The Wallace Collection Trivia Quiz

Answer: He was hanged, drawn and quartered in London

After initial successes against the English (notably at Stirling Bridge in 1296), Wallace's army was routed at Falkirk in 1298, and Wallace fled to France, where he tried to drum up support for the Scottish cause. He returned to Scotland in 1303, and evaded capture for some two years, but in 1305 he was seized by John Menteith, Sheriff of Dumbarton. Of course, the outcome of his treason trial in London was not in doubt, and he was executed at Smithfield on August 23.

Answer: Ben-Hur

Wikipedia lists ten works of fiction, history and biography by Wallace. With the exception of "Ben-Hur, A Tale of the Christ," they are forgotten today; and "Ben-Hur", though a best seller in its day, probably owes its continuing fame to the movie versions of 1925 (directed by Fred Niblo) and 1959 (directed by William Wyler).

Answer: music

Wallace's opera "Maritana" was very popular in Victorian Britain, and not unknown in continental Europe. Together with Julius Benedict's "The Lily of Killarney" and Michael Balfe's "The Bohemian Girl", it formed what was known as "The English Ring," supposedly the pinnacle of British operatic achievement. I doubt whether it is performed today, though you may occasionally hear an old recording of a tenor like Heddle Nash singing "There is a Flower That Bloometh".

Answer: It divides the natural habitats of Asiatic and Australian animal species

Wallace was a naturalist and geographer whose studies in South America and the East Indies led him to formulate a theory of natural selection similar to that of Charles Darwin.

He is also seen as a pioneer in what became known as zoogeography (the study of the geographical distribution of species). Having observed the differences in the species inhabiting opposite sides of straits in the archipelago, he drew a line demarcating their natural habitats. From the Pacific the line runs through the Macassar Strait between Borneo and Celebes and on to the Indian Ocean via the Lombok Strait to the east of Bali.

Answer: London

Wallace was the secretary, and probably the illegitimate son, of the 4th Marquess of Hertford, a wealthy English art collector who lived in Paris. On the Marquess's death, Wallace inherited the art collection and also real estate in several countries, including Hertford House in London. On his own death, Wallace bequeathed his estate to his widow, who in turn left it to the nation.

Besides a wonderful array of eighteenth-century French paintings, the collection also includes furniture, arms and armour.

Its best known exhibit is probably Frans Hals' "Laughing Cavalier."

Answer: Reader's Digest

Wallace was the son of a university teacher from St Paul, Minnesota. He left the University of California without a degree, and worked at a number of jobs, including a post with a publisher of agricultural material. While recovering from wounds during World War I, he read a great many different magazines, and hit on the idea of publishing a magazine that would feature condensed articles on a wide range of subjects.

He had a gift for précis, and on February 5, 1922, he and his wife published the first issue of Reader's Digest, which was to become the world's best-selling periodical.

Answer: Edgar

Wallace, the illegitimate son of an actress, was adopted as a baby by a Billingsgate fish porter and his wife. He began his writing career in journalism and was a war correspondent during the Boer War. His first best-seller was "The Four Just Men," published in 1905.

By the time of his death in 1932 he had written some 170 books. At their peak, sales reached five million copies a year. He was also in demand as a scriptwriter in Hollywood, and died while he was about to start work on the screenplay of "King Kong."

Answer: a hippopotamus

Ian Wallace sang most of the major Italian buffo bass roles in the course of a long career at Glyndebourne, Sadler's Wells and other British opera houses, as well as many engagements in continental Europe. He reached a wider audience through his renderings of comic songs, including those of Flanders and Swann.

The Hippopotamus Song ("Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!") became his signature tune. In later years he was probably best known as a panellist on the radio and television show "My Music."

Answer: Gromit

Wallace and Gromit have appeared in a number of animated short films, beginning with "A Grand Day Out" in 1989, and also in a full-length animated feature film ("Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit"), which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature of 2005.

Answer: foreigner

Like their modern English descendants, the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain described the natives of the countries they visited as "foreigners." The root "wealh" (foreigner) is found in place names like Wales and Cornwall (strongholds of the native Celts), and in surnames like Wallace and Walsh, which would originally have been applied to Celtic speakers in predominantly Anglo-Saxon areas.