John Peter Richard Wallis


John Peter Richard Wallis OBE MA was a British-born South African biographer and historian. He was the child of John and Hannah Wallis of Meliden Road, Fairfield, Liverpool. His father is noted as being a joiner in John Peter Richard Wallis's baptism record of 1 August 1880 at All Saints Church, Old Swan, Lancs.
Wallis married Mable Margaret Pugmire in Fairfield St John the Divine, Edge Hill, Lancashire, England on 29th July 1908 and had 2 children with her John Macintyre Wallis and Joyce Wallis. He served in the military 1899-1904 and then again in 1915-1916.
Wallis was appointed as professor of English language and literature at the University of Pretoria in 1917, a post he held until 1943. During this period he was also Dean of the Faculty of Art for five years. In 1943 he was asked by the Southern Rhodesian government to put in order their historical archives in Salisbury. In May 1956 he was awarded an OBE "for public services to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, especially in the editing of documents published by the Central African Archives."
Wallis was married to Dora Mary Fisher, a 33-year-old spinster, on 26 January 1929 at Christ Church, Arcadia in Pretoria by the Dean of the Church of England in Pretoria, the Very Rev. C.R. Rumbold. Wallis was recorded as being a widower living at 892 Schoeman St, Pretoria.
He retired to England in 1950 and died in Finchingfield in Essex in September 1957.

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