Professor of Political Science 1914-1923

Extracts from ‘Portraits from the Past: Graham Wallas: 1858-1932,’ by W.A. Robson from LSE Magazine, May 1971, No41, p.5

‘The son of an Anglican clergyman, he went to Shrewsbury and then to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he read classics. His first post was as a schoolmaster at Highgate School but he left after a few years on a question of religious conformity. He then became an extension lecturer in London University in 1890. He joined the Fabian Society in its early days and wrote one of the original Fabian Essays. As a friend and colleague of the Webbs and Bernard Shaw he played a leading part in the creation and development of LSE from the day of its conception in August 1894, at the farm near Godalming where the four were staying, until the end of his active life. He was a lecturer at the School from 1895 and later became its first Professor of Political Science…Wallas was much greater as teacher than as a writer. As H.G Wells remarked in his Autobiography, ‘the London School of Economics will testify how much the personal Graham Wallas outdid the published Graham Wallas…there is scarcely any considerable figure among the younger generation of publicists who does not owe something to his slow, fussy, mannered, penetrating and inspiring counsels.’ Of his own debt Wells wrote ‘I cannot measure justly the influence of the disinterested life he led on my own. It was I think very considerable.’ Many of us who were his students and friends feel a similar debt. No small part of Wallas’ influence was due to his lovable personality and the spirit of benevolence and altruism which shone through him at all times.’

Excerpt from reminiscences of former staff. 'LSE Material on the history of the School' LSE Archives ref R(S.R)1101, p.119:

Florence Mare on Graham Wallas,

'Of all the lecturers I think the most beloved was that great man Graham Wallas. He was a born teacher: his simplicity of illustration, his enthusiasm for his subject, his profound analysis of causes made a deep impression on all who attended his lectures in political science. Essays set by him had to be forthcoming no matter which others got left undone! On the completion of a course of lectures which he gave many years afterwards at B'ham Univ I remember him standing stock still, dumfounded at the thunderous burst of applause that came from the audience. Then he softly murmured 'thank you.'

IMAGELIBRARY/272