His father died early, Wallis was adopted by his grand-uncle John Worralow, a famous maker of steel jewellery at the time of George III.

In 1841, Wallis moved to London to join the School of Design at Somerset House where he won one of the six scholarships offered by the Board of Trade.

In two years from the time of Mr. Wallis taking the charge, the funds of the school were flourishing; the interest taken in it by the public was great, and nearly half the Institution was occupied by the pupils, while the applications for admission were more numerous than could be accommodated.

In 1845, Wallis organised at the Manchester Royal Institution the Industrial Art Exhibition which included items made of textile, ceramics, carved wood, leather and papier-mache.

These lectures led Lord Clarendon, then President of the Board of Trade, to ask Wallis to draw up a chart of artistic and scientific instruction as applied to industrial art.

Because of delays in setting up this Exhibition, Wallis and his fellow Commissioner Joseph Whitworth were asked instead to undertake visits to various manufacturing sites in America and report back.

[7] However, Atkinson does not provide any evidence for this in his book, and when addressing the Parliamentary Committee on Small Arms in 1854 about visits he had made to two American arms factories, Wallis made it clear that he had never designed or studied guns, was unable to give a professional opinion upon musket making, and could only comment in general terms about his impression of the organisation of work in the factories.

[8] In 1855, he organised in Birmingham an Exhibition of Works of Industrial Art as an experiment in the circulation of artworks from central depositories around regional museums.

Wallis reported that his 5,000 miles long tour embraced "the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Eastern Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.

In the collection of Wolverhampton Art Gallery, there is a number of medals awarded to him by Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and Louis-Napoleon of France.

In 1858 George Wallis joined the South Kensington Museum as Senior Keeper of the Art collection, a post which he kept for three decades and left just prior to his death.

Although George Wallis abandoned early an idea of a professional artistic career, he continued practising drawing, painting and etching as a hobby.