Graham Wallas

Graham Wallas (31 May 1858 – 9 August 1932) was an English socialist, social psychologist, educationalist, a leader of the Fabian Society and a co-founder of the London School of Economics.

Biography

Born in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, Wallas was educated at Shrewsbury School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. It was at Oxford that Wallas abandoned his religion. He taught at Highgate School until 1885, when he resigned rather than participate in communion, and was President of the Rationalist Press Association.

Wallas joined the Fabian Society in April 1886, following his acquaintances Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw. He was to resign in 1904 in protest at Fabian support for Joseph Chamberlain's tariff policy. In 1894 he was elected to the London school board as a Progressive, becoming chairman of the board's school management committee in 1897, and until he was defeated in 1907 the encouragement of educational reform and the raising of academic standards in state schools was one of his main activities.