Albany Wallis

Albany Wallis, eminent solicitor of Norfolk Street in the Strand, and his only son Albany Charles Wallis are buried in the east cloister of Westminster Abbey. The father was buried on 10th September 1800 aged 86. He was apparently a son of James Wallis of Knarsdale in Northumberland. As a close friend of the actor David Garrick he put up the monument in the south transept where Garrick is buried. Garrick had commissioned a memorial tablet in 1777 to Albany's drowned son. This marble tablet has a shaped top enclosing an heraldic cartouche and palm leaves with a relief of books below. The Latin inscription can be translated:

Below here was buried, amidst the unfeigned tears of his fellow pupils, Albany Charles Wallis, sole hope of his most devoted father. Too greatly, alas, enthralled by the forbidden allurements of the Thames river he was carried away by its wild force and perished on the 29th day of March A.D.1776 aged 13. Stay, young man, and contemplate his end

Albany Charles entered Westminster School in 1770 and was a chorister at the Abbey. His mother was Elizabeth (Vaughan). Sir Joshua Reynolds painted his portrait.