Aylmer Vallance

Who was Aylmer Vallance?

Gerald Aylmer Vallance, born George Alexander Gerald Vallance, was a Scottish newspaper editor.

Born in Partick, Vallance studied at Fettes College in Edinburgh and Balliol College, Oxford, before serving with the Somerset Light Infantry and the General Staff of the 2nd Indian Division during World War I. After the war, he was appointed as General Secretary of the National Maritime Board and became a director of the Political Research Bureau.

In 1928 He married Phyllis Taylor Reid as her second husband. They were divorced in 1940.

From 1930 to 1933, Vallance was Assistant Editor of The Economist. He was then appointed Editor of the News Chronicle, which he took in a more radical direction, investigating and critically reporting on the British Union of Fascists, and recruiting writers such as Vernon Bartlett, Tangye Lean, Ian Mackay and Gerald Barry. He also launched a Saturday supplement on green newsprint. However, he resigned in 1936 after pressure from subeditors over his persistent drunkenness and lukewarm support for the Liberal Party. He spent the remainder of the decade as an occasional contributor to the Evening Standard, and was finance editor of the New Statesman from 1937 to 1939.