He was brought up as the adopted child of George Freeman, a Billingsgate fish porter. Wallace held a variety of jobs as a boy, storing up experiences he later used as a writer. His lifelong association with journalism began when he sold newspapers at Ludgate Circus a few yards from where the bronze plaque which now commemorates him is located. When he was twelve years old he began work as a printer's boy. At eighteen he enlisted in the Royal West Kent Regiment, later transferring to the Medical Staff Corps. His first attempts at writing were lyrics for Arthur Roberts, a popular singer of the day. When he took unofficial leave to hear them sung, he was given thirty six hours of hard labor in the military prison.
In 1896, at the age of twenty-one, he was transferred to Simonstown, South Africa, where he continued his writing. He commemorated a visit to South Africa by Rudyard Kipling in the poem, "Good Morning, Mr. Kipling." The reception of this work encouraged him to continue writing. Within two years his first book, a collection of verse titled The Mission That Failed! (1898), was published.
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