May Wallas was born in London on 6 October 1898, the much beloved daughter of Graham Wallas, Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics, and Ada Radford. She was educated at various day schools in London before coming up to Newnham in 1917. At Cambridge she read French and Italian gaining a first in Part I of the Modern and Mediaeval Languages Tripos and a second in Part II, 1920; she obtained her PhD from the University of London in 1926. The subject of her thesis was the eighteenth century thinker Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues. Thereafter she taught part-time at Morley College and the London School of Economics before becoming Assistant Lecturer in French and Italian, then Lecturer in French 1937-1945 at the LSE. She returned to Newnham as Lecturer and Director of Studies in Modern Languages 1945 and was also University Lecturer in French at Cambridge from 1945-1962. After her retirement from Newnham she moved back to London. She spent much time editing her father's unfinished works and doing her own research on him. She died in London on 24 November 1972. Graham Wallas, 1858-1932, Professor of Political Science. Graham Wallas was born in Sunderland on 31 May 1858, the elder son of Gilbert Innes Wallas, then curate at Bishopwearmouth, and his wife Frances Talbot Peacock. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he obtained a second class in Literae Humaniores in 1881. On leaving Oxford he became a classics master but resigned from his post at Highgate School in 1890 as he refused to conform to the religious requirement of taking communion, and later changed from school teaching to university extension lecturing. In 1886 he joined the Fabian Society and contributed to the Fabian Essays on Socialism. However, he resigned in 1904 over the Society's support of Joseph Chamberlain's tariff policy. That same year he was elected to the London County Council where he served a three-year term, and was a non-elected member of London County Council's Education Committee from 1908-1910. Wallas became a lecturer at the recently founded London School of Economics in 1895 and the school's first Professor of Political Science in 1914, a post that he held until his retirement in 1923. In addition to lecturing at the LSE, Wallas lectured in the United States, including at Harvard. He married Ada Radford in 1897, and their daughter May was born in 1898. He died at Portloe, Cornwall, on 9 August 1932. Ada (also known as Audrey), nee Radford, Wallas, 1859-1934. Ada Radford was born in Plymouth on 10 December 1859, the ninth of ten children of George David Radford, draper, and his wife Catherine Heynes. She was educated at Plymouth High School before coming up to Newnham to read maths in 1881. After leaving Newnham she taught at Wimbledon High School for a short time, and later worked for the Free Russia Movement with Stepniak and Volkhovsky. In 1893 she accepted the honorary post of Lady Superintendent at the College for New Women in Bloomsbury, a position she held until December 1895. She married Graham Wallas in 1897 and the following year gave birth to their daughter, May Graham. She served on the Council of Bedford College 1919-1934, and worked for the School of Mothers for many years. She died on 12 October 1934. She died on 12 Oct 1934.
From the guide to the Wallas Family Papers, 1841-1972, (Cambridge University: Newnham College Archives)
