William Herbert Wallace
Encyclopedia
William Herbert Wallace (29 August 1878 – 26 February 1933) was convicted in 1931 of the murder of his wife Julia in their home in Wolverton Street in Liverpool
's Anfield
district. His 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.
, Cumberland
in 1878. He had a younger brother and sister. On leaving school at fourteen he began training as a draper's assistant in Barrow-in-Furness
. On finishing his apprenticeship he obtained a position in Manchester
with Messrs Whiteway Laidlaw and Company, outfitters to Her Majesty's Armed Forces and the Colonial, Indian and Foreign 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
, in 1905 Wallace sought another transfer to Whiteway Laidlaw's branch in that city.
Unfortunately, a recurrent kidney complaint resulted in Wallace resigning his position and returning from China
to England in 1907, where his left kidney was removed at Guy's Hospital
. Little is recorded of Wallace's 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, and they were married there in March 1914. All early sources suggested that Julia was approximately the same age as Wallace, but in 2001 evidence came to light that she was actually seventeen years older than he was.
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 collections agent with the Prudential Assurance Company
in Liverpool
. The Wallaces moved to Liverpool in 1915, where they were to spend the remainder of their lives, settling in the district of Anfield
. During the 1920s, Wallace supplemented his comfortable but mundane existence as collections agent by lecturing part-time in Chemistry
at Liverpool Technical College
. His hobbies revolved around botany
, chemistry and chess
, and he also obtained lessons in the violin
to enable him to accompany Julia, who was an accomplished pianist
, in "musical evenings" at their home at 29 Wolverton Street, Anfield.
Chess Club
on the evening of Monday 19 January 1931, to play a scheduled chess game. While there he was handed a message, which had been received by telephone about 25 minutes before he arrived. It requested that he call at an address at 25 Menlove Gardens East, Liverpool, at 7.30pm the following evening to discuss insurance with a man who had given his name as "R.M. Qualtrough".
The next night Wallace duly made his way by tramcar
to the address in 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. Wallace made inquiries in a nearby newsagents and also spoke to a policeman on his beat, but neither were able to help him in his search for the address or the mysterious Qualtrough. He also called at 25 Menlove Gardens West, and asked several other passers-by in the neighbourhood for directions, but to no avail. After searching the district for about 45 minutes he returned home. His next door neighbours, the Johnstons, who were going out for the evening, encountered Wallace in the alley, 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
.
The police were also convinced that it would have been possible, just, for Wallace to murder his wife and still have time to arrive at the spot where he boarded his tram. This they attempted to prove by having a fit young detective go through the motions of the murder and then sprint all the way to the tram stop, something an ailing 52-year-old Wallace could probably not have accomplished.
Forensic examination of the crime scene had revealed that Julia Wallace's attacker was likely to have been heavily contaminated with her blood, given the brutal and frenzied nature of the assault. Wallace's suit, which he had been wearing on the night of the murder, was examined closely but no trace of bloodstaining was found. The Police formed the theory that a mackintosh
, which was unexplainedly found under Julia's corpse, had in fact been used by a naked Wallace to shield himself from blood spatter while committing the crime. Examination of the bath and drains revealed that they had not been recently used, and there was no trace of blood there either, apart from a single tiny clot in the toilet pan, the origin of which could not be established.
. Despite the evidence against him being purely circumstantial, and the statement of a local milk delivery boy — who was certain he had spoken to Julia Wallace only minutes before her husband would have had to leave to catch his tram — Wallace was found guilty after an hour's deliberation, and sentenced to death.
In an unprecedented move, the Court of Criminal Appeal
quashed the verdict on the grounds that it was "not supported by the weight of the evidence", and Wallace walked free. The decision meant that the jury was wrong — appeals are usually brought on the basis of bad decisions by the presiding judge at the original trial, or by the emergence of new evidence.
After his successful appeal, (1931) 23 Cr App Rep 32, Wallace returned to his job in insurance but ill health and a whispering campaign led to his retirement, and he moved to the Wirral
, dying in 1933 in Clatterbridge Hospital.
No other person was charged with the murder and it remains officially unsolved.
demeanor throughout, the chess-like quality of the puzzle, and the fact that almost every piece of evidence could be interpreted in two ways, pointing equally to Wallace's guilt or innocence.
In 1980, Roger Wilkes, a news editor, investigated the case for a radio programme. He learned that Goodman's suspect had given the police an alibi for the time of Julia's murder. The alibi had been a woman to whom he was engaged, but, after being jilted, she offered to swear to Wallace's solicitor that the alibi had been false. Wilkes also discovered that, on the night of the murder, the man had visited a local garage. He'd used a high-pressure hose to wash down his car and a mechanic at the garage had noticed that one of his gloves was soaked in blood.
Wilkes's book named the suspect as Richard Gordon Parry, a junior employee at Wallace's insurance firm. Parry was a petty criminal aged 22 who was always short of money. Wilkes's case is that Parry knew that Wallace's insurance takings for the day would have been in a cash box at Wallace's home. Since he also knew Mrs Wallace personally it would have been no trouble to visit her on some pretext once Wallace had been lured out of the house by means of the phone call sending him to a non-existent address. The murder of Julia Wallace for the insurance takings was somewhat in vain as there was very little in the cash-box that day. Parry was seen by the police as part of their investigations but given a false alibi by his girlfriend.
The case against Parry is much stronger than that against Wallace, and ascribes a more convincing motive (although recent speculation has centered around the possibility that Parry had an unknown accomplice who entered the house and murdered Julia). There was witness evidence of a blood-stained glove found in Parry's car on the night of the murder, when he took his car to a local garage for cleaning. The evidence from the man who cleaned the car was deliberately suppressed by the police at the time. Wilkes argues that there was, moreover, no motive or reason for Wallace to kill his own wife, and that he was charged because the immense publicity surrounding the case impelled the police to get a conviction at any cost. Parry died in 1980 without admitting any involvement in the crime. However, when Jonathan Goodman confronted him on his London doorstep in 1966, Parry displayed an astonishingly detailed knowledge of the case, and was aware of the deaths of several obscure witnesses connected with the case.
Parry may have been suspected long before Goodman or Wilkes began their investigations. In 1934 author Winifred Duke made oblique reference to the name of the killer as 'Harris', a common Welsh surname which just happens to be a cognate
of Parry.
parallels the fictional murder of Lady Ralston with the real-life Wallace case. In the novel Lady Ralston dies a similar death to Julia Wallace (battered face) which leads the police to suspect her husband, Sir George Ralston. The presiding officer refers to the Wallace case to suggest that we should learn from Herbert's appeal that it is not always wise to initially place guilt upon the husband. James also directly refers to the Wallace case in The Murder Room
, a book in her Adam Dalgliesh
series.
The premise of Charlaine Harris
's first Aurora Teagarden
mystery, Real Murders
, is that of a serial killer imitating old murders. The first victim is killed and staged to resemble the Julia Wallace murder scene down to the rain coat beneath the body.
television station ABV-2
, airing on November 20th 1957.
A highly-regarded drama-documentary, Who killed Julia Wallace?, was made by Yorkshire TV in 1975, with Eric Longworth
playing William Herbert Wallace.
Another TV drama based on the case, The Man from the Pru, was made in 1990, starring Jonathan Pryce
, Anna Massey
, Susannah York
and Tom Georgeson
. It strongly hints at Parry's guilt.
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
's Anfield
Anfield, Liverpool
Anfield is a district of Liverpool, Merseyside, England and a Liverpool City Council Ward.-Toponymy:Originally common pasture land, the area had the name of Hanging-fields or Hangfield - the name originating from the deeply sloping nature of the terrain. The name was also frequently written as...
district. His conviction was later overturned by the Court Of Criminal Appeal
Court of Appeal of England and Wales
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales is the second most senior court in the English legal system, with only the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom above it...
, the first instance in British legal history
Legal history
Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilizations and is set in the wider context of social 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.
Background
William Herbert Wallace was born in MillomMillom
Millom is a town and civil parish on the estuary of the River Duddon in the southwest of Cumbria, England. The name is Cumbrian dialect for "At the mills". The town is accessible both by rail and an A class road...
, Cumberland
Cumberland
Cumberland is a historic county of North West England, on the border with Scotland, from the 12th century until 1974. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 and now forms part of Cumbria....
in 1878. He had a younger brother and sister. On leaving school at fourteen he began training as a draper's assistant in Barrow-in-Furness
Barrow-in-Furness
Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...
. On finishing his apprenticeship he obtained a position in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
with Messrs Whiteway Laidlaw and Company, outfitters to Her Majesty's Armed Forces and the Colonial, Indian and Foreign Services. In 1903, after five years service, Wallace obtained a transfer to the company's branch in Calcutta, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, where he remained for two years. On the suggestion of his brother, Joseph, who lived in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, in 1905 Wallace sought another transfer to Whiteway Laidlaw's branch in that city.
Unfortunately, a recurrent kidney complaint resulted in Wallace resigning his position and returning from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
to England in 1907, where his left kidney was removed at Guy's Hospital
Guy's Hospital
Guy's Hospital is a large NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in south east London, England. It is administratively a part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. It is a large teaching hospital and is home to the King's College London School of Medicine...
. Little is recorded of Wallace's life after this time, until he obtained a position working for the Liberal party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
in Harrogate
Harrogate
Harrogate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, England. The town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters, RHS Harlow Carr gardens, and Betty's Tea Rooms. From the town one can explore the nearby Yorkshire Dales national park. Harrogate originated in the 17th...
, rising to the post of election agent in 1911. During his time in Harrogate he met Julia Dennis, and they were married there in March 1914. All early sources suggested that Julia was approximately the same age as Wallace, but in 2001 evidence came to light that she was actually seventeen years older than he was.
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 collections agent with the Prudential Assurance Company
Prudential plc
Prudential plc is a multinational financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom.Prudential's largest division is Prudential Corporation Asia, which has over 15 million customers across 13 Asian markets and is a top-three provider of life insurance in mainland China, Hong...
in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. The Wallaces moved to Liverpool in 1915, where they were to spend the remainder of their lives, settling in the district of Anfield
Anfield, Liverpool
Anfield is a district of Liverpool, Merseyside, England and a Liverpool City Council Ward.-Toponymy:Originally common pasture land, the area had the name of Hanging-fields or Hangfield - the name originating from the deeply sloping nature of the terrain. The name was also frequently written as...
. During the 1920s, Wallace supplemented his comfortable but mundane existence as collections agent by lecturing part-time in Chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
at Liverpool Technical College
College of Technology and Museum Extension
The College of Technology and Museum Extension Byrom Street, Liverpool, England was built between 1896 and 1901, the architect was Edward William Mountford. The building was constructed to provide a new College of Technology and an extension to the museum...
. His hobbies revolved around botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
, chemistry and chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
, and he also obtained lessons in the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
to enable him to accompany Julia, who was an accomplished pianist
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, in "musical evenings" at their home at 29 Wolverton Street, Anfield.
The crime
Wallace attended a meeting of the LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
Chess Club
Chess club
A chess club is a club formed for the purpose of playing the board game of chess. Chess clubs provide for both informal games and timed games, often as part of an internal competition or in a league.-Organisation:...
on the evening of Monday 19 January 1931, to play a scheduled chess game. While there he was handed a message, which had been received by telephone about 25 minutes before he arrived. It requested that he call at an address at 25 Menlove Gardens East, Liverpool, at 7.30pm the following evening to discuss insurance with a man who had given his name as "R.M. Qualtrough".
The next night Wallace duly made his way by tramcar
Tramcar
The Tramcar is a trackless train service running on the Boardwalk in the Cape May County, New Jersey communities of Wildwood and North Wildwood. The service, which began on June 11, 1949, takes passengers along the two-mile long Wildwood boardwalk...
to the address in 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. Wallace made inquiries in a nearby newsagents and also spoke to a policeman on his beat, but neither were able to help him in his search for the address or the mysterious Qualtrough. He also called at 25 Menlove Gardens West, and asked several other passers-by in the neighbourhood for directions, but to no avail. After searching the district for about 45 minutes he returned home. His next door neighbours, the Johnstons, who were going out for the evening, encountered Wallace in the alley, 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
Living room
A living room, also known as sitting room, lounge room or lounge , is a room for entertaining adult guests, reading, or other activities...
.
The Investigation
Arrested two weeks later, Wallace was questioned at some length. The police had discovered that the telephone box used by "Qualtrough" to make his call to the chess club was just four hundred yards from Wallace's home, although the person in the cafe who took the call was quite certain it was not Wallace on the other end of the line. Nevertheless, the Police began to suspect that "Qualtrough" was in fact William Herbert Wallace.The police were also convinced that it would have been possible, just, for Wallace to murder his wife and still have time to arrive at the spot where he boarded his tram. This they attempted to prove by having a fit young detective go through the motions of the murder and then sprint all the way to the tram stop, something an ailing 52-year-old Wallace could probably not have accomplished.
Forensic examination of the crime scene had revealed that Julia Wallace's attacker was likely to have been heavily contaminated with her blood, given the brutal and frenzied nature of the assault. Wallace's suit, which he had been wearing on the night of the murder, was examined closely but no trace of bloodstaining was found. The Police formed the theory that a mackintosh
Mackintosh
The Mackintosh or Macintosh is a form of waterproof raincoat, first sold in 1824, made out of rubberised fabric...
, which was unexplainedly found under Julia's corpse, had in fact been used by a naked Wallace to shield himself from blood spatter while committing the crime. Examination of the bath and drains revealed that they had not been recently used, and there was no trace of blood there either, apart from a single tiny clot in the toilet pan, the origin of which could not be established.
Trial and Appeal
Wallace consistently denied having anything to do with the crime, but was charged with murder and stood trial at Liverpool's Crown CourtCrown Court
The Crown Court of England and Wales is, together with the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal, one of the constituent parts of the Senior Courts of England and Wales...
. Despite the evidence against him being purely circumstantial, and the statement of a local milk delivery boy — who was certain he had spoken to Julia Wallace only minutes before her husband would have had to leave to catch his tram — Wallace was found guilty after an hour's deliberation, and sentenced to death.
In an unprecedented move, the Court of Criminal Appeal
Court of Criminal Appeal
The Court of Criminal Appeal is the name of existing courts of Scotland and Ireland, and an historic court in England and Wales.- Ireland :See Court of Criminal Appeal ...
quashed the verdict on the grounds that it was "not supported by the weight of the evidence", and Wallace walked free. The decision meant that the jury was wrong — appeals are usually brought on the basis of bad decisions by the presiding judge at the original trial, or by the emergence of new evidence.
After his successful appeal, (1931) 23 Cr App Rep 32, Wallace returned to his job in insurance but ill health and a whispering campaign led to his retirement, and he moved to the Wirral
Wirral Peninsula
Wirral or the Wirral is a peninsula in North West England. It is bounded by three bodies of water: to the west by the River Dee, forming a boundary with Wales, to the east by the River Mersey and to the north by the Irish Sea. Both terms "Wirral" and "the Wirral" are used locally , although the...
, dying in 1933 in Clatterbridge Hospital.
No other person was charged with the murder and it remains officially unsolved.
In popular culture
Since the murder various people have investigated the case, a few convinced of Wallace's guilt, most of the others of his innocence. Several features of the case have captured the imaginations of a host of crime-writers; Wallace's stoicSTOIC
STOIC was a variant of Forth.It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs...
demeanor throughout, the chess-like quality of the puzzle, and the fact that almost every piece of evidence could be interpreted in two ways, pointing equally to Wallace's guilt or innocence.
Quotes
- 'This murder, I should imagine, must be almost unexampled in the annals of crime . . . murder so devised and arranged that nothing remains which will point to anyone as the murderer.' (Mr. Justice WrightRobert Wright, Baron WrightRobert Alderson Wright, Baron Wright, GCMG, PC was a British judge.On 11 April 1932, he was appointed Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and was created additionally a life peer with the title Baron Wright, of Durley in the County of Wiltshire, however resgined as Lord of Appeal already in 1935...
, summing-up in R v Wallace)
- 'The Wallace murder had no key-move and ended, in fact, in stalemate.’ (Dorothy L. SayersDorothy L. SayersDorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages...
in The Anatomy of Murder)
- 'It was planned with extreme care and extraordinary imagination. Either the murderer was Wallace or it wasn’t. If it wasn’t, then here at last is the perfect murder.' (James AgateJames AgateJames Evershed Agate was a British diarist and critic. In the period between the wars, he was one of Britain's most influential theatre critics...
in Ego 6)
- ‘Almost every fact in the evidence was accepted by both prosecution and defence; but every fact could be interpreted in two ways.’ (John RowlandJohn RowlandJohn Rowland may refer to:*John Rowland , English footballer*John Rowland , Welsh footballer*John A. Rowland California pioneer*John G. Rowland , American Governor of Connecticut...
in The Wallace Case)
- ‘Whoever killed Mrs Wallace attained a distinction accorded to few murderers. His was the perfect crime, undetected, unexplained, motiveless, unavenged.’ (Winifred Duke in Six Trials)
- ‘The case began to assume the unique character for which it is famous; it was not so much that the weight of the evidence swung evenly from one side to the other, it was that the entire evidence pointed equally convincingly in both directions.’ (F. Tennyson Jesse in Checkmate)
- '[The Wallace case] is more than a classic, it is the classic of criminology.' (John Brophy in The Meaning of Murder)
- ‘... as a mental exercise, as a challenge to one’s powers of deduction and analysis, the Wallace murder is in a class by itself. It has all the maddening, frustrating fascination of a chess problem that ends in perpetual check. ... Any set of circumstances that is extracted from it will readily support two incompatible hypotheses; they will be equally consistent with innocence and guilt. It is pre-eminently the case where everything is cancelled out by something else.’ (Edgar LustgartenEdgar LustgartenEdgar Marcus Lustgarten was a British broadcaster and noted crime writer.His books included crime fiction, but most were accounts of true-life criminal cases. The legal justice system and courtroom procedures were his main interests and his writings reflect this...
in Verdict in Dispute)
- ‘The Wallace case is the nonpareil of all murder mysteries ... I call it the impossible murder because Wallace couldn’t have done it, and neither could anyone else. ... The Wallace case is unbeatable; it will always be unbeatable.’ (Raymond ChandlerRaymond ChandlerRaymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
, in Raymond Chandler Speaking)
- `Still unsolved, fascinating its permutations absolutely typical of the 1930s. Couldn't have happened at any other time, not in precisely the way it did happen... What is interesting is that the evidence, such as it was, could support either the prosecution or the defence depending on how you chose to look at it.′ (P. D. JamesP. D. JamesPhyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, OBE, FRSA, FRSL , commonly known as P. D. James, is an English crime writer and Conservative life peer in the House of Lords, most famous for a series of detective novels starring policeman and poet Adam Dalgliesh.-Life and career:James...
in The Murder RoomThe Murder RoomThe Murder Room is a 2003 detective novel and the 12th in the Adam Dalgliesh series by P. D. James. It takes place in London, particularly the Dupayne Museum on the edge of Hampstead Heath in the London Borough of Camden....
, through character Conrad Ackroyd).
- ‘The Wallace case of 1931 is regarded as the classic English whodunnit, a labyrinth of clues and false trails leading everywhere except, it seems, to the identity of the murderer... The setting is wintrily provincial, the milieu lower middle-class, the style threadbare domestic. J.B. Priestley's fog-filled Liverpool remembrance of "trams going whining down long sad roads" is the quintessence of it. Events turn tantalisingly on finical questions of time and distance; knuckle-headed police jostle with whistling street urchins for star billing, while at the centre of the drama stands the scrawny, inscrutable figure of the accused man, William Herbert Wallace, the Man from The Pru...' (Roger Wilkes, editor, The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes, 2005)
The real murderer?
Crime writer Jonathan Goodman made inquiries which led him to a man who had worked with Wallace at the Prudential. This man had been sacked for stealing money and he had a record of various petty crimes. He knew Julia Wallace well. Goodman mentioned him, but not by name, in his book The Killing of Julia Wallace.In 1980, Roger Wilkes, a news editor, investigated the case for a radio programme. He learned that Goodman's suspect had given the police an alibi for the time of Julia's murder. The alibi had been a woman to whom he was engaged, but, after being jilted, she offered to swear to Wallace's solicitor that the alibi had been false. Wilkes also discovered that, on the night of the murder, the man had visited a local garage. He'd used a high-pressure hose to wash down his car and a mechanic at the garage had noticed that one of his gloves was soaked in blood.
Wilkes's book named the suspect as Richard Gordon Parry, a junior employee at Wallace's insurance firm. Parry was a petty criminal aged 22 who was always short of money. Wilkes's case is that Parry knew that Wallace's insurance takings for the day would have been in a cash box at Wallace's home. Since he also knew Mrs Wallace personally it would have been no trouble to visit her on some pretext once Wallace had been lured out of the house by means of the phone call sending him to a non-existent address. The murder of Julia Wallace for the insurance takings was somewhat in vain as there was very little in the cash-box that day. Parry was seen by the police as part of their investigations but given a false alibi by his girlfriend.
The case against Parry is much stronger than that against Wallace, and ascribes a more convincing motive (although recent speculation has centered around the possibility that Parry had an unknown accomplice who entered the house and murdered Julia). There was witness evidence of a blood-stained glove found in Parry's car on the night of the murder, when he took his car to a local garage for cleaning. The evidence from the man who cleaned the car was deliberately suppressed by the police at the time. Wilkes argues that there was, moreover, no motive or reason for Wallace to kill his own wife, and that he was charged because the immense publicity surrounding the case impelled the police to get a conviction at any cost. Parry died in 1980 without admitting any involvement in the crime. However, when Jonathan Goodman confronted him on his London doorstep in 1966, Parry displayed an astonishingly detailed knowledge of the case, and was aware of the deaths of several obscure witnesses connected with the case.
Parry may have been suspected long before Goodman or Wilkes began their investigations. In 1934 author Winifred Duke made oblique reference to the name of the killer as 'Harris', a common Welsh surname which just happens to be a cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
of Parry.
Fiction
P.D. James's 1982 crime fiction novel The Skull Beneath the SkinThe Skull Beneath the Skin
The Skull Beneath The Skin is a 1982 detective novel by P. D. James, featuring her female private detective Cordelia Gray. The novel is set in a reconstructed Victorian castle on the fictional Courcy Island on the Dorset coast and centers around actress Clarissa Lisle who is to play John Webster's...
parallels the fictional murder of Lady Ralston with the real-life Wallace case. In the novel Lady Ralston dies a similar death to Julia Wallace (battered face) which leads the police to suspect her husband, Sir George Ralston. The presiding officer refers to the Wallace case to suggest that we should learn from Herbert's appeal that it is not always wise to initially place guilt upon the husband. James also directly refers to the Wallace case in The Murder Room
The Murder Room
The Murder Room is a 2003 detective novel and the 12th in the Adam Dalgliesh series by P. D. James. It takes place in London, particularly the Dupayne Museum on the edge of Hampstead Heath in the London Borough of Camden....
, a book in her Adam Dalgliesh
Adam Dalgliesh
Adam Dalgliesh is a fictional character who has been the protagonist of fourteen mystery novels by P. D. James. Dalgliesh first appeared in James's 1962 novel Cover Her Face and has appeared in a number of subsequent novels.-Character:...
series.
The premise of Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing mysteries for over twenty years. She was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area of the United States. She now lives in southern Arkansas with her husband and three children...
's first Aurora Teagarden
Aurora Teagarden
Aurora Teagarden is a fictional character created by author Charlaine Harris, in a series of eight Crime novels written from 1990 to 2003.In the first book of the series, twenty-eight-year-old Aurora Teagarden is a professional librarian and belongs to the Real Murders club, a group of 12...
mystery, Real Murders
Real Murders
Released in 1990, Real Murders, is the first of eight in the Aurora Teagarden mysteries by Charlaine Harris, best known for her Sookie Stackhouse mysteries on which the popular HBO television show "True Blood" is based.-Plot summary:...
, is that of a serial killer imitating old murders. The first victim is killed and staged to resemble the Julia Wallace murder scene down to the rain coat beneath the body.
Television
A television play based upon the case, "Killer In Close-Up: The Wallace Case", written by George F. Kerr, was produced by MelbourneMelbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
television station ABV-2
ABV (TV station)
ABV is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television station in Melbourne, Victoria. The station began broadcasting on 19 November 1956 and is transmitted throughout the state via a network of relay transmitters and also ABV is the second television station in Victoria with HSV-7 which...
, airing on November 20th 1957.
A highly-regarded drama-documentary, Who killed Julia Wallace?, was made by Yorkshire TV in 1975, with Eric Longworth
Eric Longworth
Eric Longworth was a British actor, best known for his semi-regular part in Dad's Army as Mr. Gordon, the town clerk of Walmington-on-Sea....
playing William Herbert Wallace.
Another TV drama based on the case, The Man from the Pru, was made in 1990, starring Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
, Anna Massey
Anna Massey
Anna Raymond Massey, CBE was an English actress. She won a BAFTA Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner’s novel Hotel du Lac.-Early life:...
, Susannah York
Susannah York
Susannah York was a British film, stage and television actress. She was awarded a BAFTA as Best Supporting Actress for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for the same film. She won best actress for Images at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival...
and Tom Georgeson
Tom Georgeson
Tom Georgeson is a British actor, known for his television and film work. His most notable credits have been supporting parts in Between The Lines and in three dramas by Alan Bleasdale; Boys from the Blackstuff Scully and G.B.H....
. It strongly hints at Parry's guilt.
External links
- Verdict in Dispute by Edgar LustgartenEdgar LustgartenEdgar Marcus Lustgarten was a British broadcaster and noted crime writer.His books included crime fiction, but most were accounts of true-life criminal cases. The legal justice system and courtroom procedures were his main interests and his writings reflect this...
, online copy at The Internet Archive - Chess and the Wallace Murder Case by Edward WinterEdward Winter (chess historian)Edward Winter is an English journalist, archivist, historian, collector and author about the game of chess. He writes a regular column on that subject, Chess Notes, and is also a regular columnist for ChessBase.-Chess Notes:...
at www.chesshistory.com - Inside story: 29 Wolverton Street Daily Telegraph article, 12 May 2001
- Riddle of the Man from the Pru Liverpool EchoLiverpool EchoThe Liverpool Echo is a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is published Monday to Saturday, and is Liverpool's evening newspaper while its sister paper, the Liverpool Daily Post, is the morning paper...
newspaper link - Juliawallace at www.geocities.com
- Life After Trial Murder and William Herbert Wallace Part 1 at www.trivia-library.com - TV drama based on the case.
- Julia and William Wallace's grave at Anfield CemeteryAnfield CemeteryAnfield Cemetery, also known as the City of Liverpool Cemetery, is on Priory Road, Anfield, Liverpool, England .It covers an area of some and includes axial and circular paths, two chapels and a Gothic style catacomb. The layout of the cemetery was designed by Edward Kemp.The cemetery is adjacent...
- 29 Wolverton Street, Anfield at Google Streetview
- 1949 recording of Music, Murder and a Mackintosh, episode from the radio series The Secrets of Scotland Yard, narrated by Clive Brook
- 1952 recording of The Raincoat, episode from the radio series The Black MuseumThe Black MuseumThe Black Museum was a 1951 radio crime drama program independently produced by Harry Alan Towers and based on real-life cases from the files of Scotland Yard's Black Museum. Ira Marion was the scriptwriter, and music for the series was composed and conducted by Sidney Torch...
, narrated by Orson WellesOrson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
(names of the characters changed) - Case Discussion at Yo! Liverpool Forum & Community