WALLACE, Doreen

1897 - 1989

As Dora Eileen Agnew Wallace, she was born at Lorton, Cumbria on 18 June 1897, daughter of Robert Bruce Agnew Wallace (24 March 1873-26 June 1955), of Rhynd House, Saline, Fife in Scotland, and his wife Mary Elizabeth Peebles (22 July 1874-18 June 1956), third daughter of Andrew Peebles of Albury, who married Albury Parish Church, Guildford, Surrey on 19 June 1895. In 1901, Doreen as she was known, was a 3-year-old, living at 'Broomlands', Lorton, Cumberland with her parents, 28-year-old Robert and 26-year-old Mary Elizabeth. Doreen was educated at Malvern Girls' College and Somerville College, Oxford and in 1919 graduated M.A. (hons) in English. She came to East Anglia, teaching at Diss Secondary School for three years, and in 1922 she married Rowland Harry Rash (10 November 1890-21 October 1977), landowner & farmer, long established at Wortham Manor, Suffolk. Continuing under her maiden name as Doreen Wallace, she began to write seriously in 1929, writing over fifty books. Continually active in the ‘Tithe War’ of the early 1930s when she organised resistance to tithe payments which battle was only won finally in 1977. Also a watercolour landscape painter and a member of Ipswich Fine Art Club 1924-1928 and 1958-1965, exhibiting from Wortham Manor in 1924 three watercolours, 'Villeneuve-les-Avignon', 'Down the Lane' and another, in 1925 four watercolours 'In the Close, Norwich', 'Harvest, Evening', 'Cloisters, Norwich' and 'Above Costabell' and as Miss Doreen Wallace she was also a member and exhibitor at the Norfolk & Norwich Art Circle 1956-1957 from Wortham. In July 1982 she staged an exhibition of her unframed sketches at her home and the sale raised £140 for Diss branch of the R.N.L.I. After the death of her husband in 1977 she moved to a small house at 2 Manor Gardens, Diss, when her son, Rowland Moray Wallace Rash, continued at Wortham. She also had two daughters Stella, a doctor and Laura, an artist. Doreen Wallace died at 2 Manor Gardens, Diss on 22 October 1989. (Copsey-Suffolk Writers 1800-1900. Ipswich 2002).

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Works by This Artist