Commodore Rupert Wallace CBE

Rupert Wallace retired from the Royal Navy in 2014 as a Commodore, after a career which included seeing action in the Falklands War in 1982, three ship commands worldwide, and heading a flotilla of destroyers and frigates. On appointments ashore, he became a specialist in the Middle East and South Asia including as Defence Attaché for Tunis and Algiers, serving with the US Army in Baghdad on security arrangements for the Iraqi Constitutional Referendum, and responsibility for strategic international relations work in the UK Ministry of Defence.

On retirement Rupert went back to school to complete a two-year Postgraduate course in International Relations at the London School of Economics. He now lectures in schools,         institutions and on cruise ships; he is Course Director in History on a university outreach programme to inspire less advantaged inner London pupils in their final year to apply to top universities; and he is an active member of the Royal United Services Institute.

He remains an inveterate traveller, recently completing a solo US Coast-to-Coast bicycle ride, independently travelling the Silk Road from Iran to central China, and sailing his boat in Greece to keep his feet wet.  He is currently in the middle of a 10-year, 3000 mile walk from the Atlantic to the Black Sea.  Married to Kate, and with three grown-up children, his sole disappointment is as a committed supporter of Watford Football Club.