Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wallis, John (1789-1866)

732182Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 59 — Wallis, John (1789-1866)1899Edward Irving Carlyle

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.]

E. I. C.