William Wallace

Born in Cupar, Fife, on May 11, 1844, he studied first at St Andrews and then at Balliol College, Oxford. He went on to become a fellow of Merton College and later White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, building a reputation as an influential teacher as well as a scholar.

He is chiefly remembered for his work on German philosophy. Wallace wrote on Epicureanism and Kant, and he became especially important as a translator and interpreter of Hegel, helping make difficult ideas more approachable for English readers through works such as The Logic of Hegel and Hegel's Philosophy of Mind.

Contemporaries noted that he could seem severe at first, but they also described him as an effective writer and teacher. He died on February 18, 1897, after a bicycle accident near Oxford, leaving behind a body of work that played a major part in introducing British readers to German idealism.