Wallace (13), her widowed mother Elizabeth Moultrie (71), and her two unmarried sisters Ada Moultrie (43) and Agatha Moultrie (34). Alexander's two youngest brothers were still at boarding school: Gerard (16) was at St Edmund's School for the Orphan Sons of Clergy in Canterbury and Cyril (10) at a preparatory school at The Gables, Portinscale, above Derwent.

Alexander was probably out of the country at the time of the 1911 census, as he was certainly in Sierra Leone in 1913. His brother Gerard (26) was probably in South Africa, as by 1914 he was a Captain in the Union Defence Force of South Africa; his sister Margaret (23) was an assistant mistress at a small private school for girls called Mildredsbourne in Broadstairs, Kent; and his brother Cyril (20) was an assistant master at Pierremont Hall Preparatory School in Broadstairs, Kent. His widowed mother was still living in South Leigh with her own mother and sisters.

In about 1914 his widowed mother Eleanor May Wallace moved to 16 Frenchay Road in St Margaret’s parish, which explains why two of her sons are listed on the St Margaret’s war memorial.

By 1914 Alexander's brother Captain Gerard Percy Wallace was a Captain in the Union Defence Force of South Africa attached to the Royal Flying Corps

 

 

In the First World War Alexander Moultrie Wallace served as a Captain in the 3rd Battalion attached 2nd Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment.

He was killed in action at Neuve Chapelle in France at the age of 33 on 12 March 1915 and has no known grave. He is remembered on the Le Touret Memorial (Panel 28 to 30), on a plaque in the chapel of St Edward’s School (right), in St Stephen’s Lady Chapel in Windsor, and on the war memorial outside St Margaret’s Church in north Oxford.

There is also a memorial to Alexander and his younger brother Cyril Walter Wallace (who died in Mesopotamia at the age of 26 a year later on 8 March 1916) in the churchyard at South Leigh, where the family had lived previously.

 

Cyril's brother Major Gerald Percy Wallace served in the South African Air Corps during the First World War and survived: he died in South African in 1951.