Edgar Wallace - Childhood and Early Career

Childhood and Early Career

Known as Richard Horatio Edgar Freeman, Polly's young son had a happy childhood, forming a close bond with 20-year-old Clara Freeman who became like a second mother to him. His foster-father George Freeman was an honourable and kind man and determined to ensure Richard received a good education. From 1875-8, Polly visited as often as she was able.

By 1878, Polly was faced with a serious dilemma. After their marriage, Richard and Jenny had relocated to Scotland, where their children were born, including Edgar's paternal half-brother, George Marriott Edgar (1880–1951), who was renowned under his stage name of Marriott Edgar as a poet, comedian, and scriptwriter for Stanley Holloway, for whom he wrote the famous Holloway Monologues, including The Lion and Albert.

But the Marriott troupe was slowly dispersing, as Grace and Adeline married and Alice Marriott's health necessitated retirement. Polly took up new employment with the Hamilton troupe but now in her late 30s was increasingly limited as to the roles and backstage work she could do, forcing a commensurate decrease of earnings. In short, she could no longer afford even the small sum she had been paying the Freemans to care for young Richard.

Arriving with the news and a distraught offer to place Richard in a workhouse, Polly found the Freemans fiercely opposed to any such action, doting on the boy. Polly left abruptly, overwhelmed by emotion; she never visited again. Her actions led to tragic consequences for her and Edgar decades later.

Richard had inherited his father's swarthy handsomeness and was extroverted; however, his usual response to any problem seems to have been to withdraw from it, either literally, mentally, or emotionally. By his early teens, he had held down numerous jobs and was an ardent if not very good racehorse follower. In 1894, he had rashly become engaged to a local Deptford girl, Edith Anstree. He sought to escape, without facing the problem properly, but not wishing to hurt her feelings.

In 1885, when she was sixteen, Josephine Catherine Richards had become engaged to William Henry Donovan, and Polly felt honour-bound to inform her of the half-brother living in Deptford.

Considering the "Marriott" family's welfare, Josephine agreed the secret must not be revealed and apparently felt it too dangerous to arrange a meeting between her and Richard. She married Donovan during 1886 and had their only child, named Alice Grace Adeline Donovan in honour of her foster-grandmother and aunts, in 1887. Like her father, Joseph Richards, Josephine died young of a sudden illness in 1894 at the age of 25 years.

Unaware that the half-sister he did not know existed had just died, Richard enlisted in the Infantry preparatory to leaving for South Africa. Richard found Army life unappealing. Soldiering was hard on his feet and ears, and, indeed, by the time he died, he was well known for never partaking in any physical exercise (which probably contributed to his early death). He wangled a transfer to the Royal Army Medical Corps, which was less arduous but more unpleasant, and so transferred again to the Press Corps, where at last he found his metier.

By 1898, he was a war correspondent for the Daily Mail in the Boer War, having now adopted the byline of "Edgar Wallace" (taken from the author of Ben-Hur, Lew Wallace—there was already a Richard Wallace working in the Press Corps). He was also a poet/columnist for various periodicals—a similar sequence to that which P G Wodehouse would experience a couple of years later. During his time at the Mail, he also met the author and poet Rudyard Kipling, whom he greatly admired.