Alfred Harry Wallis, civil engineer, was the son of George Wallis, a builder and architect, and his wife Agnes, born Hall. He was educated at the South African College School in Cape Town and in 1897 joined the Cape Government Railways as assistant engineer, construction. From May 1901
he was district engineer at Bulawayo in the Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe) system of
railways. While stationed in Bulawayo in 1899 he joined the Southern Rhodesian Volunteers and was on active service with the British forces during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). In May 1904 he was transferred to De Aar, Northern Cape, as district
engineer in the Cape Government Railways, but returned to Rhodesia as acting
resident engineer and district engineer in September 1905. A few years later he
published 'A section along the railway from Cape Town to the Victoria Falls' (The
Geographical Journal, 1910, Vol.
36(3), pp. 339-343). In July 1910 he returned to South Africa as district
superintendent in the South African Railways and Harbours (SAR&H). During World War I (1914-1918) he was again on active service during the South West Africa campaign (1914-1915). He was
stationed in Mafikeng in 1917 and in Kimberley in 1924. In 1925 he was transferred
to the post of divisional superintendent in the SAR&H at Windhoek, South
West Africa (now Namibia), but by 1928 held a similar post in Pretoria.
Wallis sent a sample of calcareous tufa from Wondergat, some
30 km east of Mafikeng, North-West Province, to the South African Museum in
Cape Town in 1908. However, his main scientific interest was in meteorology and
climatology and led to a number of significant publications: 'An investigation
of evaporation over free surfaces of water in inland South Africa' (Transactions of the Royal Society of South
Africa, 1920, Vol. 8, pp. 283-292); The
rainfall of South Africa (Johannesburg, 1920, 10pp), reprinted from the South African Railways and Harbours Magazine
of March 1920; The rainfall of Southern
Rhodesia (Johannesburg, 1921, 3pp), reprinted from the same magazine,
September 1921; Sunspots and temperatures
1916: Shewing comparisons between Wolfer daily relative numbers and the mean
daily maximum temperature at sixteen inland African stations (Kimberley,
1924, 16pp); Rainfall, pressure,
temperature and humidity: Mahalapye 1941, 1942 (Cape Town, 1942, 1943); Mean monthly rainfall of 14 stations [in
Botswana] to December 1942 (Cape
Town, 1943); and Meteorological
observations: Mahalapye, from the records of Miss M. Giles, 1917-1943 (Cape
Town, 1943, 11pp).
Wallis was a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society. By
1917 he was a member of the Royal Society of South Africa and in 1924 was a
member of the Astronomical Society of South Africa. In 1906, in Johannesburg, he married Florence Jane Rogers.
