William Vincent Wallace

Nowadays, he is mainly remembered as an opera composer of note, with key works such as Maritana (1845) and Lurline (1847/60), but he also wrote a large amount of piano music (including some virtuoso pieces) that was much in vogue in the 19th century.

Wallace became accomplished in playing various band instruments before the family left the Army in 1826 (their regiment then being the 29th Foot), moving from Waterford to Dublin, and becoming active in music in the capital.

The composer's party first landed at Hobart, Tasmania in late October, where they stayed several months,[2] and then moved on to Sydney in January 1836, where, following the arrival of the rest of the family in February, the Wallaces opened the first Australian music academy in April.

His sister Elizabeth, at age 19, in 1839 married an Australian singer John Bushelle, with whom she gave many recitals before his early death in 1843 on a tour of van Diemen's Land.

Wallace claimed that from Australia he went to New Zealand on a whaling-voyage in the South seas and while there encountered the Maori tribe Te Aupouri, and having crossed the Pacific, he visited Chile, Argentina, Peru, Jamaica, and Cuba, giving concerts in the large cities of those countries.

Moving on to the United States, he stayed at New Orleans for some years, where he was feted as a virtuoso on violin and piano, before reaching New York, where he was equally celebrated, and published his first compositions (1843–44).

Vincent Wallace was a cultivated man and an accomplished musician, whose work as an operatic composer, at a period by no means encouraging to music in England, has a distinct historical value.

Wallace was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London; the epitaph on his recently refurbished headstone (from 2007) now reads "Music is an art that knows no locality but heaven – Wm.