Researching Wallace Smith

Smith was born in Coventry in 1881. He moved to Northamptonshire with his family when he was five years old. He returned to West Yorkshire when he started his playing with Rothwell Town, where he was their leading goal-scorer. He moved on to Kettering Town where he continued to find the net, scoring 23 goals in his third and final season. He moved on to Southern League side Northampton Town in 1904 for one season.

He was then signed for £50 in March 1905 by Bradford City. He scored the only goal on his debut in a 1–0 win over Leeds City on 2 September 1905, finishing the 1905–06 season as top goal-scorer with 20 goals, including a goal in the 5–0 victory against First Division Wolverhampton Wanderers in the FA Cup. He again topped the scoring charts for City the following season with 14 goals as City came fifth.

In 1907–08 he and Frank O'Rourke formed a lethal partnership to guide City to the Division Two title. Smith finished with 20 goals, one behind O'Rourke, including four against Chesterfield in an opening day 8–1 win. Smith struggled in Division One and he failed to find the net in 16 games, leaving in January 1909 for Leicester Fosse. His Leicester career lasted just six games as they finished bottom of Division One, with his former club staying up on goal average.

Instead he moved to Hull City for the start of the 1909–10 season, when they narrowly missed out on promotion. Smith was forced to retire through injury in 1912 and died in his Worksop home five years later.

In 1923–1924 he contributed with his illustrations (using the nickname "Vulgus") for The Chicago Literary Times, a magazine done in the format and style of a tabloid scandal sheet, co founded by Ben Hech and Maxwell Bodenheim with whom he previously collaborated illustrating their books.
Smith moved to Hollywood embarking on successful, decade-long, screenplay-writing career. His services were in high demand - he wrote or contributed to twenty-six screenplays, often enhancing them with detailed scene sketches. Smith's work included screen adaptations of his novels The Captain Hates the Sea and The Gay Desperado and also Two Arabian Knights, The Lost Squadron, Friends and Lovers.
In 1935, Smith's novel Bessie Cotter about a prostitute's life on the streets of Chicago was judged indecent in England and the publisher fined the equivalent of $1,000. It was published a year earlier in the United States.
He died of a heart attack in his home in Hollywood on January 31, 1937, and was survived by his wife, Echo Smith.
His archival papers are at the University of Oregon.The papers include Smith's manuscripts and published pieces, minor correspondence, drawings and illustrations, photographs, and miscellaneous documents.