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William Herbert Wallace
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William Herbert Wallace
William Herbert Wallace (29 August 1878 – 26 February 1933) was a British man convicted in 1931 of the murder of his wife, Julia, in their home in Wolverton Street in Liverpool's Anfield district. Wallace's conviction was later overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal, the first instance in British legal history where an appeal had been allowed after re-examination of evidence. The case, with its strange background, has long been the subject of speculation and has generated many books, being regarded internationally as a classic murder mystery.
William Herbert Wallace was born in Millom, Cumberland, in 1878; he was the eldest of three children born to Benjamin and Margery Wallace, having a younger brother and sister. On leaving school at age 14 he began training as a draper's assistant in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, and on finishing his apprenticeship he obtained a position in Manchester with Messrs Whiteway Laidlaw and Company, outfitters to the British Armed Forces and the Colonial, Indian and Diplomatic Services. In 1903, after five years' service, Wallace obtained a transfer to the company's branch in Calcutta, India, where he remained for two years. On the suggestion of his brother Joseph, who lived in Shanghai, Wallace sought another transfer to Whiteway Laidlaw's branch of that city in 1905.
A recurrent kidney complaint resulted in Wallace resigning his position and returning to England in 1907, where his left kidney was removed at Guy's Hospital. Little is recorded of his life after this time, until he obtained a position working for the Liberal Party in Harrogate, rising to the post of election agent in 1911. During his time in Harrogate, he met Julia Dennis (1861–1931), and they were married there in March 1914. All early sources suggested that Julia was approximately the same age as Wallace, but in 2001 James Murphy demonstrated from her original birth certificate that she was actually seventeen years older than he was. Julia's father was a destitute alcoholic farmer from near Northallerton, who had died in 1875, leaving her an orphan at the age of 13. In later life Julia exaggerated her antecedents, claiming her father had been a veterinary surgeon and her mother French.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the position of Liberal election agent in Harrogate was discontinued, owing to the suspension of elections and a parliamentary truce, and Wallace once again found himself looking for a job. Through the help of his father, he obtained a position as a collections agent with the Prudential Assurance Company in Liverpool. The Wallaces moved there in 1915, settling at 29 Wolverton Street in the district of Anfield. During the 1920s, Wallace supplemented his comfortable but mundane existence as a collections agent, working exclusively in the neighbouring Clubmoor district, by lecturing part-time in chemistry at Liverpool Technical College. His hobbies included chemistry, botany and chess, and in 1928 he learned to play the violin to enable him to accompany Julia, who was an accomplished pianist, in "musical evenings" at their home at Wolverton Street.
On the evening of Monday 19 January 1931, Wallace, aged 52, attended a meeting of the Liverpool Central Chess Club to play a scheduled chess game. While there he was handed a message, which had been received by telephone about twenty-five minutes before he arrived. It requested that he call at an address at 25 Menlove Gardens East, Liverpool, at 7.30 pm the following evening to discuss insurance with a man who had given his name as "R. M. Qualtrough".
The following night, Wallace duly made his way by tramcar to the south of the city at the time requested, only to discover that while there were Menlove Gardens North, South and West, there was no East. He called at 25 Menlove Gardens West, and asked several passers-by in the neighbourhood for directions, but to no avail. Wallace also spoke to a policeman on his beat, and made inquiries in a nearby newsagent's, but nobody he asked was able to help him in his search for the address or the mysterious Qualtrough.
After searching the district for about forty-five minutes, Wallace returned home. Neighbours John and Florence Johnston were heading out for the evening when they encountered Wallace in the back alleyway, complaining that he could not gain entry to his home at either the front or the back. While they watched, Wallace tried the back door again, which now opened. Inside he found his wife, Julia, had been brutally beaten to death in their sitting room.
Up to his arrest two weeks later, Wallace made four voluntary statements. While he was never intensively questioned by police, he was required to attend CID headquarters every day and was asked specific questions about whether the Wallaces had a maid, why he had subsequently asked the man who had taken the telephone message at the chess club to be specific about the time he took it and whether he had spoken to anyone in the street on his way back to his house from his abortive attempt to find Mr. Qualtrough. Police had evidence that the telephone box used by "Qualtrough" to make his call to the chess club was situated just 400 yards (370 m) from Wallace's home, although the person in the café who took the call was quite certain it was not Wallace on the other end of the line. Nevertheless, police began to suspect that "Qualtrough" and Wallace were the same man. Wallace's legal team conducted timing tests that showed it was possible for someone to have made the call, catch a tram and arrive at the chess club when Wallace did, and it was equally possible for Wallace to arrive at the same time by boarding at the stop he claimed he had used, nowhere near the telephone box. These tests were not introduced as evidence at trial since, ultimately, the Crown offered nothing to controvert Wallace's assertion that he had boarded the tram elsewhere and did not make the phone call.
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William Herbert Wallace
William Herbert Wallace (29 August 1878 – 26 February 1933) was a British man convicted in 1931 of the murder of his wife, Julia, in their home in Wolverton Street in Liverpool's Anfield district. Wallace's conviction was later overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal, the first instance in British legal history where an appeal had been allowed after re-examination of evidence. The case, with its strange background, has long been the subject of speculation and has generated many books, being regarded internationally as a classic murder mystery.
William Herbert Wallace was born in Millom, Cumberland, in 1878; he was the eldest of three children born to Benjamin and Margery Wallace, having a younger brother and sister. On leaving school at age 14 he began training as a draper's assistant in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, and on finishing his apprenticeship he obtained a position in Manchester with Messrs Whiteway Laidlaw and Company, outfitters to the British Armed Forces and the Colonial, Indian and Diplomatic Services. In 1903, after five years' service, Wallace obtained a transfer to the company's branch in Calcutta, India, where he remained for two years. On the suggestion of his brother Joseph, who lived in Shanghai, Wallace sought another transfer to Whiteway Laidlaw's branch of that city in 1905.
A recurrent kidney complaint resulted in Wallace resigning his position and returning to England in 1907, where his left kidney was removed at Guy's Hospital. Little is recorded of his life after this time, until he obtained a position working for the Liberal Party in Harrogate, rising to the post of election agent in 1911. During his time in Harrogate, he met Julia Dennis (1861–1931), and they were married there in March 1914. All early sources suggested that Julia was approximately the same age as Wallace, but in 2001 James Murphy demonstrated from her original birth certificate that she was actually seventeen years older than he was. Julia's father was a destitute alcoholic farmer from near Northallerton, who had died in 1875, leaving her an orphan at the age of 13. In later life Julia exaggerated her antecedents, claiming her father had been a veterinary surgeon and her mother French.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the position of Liberal election agent in Harrogate was discontinued, owing to the suspension of elections and a parliamentary truce, and Wallace once again found himself looking for a job. Through the help of his father, he obtained a position as a collections agent with the Prudential Assurance Company in Liverpool. The Wallaces moved there in 1915, settling at 29 Wolverton Street in the district of Anfield. During the 1920s, Wallace supplemented his comfortable but mundane existence as a collections agent, working exclusively in the neighbouring Clubmoor district, by lecturing part-time in chemistry at Liverpool Technical College. His hobbies included chemistry, botany and chess, and in 1928 he learned to play the violin to enable him to accompany Julia, who was an accomplished pianist, in "musical evenings" at their home at Wolverton Street.
On the evening of Monday 19 January 1931, Wallace, aged 52, attended a meeting of the Liverpool Central Chess Club to play a scheduled chess game. While there he was handed a message, which had been received by telephone about twenty-five minutes before he arrived. It requested that he call at an address at 25 Menlove Gardens East, Liverpool, at 7.30 pm the following evening to discuss insurance with a man who had given his name as "R. M. Qualtrough".
The following night, Wallace duly made his way by tramcar to the south of the city at the time requested, only to discover that while there were Menlove Gardens North, South and West, there was no East. He called at 25 Menlove Gardens West, and asked several passers-by in the neighbourhood for directions, but to no avail. Wallace also spoke to a policeman on his beat, and made inquiries in a nearby newsagent's, but nobody he asked was able to help him in his search for the address or the mysterious Qualtrough.
After searching the district for about forty-five minutes, Wallace returned home. Neighbours John and Florence Johnston were heading out for the evening when they encountered Wallace in the back alleyway, complaining that he could not gain entry to his home at either the front or the back. While they watched, Wallace tried the back door again, which now opened. Inside he found his wife, Julia, had been brutally beaten to death in their sitting room.
Up to his arrest two weeks later, Wallace made four voluntary statements. While he was never intensively questioned by police, he was required to attend CID headquarters every day and was asked specific questions about whether the Wallaces had a maid, why he had subsequently asked the man who had taken the telephone message at the chess club to be specific about the time he took it and whether he had spoken to anyone in the street on his way back to his house from his abortive attempt to find Mr. Qualtrough. Police had evidence that the telephone box used by "Qualtrough" to make his call to the chess club was situated just 400 yards (370 m) from Wallace's home, although the person in the café who took the call was quite certain it was not Wallace on the other end of the line. Nevertheless, police began to suspect that "Qualtrough" and Wallace were the same man. Wallace's legal team conducted timing tests that showed it was possible for someone to have made the call, catch a tram and arrive at the chess club when Wallace did, and it was equally possible for Wallace to arrive at the same time by boarding at the stop he claimed he had used, nowhere near the telephone box. These tests were not introduced as evidence at trial since, ultimately, the Crown offered nothing to controvert Wallace's assertion that he had boarded the tram elsewhere and did not make the phone call.