William Euan Wallace (7 February 1927 – 4 February 1977) was a British leading socialite of the 1950s whose close friendship with Princess Margaret caused open speculation about a possible engagement.
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Background and early life
The Wallace family were inheritors of the fortune of William Baird and Company, a nineteenth century family firm of coal and ironmasters from Lanarkshire who became one of Britain’s richest families.
Wallace’s father, Euan Wallace was a Conservative MP and minister in the Chamberlain government. He married Lady Idina Sackville in 1913, retaining custody of their two sons following their divorce in 1919. He then remarried to Wallace’s mother Barbara Lutyens, the daughter of architect Edwin Lutyens in 1920. They had three sons, of whom Wallace was the youngest.
The Wallaces mingled with high society and associated with the British royal family. As a child he featured in society magazines and picnicked with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.
Euan Wallace died in 1941 following an operation. By August 1946, all four of Wallace’s servicemen brothers had died either in action in World War II or in active military service, leaving him the sole heir to the family’s fortune. In 1945, his mother remarried to American journalist and diplomat Herbert Agar
The family owned homes in Mayfair, London and “Beechwood”, near Petworth, Sussex. He was educated at Millfield School in Somerset and at Eton. He then worked in a Reading aircraft factory and became a private in the army. He attended University College Oxford, studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics and for a year was president of the Bullingdon club.
Career
Following university, Wallace joined merchant bank Robert Benson Lonsdale and Co. He left in 1953 to work for Silver City Airways as a customer enquires counter clerk, after walking in and asking for a job, explaining that meeting people was more important to him than figures in a ledger. He was later promoted to personal assistant to the chairman.
He was involved in fundraising for the charity Invalid Children’s Aid Association, which included organising charity dances at the Savoy Hotel and the socialite amateur theatre productions Lord and Lady Algy and The Frog (the latter of which audience member Noël Coward described as "one of the most fascinating exhibitions of incompetence, conceit and bloody impertinence that I have ever seen in my life").
In the 1960s, Wallace turned to a career in cattle farming, specialising in breeding Herefordshire bulls.
Wallace suffered from bouts of ill health throughout his life. There were unspecified liver and kidney ailments which led to increasingly frequent hospitalisations.
Fame
Wallace came to prominence in the early 1950s due to his association with Princess Margaret and as a mainstay of the group of young socialites known as the "Margaret Set."
Known for “charm that pops like a champagne cork”, the press chronicled his appearances at nightclubs, balls, race meetings and polo matches. He developed a diplomatic repartee with the press, supplying them with quips and deflecting rumours about his private life.
His dates with a variety of starlets of the time were covered, including actress Kay Kendall, models Fiona Campbell-Walter and Charlotte Bergsoe and actress Suzy Parker.
He was also sometimes linked romantically with his fellow Margaret Set friend Judy Montagu.
The press dubbed these purported romances the “Wallace Collection” after a museum in London. In 1952 it was rumoured he was engaged to Kendall and her biography noted that she had “entertained matrimonial thoughts” about him. He was also engaged to actress Sue Lloyd. The most frequent of such speculation concerned the likelihood of an engagement with Princess Margaret, which arose intermittently throughout the 1950s.
As her male companions married and Wallace was still seen accompanying Margaret, the press nicknamed him her “Old Faithful.”
Relationship with Princess Margaret
Wallace and Margaret knew each other from childhood. They socialised regularly in the late 1940s and were first linked romantically by the press in 1949, when Margaret twice stayed with his family in Sussex.
At first Wallace’s name was inconspicuous among a long list of hypothesised suitors, gradually gaining prominence. When she extended a stay at his Sussex home in 1951, expectation of an engagement between them escalated during run up to her 21st birthday at Balmoral.
It was reported how he had been her constant escort at private parties and at all that season’s major events and she was a frequent guest at his homes After departing Balmoral, Wallace rebuked the press for "idiotic" stories. Engagement rumours were curtailed, but his reputation as her "favourite boy-friend" continued, petering out in late 1951, amid reports of the King's disapproval of his “man about town habits”.
In May 1952 Wallace told reporters he was "left on the shelf", and despite not being seen regularly with Margaret, he had become a media figure in own right. During 1954 Wallace and Margaret were reported together at various events. In July, press attention transferred to their friend Colin Tennant who claimed Margaret's relationship with Wallace had gone off the boil. In November, Wallace had resumed his repute as her "most talked about escort".
In April 1955, NBC's London news chief gave a report saying royal sources had told him Margaret would marry Wallace instead of Peter Townsend, whose relationship with her was now the subject of intense media speculation. Wallace equivocated, then later denied it. Such contradictions quietly persisted as he was by far her most frequent escort. After the Townsend affair was over, focus turned to Wallace in 1956.
Anticipation, mostly from America, that he would become Margaret’s husband continued until the spring, and faded around the time he failed to attend Tennant's wedding after he and Margaret had both accepted invitations. Press stories then alternated with other supposed marriage candidates, mainly Christopher Loyd.
Later life and death
Wallace purchased Bagnor Manor, Berkshire in 1960 and began a new career in farming, with some success in breeding Hereford cattle. He married the Hon. Elizabeth Anne Hoyer Millar, daughter of The 1st Baron Inchyra and Anna de Marees van Swinderen (the daughter of Dutch diplomat René de Marees van Swinderen), in 1965. They had no children.
They relocated to Egbury Manor, Wiltshire in 1975. He battled cancer of the jaw and mouth and died on 4 February 1977, three days before his 50th birthday.