‘Re:New Wallace’ links the Wallace Collection with the historical past of the Hertford family and their strong links with Lisburn where Sir Richard Wallace was the local MP, benefactor and land-owner.

The lands Wallace inherited were first obtained by one of his ancestors as a gift, for helping to subdue an Irish insurrection in the early 1600s. Sir Fulke Conway’s estate was  one of the largest in Ulster, 20,000 acres stretching from Lisburn to Antrim. He purchased further land from Con O’Neill, making the estate 29,984 acres. The land was passed down through the Conway family who, through marriage, became joined to the Seymour family. Francis Seymour-Conway became the Marquess of Hertford in 1793. He is not known to have suffered himself from any mental abnormality, but a noted strain of eccentricity, even madness, appeared among his descendants: the debauched behaviour of his grandson, the 3rd Marquess, and the suicide of another grandson, Viscount Castlereagh, were both attributed to a strain of madness supposed to be hereditary in the Seymour-Conway family.

The 3rd Marquess was indeed debauched, his indulgences legendary. Although the income that enabled him to live to excess came from his Irish Estates, he never visited them. He also inherited a fortune through his wife Maria Emilia Fagnani, or Mei Mei as she was known, who both George Selwyn and the Duke of Queensberry thought to be their illegitimate daughter. With this wealth the 3rd Marquess began amassing his art collection. He was the prototype for Lord Steyne in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Charles Greville is quoted as saying, “there has been, so far as I know, no such example of undistinguished debauchery”

He was succeeded by his son, Richard Seymour Conway. The 4th Marquess visited his Irish Estate once, purely out of political expediency, to become a member of the Order of the Garter. His decision not to provide additional charitable support to Lisburn during the famine, speaks to his character. He spent most of his life in Paris, where he continued his father’s habit of art collecting, spending huge sums in the auction houses, taking pleasure in outbidding the Rothschilds. He used his London residence, Hertford House, which now houses the Wallace Collection as a store for his treasures. According to the  diarists, the Goncourt brothers he “was a complete, absolute, unashamed monster.”

Although illegitimate, Wallace inherited his father’s unentailed estates, those that did not belong to the title Lord Hertford which went to his very disappointed cousin. Wallace inherited the Ulster Estate and his father’s art collection along with property in France. This unexpected decision was mainly due to his father hating the wider Seymour clan whom he felt had mistreated his mother, Mei Mei. Unlike his selfish father and perverse grandfather, Wallace displays a philanthropic nature, using his fortune to help the needy and less fortunate. He provided 2.5 million Francs to the needy of Paris during the siege by the Prussian army. His water fountains, which he designed, brought clean water to many Parisian districts and are now featured in cities around the world. He visited Lisburn on a number of occasions and invested in the built and natural environment, constructing buildings and establishing parks. He developed his father’s art collection and asked that it be bequeathed to the nation.