My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

2 MY LIFErecovery from a dangerous illness, so that I also hadlittle opportunity of learning anything of our ancestorson the paternal side, more especially as my fatherseldom spoke of his youth, and I as a boy felt nointerest in his genealogy. Neither did my eldestbrother William—with whom I lived till I was of age—ever speak on the subject. The little I have gleanedwas from my sister Fanny and from a recent examinationof tombstones and parish registers, andespecially from an old Prayer-book {1723) whichbelonged to my grandfather Wallace, who hadregistered in it the dates of the births and baptismsof his two sons, while my father had continued theregister to include his own family of nine children, ofwhom I am the only survivor.My paternal grandfather was married at Hanworth,Middlesex, in 1765, and the parish register describeshim as William Wallace, of Hanworth, bachelor, andhis wife as Elizabeth Dilke, of Laleham, widow. Bothare buried in Laleham churchyard, where I presum.ethe former Mrs. Dilke had some family burial rights,as my grandfather's brother, George Wallace, is alsoburied there. The register at Hanworth contains norecord of my father's birth, but the church itself showsthat quite a small colony of Wallaces lived at Hanworth.On a long stone in the floor of the chancelis the name of James Wallace, Esq., who diedFebruary 7, 1778, aged 8y years. He was thereforethirty-five years older than my grandfather, and mayhave been his uncle. Then follows Admiral SirJames Wallace, who died on March 6, 1803, aged69 years ;and Frances Sleigh, daughter of theabove James Wallace, Esq., who died December 12,1820, aged 69 years.