Alfred Russel Wallace

by Peter Raby

20. MA, 259.

  21. Darwin to ARW, 18 May 1860 (CCD, 8, 219–21).

  22. MA, 386.

  23. MA, 527.

  24. MA, 530.

  25. MA, 532.

  26. ARW to George Silk, 1 September 1860 (WFA); ML (1905), 1, 371–3.

  27. The statement was made by Dr Scott, the doctor who attended Wallace in his last years, in an interview with Arnold Brackman. A copy of the recording is in the Wallace family archive.

  28. MA, 538–9.

  29. Darwin to ARW, 18 May 1860 (CCD, 8, 219–21).

  30. ARW to Bates, 24 December 1860; ML, 197.

  31. Darwin to ARW, 18 May 1860 (CCD, 8, 219–21).

  32. ARW to Darwin, December 1860 (CCD, 8, 504).

  33. MA, 197.

  34. ARW to George Sims, 1 September 1860 (WFA).

  35. MA, 207–9.

  36. MA, 394.

  37. MA, 395.

  38. ARW to Mrs Mary Wallace, 20 July 1861 (WFA).

  39. MA, 106, and 105–10 for his general observations.

  40. MA, 123–4.

  41. MA, 130.

  42. ARW to Fanny Sims, 10 October 1861 (WFA).

  43. ML, 198.

  44. MA, 144.

  45. ARW to Bates, 10 December 1861 (WFA).

  46. ARW to Darwin, 30 November 1861 (CCD, 9, 356–8).

  47. ARW to George Silk, 20 January 1862; ML, 201.

  48. ARW to Stevens. This page of the letter is in the archives of the Zoological Society, London. I assume that Stevens passed it on to Philip Sclater, the Secretary, since it contains Wallace’s terms.

  49. ARW to Stevens, 12 May 1856 (CUL).

  50. ML, 201.

  51. ML, 202.

  52. Archives of the Zoological Society, London.

  53. ARW to Philip Sclater, 31 March 1862 (ZSL).

  54. The Times, 29 March and 2 April 1862.

  55. ‘The Paradise-Birds in the Zoological Society’s Gardens’, Illustrated London News, 12 April 1862. See also the Saturday Review, 17 May 1862, where there is a rather ominous comment that paradise-bird plumes might recover ‘their now almost forgotten value as ornaments for the hats of our fair countrywomen’.

  9 THE RETURN OF THE WANDERER

  1. Minute Book (ZSL).

  2. Bates to Darwin, 24 November 1862 (CCD, 10, 217). ‘As to ordinary Entomologists they cannot be considered scientific men but must be ranked with collectors of postage stamps & crockery.’

  3. Records of the scientific meetings (ZSL).

  4. ARW to Darwin, 23 May 1862 (CCD, 10, 217).

  5. Darwin to ARW, 24 May 1862 (CCD, 10, 218–19).

  6. Darwin to ARW, 13 November 1859 (CCD, 7, 375).

  7. ML, 204.

  8. See John G. Wilson (2000), 238. John Wilson, a descendant of Wallace’s aunt Martha Greenell, makes use of family letters to emphasise Wallace’s continuing interest in the Australian branch of the far-flung family.

  9. These details are in one of Wallace’s notebooks (WFA). Wallace frequently began to keep accounts, or carried out some kind of appraisal of his finances, but never seemed to maintain a system for very long.

  10. ARW to George Silk, 30 November 1858 (WFA).

  11. ML, 247–8.

  12. ML, 220.

  13. Bates’s memories of Lyell are quoted by Clodd in Bates (1892).

  14. ML, 239.

  15. Bates quoted by Clodd in Bates (1892).

  16. Darwin to Asa Gray, 26–7 November 1862 (CCD, 10, 563–6).

  17. Darwin to Joseph Hooker, 25 November 1861 (CCD, 9, 349–50).

  18. Darwin to Bates, 3 December 1861 (CCD, 9, 363–4).

  19. ARW to Darwin, after 20 August 1862 (CCD, 10, 372).

  20. Alfred Newton to Henry Tristram, 24 August 1858, in A.F.R. Wollaston, Life of Alfred Newton (John Murray, 1921), 115–17.

  21. ‘It is unquestionably from the former labours of both – united yet distinct – that the boon acquires its greatest value’ (Newton papers, CUL).

  22. See Wollaston (1921), 123–4.

  23. T. H. Huxley to Darwin, 9 October 1862 (CCD, 10, 449–50).

  24. ML, 256.

  25. ARW to George Silk, 30 November 1858 (WFA).

  26. ARW to Richard Spruce, deduced from the reply. Spruce waited a year before responding. He confessed to feeling a little piqued that he had twice written to Wallace, from Ambato near Quito, and not heard back, but now realised that those letters had never arrived.

  27. Spruce to ARW, 21 November 1863 (WFA).

  28. ML (1905), 1, 409–11. Wallace removed all reference to Miss L and his broken engagement from the one-volume edition of ML, no doubt judging that the full-length account might be slightly bewildering, if not upsetting, to his immediate family. The family name Leslie is used in Wallace’s manuscript notes for ML. Other details come from his letter to Alfred Newton, and from the Census returns for 1861.

  29. ARW to Alfred Newton, 2 April 1864 (CUL).

  30. Joseph Hooker to Darwin, 24 May 1863 (CCD, 11, 442–4).

  31. Darwin to Bates, 18 April 1863 (CCD, 11, 326–7).

  32. Darwin to Hooker, 17 April 1863 (CCD, 11, 321–2).

  33. Hooker to Darwin, 13 May 1863 (CCD, 11, 411–13).

  34. Darwin to Hooker, 15 and 22 May 1863 (CCD, 11, 419–21).

  35. Darwin to Hooker, 9 May 1863 (CCD, 11, 393–4).

  36. Darwin, letter to Athenaeum, 9 May 1863 (written 5 May 1863) (CCD, 11, 380).

  37. ARW, ‘Remarks on the Rev. S. Haughton’s Paper on the Bee’s Cell, and on the Origin of Species’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 12 (3rd. ser.): 303–9 (October, 1863).

  38. Asa Gray to Darwin, 23 November 1863 (CCD, 11, 677–8).

  39. T. H. Huxley, Man’s Place in Nature and other Anthropological Essays (Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1901), 35–6.

  40. ARW to Darwin, 2 January 1864 (LR, 148–51).

  41. Darwin to ARW, 22 December 1857 (CCD, 6, 515).

  42. ARW to George Silk, 30 November 1858 (WFA).

  43. Lyell to ARW, 8 February 1864 (BL, Add. Mss. 46411).

  44. Quoted in Lyell to ARW, February 1864 (BL, Add. Mss. 46411).

  45. Huxley to ARW, see note 46.

  46. ARW to Huxley, 26 February 1864 (Huxley papers, Imperial College, London).

  47. Wallace’s paper was entitled ‘The origin of human races and the antiquity of man deduced from the theory of “Natural Selection”’, and was slightly adapted and modified as ‘The Development of Human Races under the Law of Natural Selection’, for inclusion in Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection (1870) and, later, Natural Selection and Tropical Nature (1891). This quotation is from the last named, and follows the original apart from minor changes in the punctuation, and the substitution of ‘better adapted’ and ‘less adapted’ for ‘more favourable’ and ‘less favourable’. Wallace did not indicate where he was making changes, and later added a radically more perfectionist conclusion.

  48. Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, 2, clviii–clxx, followed by the discussion, clxx–clxxxvii.

  49. Lyell to ARW, 22 May 1864 (BL, Add. Mss. 46411).

  50. ARW to Hooker, 22 May 1864 (RBG, Kew).

  51. Hooker to Darwin, 6 October 1865, in Leonard Huxley, Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, 2 vols. (John Murray, 1918), vol. 2, 54.

  52. Darwin to ARW, 28 May 1864 (LR, 1, 152–5).

  53. Hooker to Bates, 13 May 1863, quoted by Clodd in Bates (1892), p. lxvi.

  54. Minute Book, 18 April 1864, RGS.

  55. ML, vol. 1, 409–11.

  56. ARW to Newton, 19 February 1865 (CUL). Wallace wrote to Darwin the month before: ‘No cause has been given me except mysterious statements of the impossibility of our being happy, although her affection for me remains unchanged. Of course I can only impute it to some delusion on her part as to the state of her health.’ ARW to Darwin, 20 January 1865 (Darwin papers, CUL).

  57. Spruce to Wallace, 21 November 1863 (WFA).

  58. Ibid.

 
59. William Mitten to Spruce, 29 October 1864 (RBG, Kew).

  10 WALLACE TRANSFORMED

  1. ‘How to Civilize Savages’, Reader 5: 671a–672a (17 June 1865).

  2. ARW, Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (rev. edn, 1896), 132–3.

  3. See, for example, Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, 144, where Wallace writes of ‘a solid basis of fact’. In terms of persuading other people about the factual basis for spiritualism, Wallace tended to cite the experiences of other reputable investigators.

  4. Memoranda from old account books, 2 December 1899, in Samuel Butler’s notebooks, vol. 3 (BL).

  5. H. Festing Jones, Samuel Butler, Author of ‘Erewhon’ (1835–1902): A Memoir, 2 vols. (Macmillan, 1919), vol. 1, 317.

  6. ML, 214.

  7. ARW to Newton, 29 June 1866 (CUL).

  8. ML, 214.

  9. ARW to Hooker, 3 May 1866 (RGB, Kew).

  10. ARW to Huxley, 22 November 1866 (BL, Add. Mss. 46439).

  11. T. H. Huxley in Westminster Review, 61 (1854), quoted in Desmond, Huxley: The Devil’s Disciple (1994), 192.

  12. Huxley to ARW, (before) 1 December 1866 (BL, Add. Mss. 46439).

  13. John Tyndall to ARW, 8 February 1867 (BL, Add. Mss. 46439).

  14. ARW to Huxley, 1 December 1866 (LR, vol. 2, 187–8).

  15. See Francis Darwin, ed., vol. 3, 186–8.

  16. ‘The Scientific Aspect of the Supernatural’ was first published in The English Leader (nos. 52–9, 11 August 1866 to 29 September 1866), and reprinted as a pamphlet. Fanny Sims’s copy, with its extraordinary tale, is in the Wallace papers at the Oxford Museum of Natural History.

  17. Roberet Owen, The New Existence of Man, (1854). See Frank Podmore, Robert Owen: A Biography, 2 vols, (London, 1906).

  18. Robert Chambers to ARW, 10 February 1867, ML, vol. 2, 303.

  19. ARW to Newton, 6 January 1866 (CUL).

  20. Richard Spruce to Fanny Sims, 27 February 1867 (WFA).

  21. See Elizabeth Jenkins, The Shadow and the Light: A Defence of Daniel Douglas Home, the Medium (Hamish Hamilton, 1982), especially chapter XXIV, ‘The Imperious Mrs Lyon’. See also Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914 (Cambridge University Press, 1985).

  22. ML, 358–60. Wallace’s manuscript notes for his autobiography reveal more details, for example of names, and there are other scattered jottings about his finances in notebooks, address books etc (WFA).

  23. ARW to Newton, 10 March 1867 (CUL).

  24. ML, 372–3.

  25. ARW to Darwin, 2 January 1864 (LR, 1, 149–51).

  26. ARW to Darwin, 7 February 1868 (LR, 1, 193–4).

  27. ARW, ‘Creation by Law’, Quarterly Journal of Science 4, 471–88 (October, 1867).

  28. ARW to Newton, 19 February 1868 (CUL).

  29. ARW to Lyell, 28 February 1868 (ML, vol. 1, 422).

  30. William Mitten to Spruce, 7 June 1868 (RBG, Kew).

  31. Mitten to Spruce, 10 August 1868 (RBG, Kew).

  32. ARW to Darwin, 20 January 1869 (LR, 1, 232).

  33. ARW to Hooker, 18 January 1869 (RBG, Kew).

  11 MAN AND MIND

  1. Darwin to ARW, 5 March 1869 (LR, 1, 235).

  2. Darwin to ARW, 22 March 1869 (LR, 1, 237).

  3. MA, 598. In his note about his use of the term ‘barbarism’, Wallace gave one final example in justification, which anticipates his future campaigning about land: ‘We permit absolute possession of the soil of our country, with no legal rights of existence on the soil, to the vast majority who do not possess it. A great landholder may legally convert his whole property into a forest or a hunting-ground, and expel every human being who has hitherto lived upon it.’

  4. MA, 596.

  5. ‘Sir Charles Lyell on Geological Climates and the Origin of Species’, Quarterly Review 126, 359–94 (April, 1869).

  6. Quarterly Review 126, 394, reproduced in Smith (ed.), 1991, 31–4.

  7. Darwin to ARW, 14 April 1869 (LR, 1, 242–3). (On 27 March, Darwin wrote: ‘I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child.’)

  8. Lyell to Darwin, 5 May 1869, K. Lyell (ed.), Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell (John Murray, 1881), vol. 2, 441–4.

  9. ARW to Mitten, 25 July 1905 (Linnean Society). See also ARW’s previous letter of enquiry, 18 July 1905; ‘Also what year was it we went to Spa together?’

  10. ML, 256–7.

  11. Wallace’s copy of the burlesque ‘Exeter Change for The British Lion’, (WFA).

  12. Darwin to ARW, 26 January 1870 (LR, 1, 250–1).

  13. Darwin to ARW, 31 March 1870 (LR, 1, 251).

  14. ML, 362.

  15. ML, 361–72. The amount of space Wallace gives to this episode reveals how much it weighed on his mind, and conscience: he does not spare himself. Various Hampden missives are among his papers, and Hampden’s accusing letters survive in the files of the learned societies. Hampden delivered several shrewd thrusts, and called into question Wallace’s claim to a Government Pension of £200 a year ‘unless scientific villainy and roguery are at a premium in this country’.

  16. ARW to Newton, 25 December 1870 (CUL).

  17. ML, 338–40, and On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, 165–8.

  18. Darwin to ARW, 22 November 1870 (LR, 1, 254–5).

  19. ARW’s review of The Descent of Man, in Academy 2, 538 (1 December 1871), 183. See also letters between ARW and Darwin, LR, 1, 255–62.

  20. ARW to Fanny Sims, 31 December 1871 (WFA).

  21. Architect’s plans for The Dell, by Wonnacott of Farnham (WFA). Bates was active on Wallace’s behalf in obtaining literary work for him. For correcting proofs etc., Wallace received five shillings an hour from Lyell. He asked for seven shillings an hour on a more demanding task for Darwin, but this conceivably awkward arrangement fell through.

  22. ARW to Mitten, 6 March 1873 (Linnean Society).

  23. ARW to Arabella Buckley, 24 April 1874 (LR, 2, 192–3).

  24. Arabella Buckley to ARW, 25 April 1874 (WFA).

  25. Arabella Buckley’s (Mrs Fisher’s) note in LR, 2, 193.

  26. On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, 196–8.

  27. ARW to Francis Galton, 23 May 1874 (Galton papers, University College, London).

  28. Arabella Buckley to ARW, 26 May 1874 (BL, Add. Mss. 46439).

  29. ARW to Newton, 14 February 1875 (CUL).

  30. ARW to Newton, 29 March 1875 (CUL).

  31. ARW to Newton, 9 April 1875 (CUL).

  32. ARW to Newton, 4 May 1875 (CUL).

  33. Darwin to ARW, 5 June 1876 (LR, 1, 286–7).

  34. ARW to Darwin, 23 July 1876 (LR, 1, 294–6).

  35. Hooker, Presidential Address to the British Association, quoted in Wilma George, Biologist Philosopher (Abelard-Schuman, 1964), 123.

  36. Prospectus for the Dell, Thurrock Library Local Studies Collection (I am grateful to Mr John Webb of the Thurrock Local History Society for this information).

  37. ARW to Newton, 23 July 1876 (CUL).

  38. Wallace became a member of the Society for Psychical Research, which was formed in 1882. He was invited to become President on several occasions, but declined. He continued to write on aspects of spiritualism throughout his life, contributing to The Light, and to the publications of the Society for Psychical Research. On 23 June 1898, he addressed the International Congress of Spiritualists at St James’s Hall, London, on ‘Spiritualism and Social Duty’.

  39. ML, vol. 2, 397.

  40. See for background Oliver Rackham, Ancient Woodland (Arnold, 1968), 251–5.

  41. Joseph Hooker to ARW, 20 July 1878 (RBG, Kew). Hooker sent Wallace his lecture on ‘North American Flora’.

  42. ARW to Hooker, 27 August 1878 (RBG, Kew).

  43. ARW to Hooker, 27 October 1878 (RBG, Kew).

  44. ‘Epping Forest, and how best to deal with it’, Fortnightly Review 24, 628–45 (1 November 1878).

  45. ML, 218–19. See also the minute book of the Coal, Corn and
Finance Committee, Corporation of the City of London, vol. 41, p. 71, (Misc. Mss. 223.2 and 223.5), and Wallace’s correspondence with Meldola, particularly. He continued to grumble privately about the Commissioners for some time, even encouraging Meldola and others to mount a legal challenge to some of their decisions.

  46. ARW to Newton, 9 January 1880 (CUL).

  47. ARW to Arabella Buckley, quoted in her letter to Darwin, below. See for details of this whole affair, Ralph Colp, Jr., ‘“I Will Gladly Do My Best”: How Charles Darwin Obtained a Civil List Pension for Alfred Russel Wallace,’ (Isis, 1992), 83, 3–26.

  48. Arabella Buckley to Darwin, 16 December 1879 (Darwin papers, CUL).

  49. Darwin to Arabella Buckley, Darwin to Hooker, 17 December 1879 (Darwin papers, CUL).

  50. Hooker to Darwin, 18 December 1879 (Darwin papers, CUL).

  51. Darwin to Hooker, 19 December 1879 (Darwin papers, CUL).

  52. ARW to Hooker, 19 July 1880 (RBG, Kew).

  53. ARW to Philip Sclater, 21 September 1880 (ZSL)

  54. Arabella Buckley to Darwin, 7 November 1880 (Darwin papers, CUL).

  55. Darwin to ARW, 3 November 1880 (LR, 1, 307–8).

  56. Asa Gray to ARW, 31 December 1880 (BL, Add. Mss. 46436).

  57. ARW to Thiselton-Dyer, 7 January 1881 (BL, Add. Mss. 46436).

  58. RBG, Kew.

  59. Hooker to Darwin, 22 November 1880, Huxley (ed.) (1918), vol. 2, 244–5. Hooker to Wallace, 10 November 1880 (LR, 1, 289–90).

  60. Hooker to Darwin, 26 November 1880 (Huxley collection, Imperial College Archives).

  61. Darwin to Huxley (after 26 November) 1880 (Imperial College Archives).

  62. Darwin to Francis Darwin, 28? December 1880 (Darwin papers, CUL).

  63. Darwin to Arabella Buckley, 4 January 1881 (Darwin papers, CUL).

  64. William Gladstone to Darwin, 6 January 1881 (Darwin papers, CUL).

  65. Darwin to ARW, 7 January 1881 (LR, 1, 313–14).

  66. Darwin to Huxley, 7 January 1881 (Darwin papers, CUL).

  67. ARW to Darwin, 8 January 1881 (LR, 1, 314).

  68. ARW to Darwin, 29 January 1881 (LR, 1, 315–16).

  12 THE BIG TREES

  1. ‘How to Nationalise the Land: A radical solution of the Irish Land Problem’, Contemporary Review 38, 716–36 (November 1880).

  2. ML, 323; Land Nationalisation, 1882.