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The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 - 1913) was one of the world's most important scientists. His seminal contributions to biology rival those of his friend and colleague Charles Darwin, though he is far less well known. Together Wallace and Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1858, and their prolific subsequent work laid the foundations of modern evolutionary biology, and much more besides.
Wallace made enduring scholarly contributions to subjects as diverse as glaciology, land reform, anthropology, ethnography, epidemiology, and astrobiology. His pioneering work on evolutionary biogeography (the science that seeks to explain the geographical distribution of organisms) led to him becoming recognised as that subject’s ‘father’. Beyond this Wallace is regarded as the pre-eminent collector and field biologist of tropical regions of the 19th century, and his book The Malay Archipelago (which was Joseph Conrad’s favourite bedside reading) is one of the most celebrated travel writings of that century and has never been out of print. Wallace was a man with an extraordinary breadth of interests who was actively engaged with many of the big questions and important issues of his day. He was anti-slavery, anti-eugenics, anti-vivisection, anti-militarism, anti-Imperialism, a conservationist and an advocate of woman's rights. He strongly believed in the rights of the ordinary person, was a socialist, an anti-vaccinationist (for rational reasons), and a believer in naturalistic, evolutionary spiritualism. He did not come from a privileged background and was largely self-taught. For a brief biography see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/mini-biography
The Wallace Correspondence Project (WCP) was founded by George Beccaloni in 2010. Its aims are to locate, digitise, catalogue, transcribe, interpret and publish Wallace's surviving correspondence and other manuscripts. About 5,700 letters to and from Wallace are currently known to survive, and they are held by c. 240 institutions and individuals worldwide. Wallace's letters are a biographical treasure trove, which provides a far better picture of the 'real' Wallace than his heavily edited and censored published writings (e.g. his autobiography My Life (1905) and his letters in Marchant's Letters and Reminiscences (1916)). For example, Wallace never even mentions his wife's name (Annie) in any of his published writings, including his autobiography. The letters are also key to gaining a deeper understanding of his scientific and other work: how and why his ideas arose, and how they evolved over time.
The WCP is unlocking this valuable resource by gathering all the letters together for the first time, and transcribing them so that they can be more easily read and information within them discovered using electronic searches for words and phrases. The vast amount of unpublished information which is coming to light will surely form the basis for numerous articles, scholarly papers, PhD theses and perhaps the first definitive biography.
Epsilon is being used by the WCP's as its online archive of Wallace's correspondence. It replaces our previous archive, Wallace Letters Online, which was last updated in 2015. The process of editing the transcripts and associated metadata is a work in progress which will take many years to complete. Our project’s policy is, however, to make the information we have available to users at the earliest possible opportunity, even if it is incomplete and/or imperfect. For a guide to our data, including the protocols we use for metadata and transcriptions, please see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon
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John’s instructions to ARW on paying back debts of 180 lbs borrowed in 1849 to their mother and others. Will also send some beetles he has collected to find out if they may be valuable.
“Free passage to Singapore” granted to ARW and permission sought “to visit the Dutch and Spanish settlements in the Eastern Seas.” A place is available on a “ship of War” headed for Trincomalee “but no further.”
Official permission granted to ARW for “projected scientific expedition to the Eastern Archipelago”; Spanish Colonial office in the Philippines instructed “to afford to Mr. Wallace any assistance & protection he may require.”
ARW declines offer of passage “from Trincomalee to Singapore & [then] to Borneo” as taking too much time and expense, and “should prefer waiting for another opportunity.”
Transmits copy of note from Dutch Foreign Office, introducing ARW to Governor General of Netherland India. Permission for scientific expedition to Dutch Colony on Eastern Sea.
Relating postponement of ARW’s expedition until following November.
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ARW should inform when he intends to leave on his expedition; no vessels are scheduled for Singapore after November and passage may not then be available.
After a necessary delay for “necessary preparations,” and publication of his “Travels in South America,” ARW is now ready to embark for Singapore, Batavia, or other parts of Eastern Archipelago as soon as passage becomes available.
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One of a set of letters providing in-depth descriptions John Wallace's life in the gold mining town of Columbia, California, building a system to bring water to gold mining operations in the town.
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