WCP1431

(Copy letter from A. R. Wallace to Sydney C. Cockerell¹).

Broadstone, Wimborne.

July 2nd 1904.

Many thanks for your kindness in looking over the Wills. You did quite right to have a copy of my grandfather’s² Will, and also not to have a copy of James Wallace’s³will, as he is so chary of names. I never heard of a will in which legacies were left to so many people without names or descriptions! Did he not name Executors, and were they names Wallace or Greenall [sic] ? If neither, then of no importance.

Now I should be obliged if you would search for and read the Will of George Wallace,⁴ my grand-uncle, referred to in my grandfather’s Will, and also buried at Laleham, but I have not the date. But I presume you can find it without much trouble. Also of Mary Wallace⁵ buried at Hanworth — died Dec. 5th, 1812.

If neither of these give any clue to relationships with us, or with Wallaces in Scotland, then it is no good having them copied.

After these are exhausted there are one or two other Wills of other relatives I should be glad if you could find and look at.

I want to mention a curious fact which seems to have something to do with Francis Sleigh⁶ (née Gray), no doubt [2] as you suggest an illegitimate daughter of James Wallace. My son⁷ was living in Newcastle-on-Tyne two years ago in an Electrical Engineer’s Office — and there was there a young man about his own age who was so like him that frequently the one was mistaken for the other, even by persons who knew them both, or knew one of them.well. This gentleman’s name was Sleigh. But he does not know anything about any connection with the Wallace family — and the illegitimacy may account for that. It seems almost to prove a relationship of some kind between James Wallace and our family.

[1]¹

Broadstone, Wimborne

July 2^nd 1904

Many thanks for your kindness in looking over the will. You did quite right to have a copy of my Grandfather’s²Will, and also not to have a copy of James Wallace’s³ will, as he is so chary of names. I never heard of a will in which legacies were left to so many people without names or descriptions! Did he not name Executors, and were they names Wallace or Greenall? If neither, then of no importance.

Now I should be obliged if you would search for and read the Will of George Wallace,⁴ my grand-uncle, referred to in my grandfather’s Will, and also buried at Laleham, but I have not the date. But I presume you can find it without much trouble. Also of Mary Wallace⁵ buried at Hanworth — died Dec. 5. 1812.

If neither of these give any clue to relationships with us, or with Wallaces in Scotland, then it is no good having them copied.

After these are exhausted there are one or two other Wills of other relatives I should be glad if you could find and look at.

I had been asked to get particulars of some Wills at Somerset House, with a view to ARW’s autobiography.⁶

[2] July 2 1904 contd.

I want now to mention a curious fact which seems to have something to do with Francis Sleigh⁷ (née Gray), no doubt as you suggest an illegitimate daughter of James Wallace. My son⁸ was living in Newcastle-on-Tyne two years ago in an Electrical Engineer’s Office — and there was there a young man about his own age who was so like him that frequently the one was mistaken for the other, even by persons who knew them both, or knew one of them well. This gentleman’s name was Sleigh. But he does not know anything about any connection with the Wallace family — and the illegitimacy may account for that. It seems almost to prove a relationship of some kind between James Wallace and our family.

James Wallace d. Feb 7. 1778 ^{aged 86}. He left a daughter Frances Gray who m. William Sleigh & d. Dec 12 1820 aged 69. She & her father were buried at Hanworth, Middlesex.