William Wallis

Reverend William Charles Wallis was an Anglican priest, and the Resident Minister for St Peter's Church on the West Bank from 1863 to 1867.

At the time of his arrival in East London, the Church School on the West Bank was struggling for survival because of its inability to attract a schoolmaster. Wallis took over the running of the school and it was largely due to his involvement that the institution did not fall into the same trap as the schools at Panmure which struggled to survive.

Indeed, there were no less than four different schools at Panmure between 1859 and 1873, whereas the Church School on the West Bank would survive the initial period of uncertainty and evolve into the West Bank High School of today, the oldest surviving school in East London.