Philip Hope-Wallace

Philip Adrian Hope-Wallace CBE (6 November 1911 – 3 September 1979) was an English music and theatre critic, whose career was mostly with The Manchester Guardian (later known as The Guardian). From university he went into journalism after abortive attempts at other work, and apart from a stint at the Air Ministry throughout the Second World War, his career was wholly in arts journalism in newspapers, magazines and in broadcasting.

Life and career Hope-Wallace was born in London, the third and youngest child and only son of Charles Nugent Hope-Wallace, MBE, principal clerk of the Charity Commission for England and Wales, and his wife, Mabel Florence, daughter of Colonel Allan Chaplin, of the Madras Army. A great-grandson of Admiral Charles Ramsay Bethune, 24th Laird of Balfour, he was also descended from John Hope, 4th Earl of Hopetoun and George Nugent, 7th Earl of Westmeath. Philip attended Charterhouse School, after which, owing to a weak chest, he was sent to a sanatorium in Germany. He then moved to France, lodging with a Protestant clergyman in Normandy.

In 1930 Hope-Wallace went up to Balliol College, Oxford, to read modern languages. He graduated in 1933 during the Great Depression, and had difficulty in finding a job. At first he covered song recitals, and graduated to opera. The programme was not archived by the BBC, but an unofficial tape copy was among a collection of over 90 episodes discovered by an amateur researcher and placed online in 2022. In 1975 he was appointed CBE for his services to the arts.