nuary 1814 to the Snipe sloop. On 12 Aug. 1819 he was advanced to post rank.
From 1824 to 1826 he commanded the Niemen on the Halifax station; in 1838–9 the Madagascar in the West Indies and off Vera Cruz; and from 1843 to 1846 the Warspite in the Mediterranean. On 27 Aug. 1851 he was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, and in 1857 was appointed commander-in-chief on the south-east coast of South America, from which he was recalled on his promotion to be vice-admiral, 10 Sept. 1857. He had no further service, but was nominated a K.C.B. on 18 May 1860, promoted to be admiral on 2 March 1863; rear-admiral of the United Kingdom, 1869–70; vice-admiral of the United Kingdom, 1870–1876; G.C.B. 24 May 1873; admiral of the fleet, 11 Dec. 1877. By a special clause in Childers's retirement scheme of 1870 it was provided that the names of those old officers who had commanded a ship during the French war should be retained on the active list, and the few days that Wallis was in command of the Shannon brought him within this rule. His name was thus retained on the active list of the navy till his death. During the latter part of his life he resided mainly at Funtington, near Chichester, in full enjoyment of his faculties, and reading or writing with ease till a few months before the end. On his hundredth birthday (12 April 1891) he received congratulations by letter or telegram from very many, including one from the queen, from the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh, the mayor and corporation of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the captain and officers of the Shannon, then lying at Falmouth. He died on 13 Feb. 1892, and was buried with military honours at Funtington on 18 Feb. Wallis married first, on 19 Oct. 1817, Juliana, daughter of Archdeacon Roger Massey, by whom he had two daughters. He married, secondly, on 21 July 1849, Jemima Mary Gwyne, a daughter of General Sir Robert Thomas Wilson [q. v.], governor of Gibraltar.
[‘Admiral of the Fleet Sir Provo W. P. Wallis: a Memoir,’ by Dr. J. G. Brighton, 1892 (with portraits); O'Byrne's Nav. Biogr. Dict.; Royal Navy Lists.]
WALLIS, RALPH (d. 1669), nonconformist pamphleteer, known as ‘the Cobler of Gloucester,’ was, according to the minutes of the Gloucester corporation, admitted on 8 June 1648 ‘to keepe an English schoole at Trinity church’ (since demolished). On 5 Aug. 1651 the corporation paid the charges of his journey ‘to London about the city business.’ On 24 Sept. 1658 he was made a burgess and freeman of the city on the ground of his ‘many services.’ At the Restoration he appears as a pamphleteer of the Mar-Prelate type, attacking with rude jocular virulence the teaching and character of the conforming clergy. Adopting the sobriquet ‘Sil Awl’ (an anagram on Wallis), he called himself ‘the Cobler of Gloucester,’ and his pamphlets take the form of dialogues between ‘the Cobler’ and his wife. His earliest pamphlets appear to have borne the titles ‘Magna Charta’ and ‘Good News from Rome.’ On 18 Jan. 1664 he is reported as ‘lurking in London,’ under the alias of Gardiner; he lodged in the house of Thomas Rawson, journeyman shoemaker, in Little Britain, and employed himself in dispersing his pamphlets. Money for printing them was collected by James Forbes (1629?–1712) [q. v.], the independent. Correspondence between Wallis and his wife Elizabeth was intercepted. Two warrants (12 May and 20 June) were issued for his apprehension. In September his house at Gloucester and the houses of Toby Jordan, bookseller at Gloucester, and others, were searched for seditious books. On 28 Sept. (Sir) Roger L'Estrange [q. v.] wrote to Henry Bennet (afterwards Earl of Arlington) [q. v.] that he had Wallis in custody. On 1 Oct. Rawson, Wallis, and Forbes were examined by the privy council. Wallis admitted his authorship, and declared himself to be in religion ‘a Christian.’ He obtained his release, Sir Richard Browne (d. 1669) [q. v.] being his bail. In a petition to Arlington, Wallis affirmed that he ‘only touched the priests that they may learn better manners, and will scribble as much against fanatics, when the worm gets into his cracked pate, as it did when he wrote those books.’ In April 1665 he was examined before the privy council for a new pamphlet, ‘Magna Charta, or More News from Rome’ (the British Museum has a copy with title ‘Or Magna Charta; More News from Rome,’ 1666, 4to). On 15 April 1665 William Nicholson (1591–1672) [q. v.], bishop of Gloucester, wrote to Sheldon that, ‘though much favour had been shown him’ (he had specially attacked Nicholson), ‘he sells the books publicly in the town and elsewhere, and glories in them.’ In his last known pamphlet, ‘Room for the Cobler of Gloucester’ (1668, 4to), which L'Estrange calls (24 April 1668) ‘the damnedest thing has come out yet,’ he tells a story which is commonly regarded as the property of Maria Edgeworth [q. v.] ‘The Lord Bishop is much like that Hog, that, when some Children were eating Milk out of a Dish that stood upon a Stool, thrust his Snowt into
