William Wallace, Baron Wallace of Saltaire

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William Wallace, Baron Wallace of Saltaire (born in Leicester on March 12th 1941) is a British academic, writer and politician.

Wallace attended Kings College Cambridge beginning in 1959, majoring in History. While attending Cambridge Wallace joined all three political clubs but decided that the Liberal party was the most attractive. In 1961 he was elected Vice-President of the club and later became its President. Following graduation from Cambridge Wallace studied for three years at Cornell University in the USA and then finished his PhD at Oxford with his doctoral thesis on the Liberal Revival of 1955-66. While attending Oxford Wallace met his wife Helen, who was President of the Liberal Club.

In the 1966 General Election Wallace served as the Liberal party's Assistant Press Officer, responsible for Jo Grimond's press activities. The following year he served as a lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of Manchester. Remaining active in Liberal politics he fought in five parliamentary elections in Huddersfield West in 1970, Manchester Moss Side in February and October 1974, and Shipley in 1983 and 1987. Wallace also served as a speechwriter for David Steel and as vice-chairman of the Standing Committee 1977-87. In the 1979 election Wallace co-wrote the election manifesto and did so again in 1997.

Wallace was made a Peer in 1995 and became a spokesman on Foreign Affairs and Defence. In 1997 Wallace became a member of the Select Committee on the European Communities and Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Justice and Home Affairs. In 2001 Wallace became the Party's main frontbench spokesperson in the Lords on Foreign Affairs and in November 2004 was elected joint Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat Peers.

Wallace has also served as Director of Studies of the Royal Institute of International Affairs 1978-1990. From 1990 to 1995 Wallace was the Walter Hallstein Senior Research Fellow at St. Anthony's College, Oxford and since 1995 has been a Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics. Wallace is the author of several books, including The Transformation of Western Europe (1990) and Why Vote Liberal Democrat (1997), written for the general election of 1997. Lord Wallace and his wife have also jointly published several editions of Policy-Making in the European Union; the couple have one son and one daughter.

He is currently Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat group in the House of Lords. He was made a Life Peer as Baron Wallace of Saltaire, of Shipley in the County of West Yorkshire in 1995. He should not in any way be confused with William Wallace, the 13th century Scottish hero.