William Wallace was born in Manchester, England, the second son of Thomas and Agnes Wallace. At the age of seven he emigrated with his parents to the United States, and for nine years the family moved about from place to place, stopping wherever the father could find work at his trade of wire drawing.
Wallace obtained a little common-school education.
In 1841 his parents finally settled in Derby, Connecticut, and with his father and two brothers he went to work for the Howe Manufacturing Company. Here he remained until 1848, when he and his brothers went into the wire-drawing business with their father under the firm name of Wallace & Sons; two years later they established their plant at the newly founded industrial town of Ansonia, Connecticut In 1853 the business was incorporated, and from that time until his retirement in 1896, Wallace was active in the organization, becoming president on the death of his father. Throughout this long period Wallace personally supervised most of the mechanical affairs, mapping out work, laying out new buildings, installing equipment, and devising many of the special tools and machines used in the factory. Becoming interested in electricity, he installed a well-equipped laboratory in his home, and established personal contacts with the electrical pioneers of the United States. The results of his studies and experiments became manifest about 1874, when he constructed dynamo-electric machinery at his plant. In this enterprise he had the cooperation of the well-known electrician Moses G. Farmer. In 1875 and 1876 a number of dynamos employing armatures of the Siemens, Gramme, Pacinotti, and multi-polar types were constructed. One of these, the Wallace-Farmer dynamo, based on Farmer's patent of 1872, was used at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876, and was the only one employed for illuminating the exposition buildings and grounds. Wallace's company began the manufacture of this type of machine for the market early in 1875, adapting it later for arc lighting in connection with Wallace's plate-carbon arc lamp, patented December 18, 1877, and believed to be the first commercial arc light made in the United States. Wallace was the first to demonstrate the operation of arc lights in series. In 1876 he developed a low-tension dynamo for the Western Union Telegraph Company to take the place of batteries. In conjunction with his brother Thomas, he constructed also an enormous electro-disposition plant at Ansonia for the purpose of copper-plating the steel wire used by the Postal Telegraph Company in the installation of the harmonic telegraph system developed by Elisha Gray. In this plant thirty-one huge Wallace plating dynamos were used and over one hundred miles of steel wire at a time were copper plated. Wallace spent large sums of money in public exhibitions, with a view to bringing the possibilities of the dynamo to public attention; but with the beginning of the establishment of the electrical industry in the United States in the 1880's, he retired from the field and confined his attention to rolling copper and brass. After the purchase of his organization by the Coe Brass Company in 1896, he took up his residence in Washington, D. C.
Wallace was a lovable man, genial and agreeable in manner and always willing to assist others in every possible way.
On September 15, 1849, he married Sarah Mills at Birmingham, Connecticut; he was survived by a son and a daughter.
