Donald Mackenzie Wallace

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Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace was a British editor and foreign correspondent of The Times of London. He contributed briefly to the editing of the 10th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. However, in 1902, he was taken from his Britannica duties by the Prince of Wales, George V of the United Kingdom, who commanded Wallace's attendance for a world tour.^[1]

1 Early Life
2 Travels to Russia
3 Foreign Correspondent
4 Political Officer
5 Later Life
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Early Life

Donald Mackenzie Wallace was born on November 11, 1841 to father Robert Wallace of Boghead, Dunbartonshire and mother Sarah Mackenzie. Both his parents died before Donald turned 10 years old. By the age of fifteen, Wallace immersed himself in his studies. He spent all his time before the age of twenty-eight in continuous study at various universities such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, focusing his study on metaphysics and ethics. He spent the remaining years at the École de Droit, Paris, and applied himself to Roman law at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, graduating with a doctorate in Law from Heidelberg in 1867.

[edit] Travels to Russia

Wallace accepted a private invitation to visit Russia, having a strong desire to study the Ossetes, an Aryan tribe in the Caucasus. Living in Russia from early 1870 until late 1875, Wallace found the Russian civilization far more interesting than his original Aryan Ossetes. Wallace returned to England in 1876 and published two volumes in his work Russia by 1877, right before the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War. His book had great success, going through several edition transformations and translated into many languages.

[edit] Foreign Correspondent

Due to the success of his work Russia, Wallace was appointed as foreign correspondent of The Times. His correspondent role was first represented at St. Petersburg in 1877-8, again at the Berlin Congress in June and July 1878. His role at the Berlin Congress was significant when assisting Henri de Blowitz the famous Paris correspondent of The Times and carried the text of the treaty from Berlin to Brussels sewn into the lining of his greatcoat. Other notable foreign correspondence is in Constantinople from 1878-1884. When working in Constantinople, Wallace investigated the Balkan peoples and their problems and ended up going on a special mission to Egypt. The outcome of Wallace's mission to Egypt became another successful book, Egypt and the Egyptian Question in 1883.

[edit] Political Officer

After traveling through the Middle East, Wallace was selected as the tsarevich, or political officer of Tsar Nicholas II in his Indiian tour of 1890-91.

[edit] Later Life

In his last years Wallace reverted to his youthful self and devoted himself to study again. He didn't publish anything after his last book The Web of Empire in 1902. He never married during his life and died at Lymington, Hampshire on January 10, 1919.

[edit] References

G. E. Buckle, ‘Wallace, Sir Donald Mackenzie (1841–1919)’, rev. H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 28 Oct 2007

^ (1968) Banquet at Guildhall in the City of London, Tuesday 15 October 1968: Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Encyclopædia Britannica and the 25th Anniversary of the Honorable William Benton as its Chairman and Publisher. United Kingdom: Encyclopædia Britannica International, Ltd..