author
R. (Robert) Wallace
d. 1858
An early Victorian writer on biblical chronology, this Robert Wallace is best known for a detailed attempt to recalculate the age of the world from scripture. His surviving work shows a patient, argumentative style aimed at readers who cared deeply about history, theology, and the authority of ancient texts.
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About the author
Little biographical information is easy to confirm about R. (Robert) Wallace beyond his authorship and the fact that he died in 1858. His best-known work, A Dissertation on the True Age of the World (1844), was published under the name "Professor Wallace" and presents an extended argument about biblical chronology.
In that book, Wallace compares different textual traditions of the Old Testament and argues for a longer timeline from Creation to the Christian era than the one commonly accepted in his day. The writing is careful and methodical, with the kind of close reasoning that would have appealed to 19th-century readers interested in theology, sacred history, and the relationship between scripture and scholarship.
Because reliable biographical details are scarce in the sources I could confirm, it is safest to remember him mainly through this work: a serious religious and historical study from the mid-1800s, written by an author clearly invested in defending his reading of ancient evidence.