Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/152

 WALLIS, JOHN (1789–1866), topographer, born in Fore Street, Bodmin, on 11 April 1789, was the son of John Wallis (1759–1842), attorney and town clerk of Bodmin, by his wife Isabella Mary, daughter of Henry Slogget, purser in the royal navy. He was educated at Tiverton grammar school, and afterwards articled to his father. After being admitted a solicitor and proctor he matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford, on 17 Dec. 1813, graduating B.A. on 7 July 1820, and M.A. on 20 March 1821. On completing his residence at Oxford he was ordained in 1817, and was appointed vicar of Bodmin on 17 Nov. of the same year. He was a capital burgess of the borough, and served the office of mayor in 1822. In 1840 he became an official of the archdeacon of Cornwall, a post which he retained till his death.

Wallis was an ardent topographer, and executed several maps and plans of Bodmin and the surrounding districts. His first publication was a reprint of the index to Thomas Martyn's ‘Map of the County of Cornwall,’ to which he appended a short account of the archdeaconry of Cornwall (London, 1816, 8vo). In 1825 he published thirteen outline maps of the archdeaconry and county of Cornwall, on the scale of four miles to the inch. Between 1831 and 1834 he published several reports and tables dealing with Bodmin borough, and between 1827 and 1838 he published in twenty parts ‘The Bodmin Register,’ containing elaborate collections relating to the past and present state of the borough, besides particulars concerning the county, archdeaconry, parliamentary districts, and poor-law unions of Cornwall. He projected also an ‘Exeter Register,’ to comprise the rest of the see. The first part was published in 1831, but no more appeared. In 1847 and 1848 he brought out the ‘Cornwall Register,’ in twelve parts, which contained particulars concerning the Cornish parishes, and was accompanied by a map of Cornwall on the scale of four miles to an inch.

Wallis died at Bodmin vicarage, unmarried, on 6 Dec. 1866, and was buried at Berry cemetery on 11 Dec. Besides the works mentioned he was the author of a ‘Family Register’ (1827, 12mo), and of several small pamphlets, chiefly on topographical subjects.

[Wallis's Works; Gent. Mag. 1867, i. 124; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Foster's Index Eccles.; West Briton, 14 Dec. 1866; Boase's Account of the Families of Boase, 1876, p. 56.]  WALLIS, PROVO WILLIAM PARRY (1791–1892), admiral of the fleet and centenarian, only son of Provo Featherstone Wallis, chief clerk to the naval commissioner at Halifax, Nova Scotia, was born at Halifax on 12 April 1791. His mother was a daughter of William Lawlor, major in the 1st battalion of the Halifax regiment. It has been suggested that he was related to Captain Samuel Wallis [q. v.], which is not improbable. It is more certain that he was the grandson of Provo Wallis, a carpenter in the navy, who, after serving through the seven years' war, was in 1776 carpenter of the Eagle, the flagship of Lord Howe in North America, and appointed by him on 3 March 1778 to be master-shipwright of the naval yard established at New York. After the peace he was transferred to Halifax.

At an early age young Wallis was sent to England, and while there at school his name was borne on the books of several different ships on the Halifax station. He actually entered the navy in October 1804 on board the Cleopatra, a 32-gun frigate, commanded by Sir Robert Laurie. On her way out to the West Indies on 16 Feb. 1805 the Cleopatra, after a gallant action, was captured by the French 40-gun frigate Ville de Milan, which was herself so much damaged that a week later, 23 Feb., she surrendered without resistance to the 50-gun ship Leander. The Cleopatra was recaptured at the same time (, Naval History, iv. 26), and Laurie was reinstated in the command. Shortly afterwards Laurie was appointed to the Ville de Milan, commissioned as the Milan, and Wallis went out with him. In November 1806 he was appointed acting-lieutenant of the Triumph, with Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy [q. v.], and on 30 Nov. 1808 was officially promoted to be lieutenant of the Curieux brig, which a year later, 3 Nov. 1809, was wrecked on the coast of Guadeloupe. He was then appointed to the Gloire, and, after one or two other changes, was appointed in January 1812 to the Shannon, commanded by Captain (afterwards Sir) Philip Bowes Vere Broke [q. v.] He was second lieutenant of her in the brilliant capture of the Chesapeake on 1 June 1813, and, being left—by the death of the first lieutenant and Broke's dangerous wound—commanding officer, took the Shannon and her prize to Halifax. The prisoners, being considerably more numerous than the crew of the Shannon, were secured in handcuffs, which they themselves had provided. On 9 July Wallis was promoted to the rank of commander, and, returning to England in the Shannon in October, was appointed in Ja-