Henry Wallis was born in London, England on 21 February 1830. His father's surname is not known. It was possibly Thomas, the surname of his mother. At the age of eleven his mother married Andrew Wallis, a wealthy London architect and property owner, and he adopted his stepfather's surname.
He trained as an artist first at Francis Stephen Cary's Drawing Academy in Bloomsbury, London, following which he was admitted as a probationer in the Royal Academy Schools in London in January 1848. In March that year he enrolled in the RAS Antique School. After two years he left to study in Paris at the atelier of the Swiss painter Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre (1806-1874) and at the École des Beaux-Arts.
In c.1853 Wallis returned to London where he embarked on a career as an artist.
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In 1853 he exhibited at the Royal Manchester Institution. The following year he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in London and continued to do so most years until 1877. It was at the Royal Academy in 1856 that he showed the picture that was to establish his reputation - "The Death of Chatterton". The painting created a sensation and was described by John Ruskin as "faultless and wonderful" [quoted in DNB]. Wallis also exhibited at the British Institution. Suffolk Street Gallery, New Gallery and Old Watercolour Society [later known as the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours] in London; Manchester City Art Gallery; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; and at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours (ARWS) in 1878, and a full member of the Society (RWS) in 1880.
Wallis died at his home, at his home, 1 Walpole Road, Croydon, Surrey, on 20 December 1916.
