In 1936, he sent for auction at Sotheby's the major collection of unpublished papers of Isaac Newton, known as the Portsmouth Papers. These had been in the family for around two centuries, since an earlier Viscount Lymington had married Newton's great-niece. The sale was the occasion on which Newton's religious and alchemical interests became generally known. Broken into a large number of separate lots, running into several hundred, they became dispersed. John Maynard Keynes purchased many significant lots. Theological works were bought in large numbers by Abraham Yahuda. Another purchaser was Emmanuel Fabius, a dealer in Paris.
Right-wing groups
Wallop was a member of and important influence on the English Mistery, a society promoted by William Sanderson and founded in 1929 or 1930. This was a conservative group, with views in tune with his own monarchist and ruralist opinions. A split in the Mistery left Wallop leading a successor, the English Array. It was active from 1936 to the early months of World War II, and advocated "back to the land". Its membership included A. K. Chesterton, J. F. C. Fuller, Rolf Gardiner, Hon. Richard de Grey, Hardwicke Holderness, Anthony Ludovici, John de Rutzen, and Reginald Dorman-Smith. It has been described as "more specifically pro-Nazi" than the Mistery; Famine in England by Lymington was an agricultural manifesto, but traded on racial overtones of urban immigration. Lymington's use of Parliamentary questions has been blamed for British government reluctance to admit refugees. He edited New Pioneer magazine from 1938 to 1940, collaborating with John Warburton Beckett and A. K. Chesterton. The gathering European war saw him found the British Council Against European Commitments in 1938, with William Joyce. He joined the British People's Party in 1943. The English Array was not shut down, as other organisations of the right were in the war years, but was under official suspicion and saw little activity.
He was married twice and had five children. On 31 July 1920, he married Mary Lawrence Post, daughter of Waldren Kintzing Post, of Bayport, Long Island. They had two children:
Oliver Kintzing Wallop, Viscount Lymington, married as his second wife, Ruth Violet Sladen, daughter of Brig.-Gen. Gerald Carew Sladen, and had:
In 1954, he married secondly, Bridget Crohan, only daughter of Capt. Patrick Bermingham Crohan by Edith Barbara Cory, of Owlpen Manor, Gloucestershire. They had three children:
Hon. Nicholas Valoynes Bermingham Wallop, married Lavinia Karmel, only daughter of David Karmel
Gerard Wallop succeeded to the title of Earl of Portsmouth in 1943, on the death of his father Oliver. After the war he moved to Kenya, where he lived for nearly 30 years. His seat at Farleigh House was let as a preparatory school from 1953. The Earl's elder son, Oliver, predeceased him; on his death in 1984, the title passed to his grandson Quentin.
