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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
“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.”
Relating postponement of ARW’s expedition until following November.
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.
No summary available.
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.
No summary available.
Thanks for “greatly esteemed favour” of April 6th, but was “much grieved at the misfortunes which befell our good friend Alfredo.” (ARW) “What labours he performed for mankind, what trouble to lose all his work of four years; but yet his life is saved, and that is the most precious…All kind remembrances to Senhor Alfredo.”
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.”
This Paper by ARW “appears to be the original — and I recommend it being printed in the Journal with a sketch of the Course of the River Negro [sic] which it describes.”
Submission to the Royal Geographical Society of an original paper, “On the Rio Negro” by ARW. “The River Vaupes, considered to be the headstream of the Rio Negro, is now for the first time delineated in the accompanying map.”
Form letter from Royal Geographic Society requesting evaluation of ARW paper “On the Rio Negro” for publication. Requests suggestions for editing it for publication. Parish’s response is at WCP3696.3603
No summary available.
Became worried when hadn’t heard from you (ARW); wondered what “catastrophe” found you, “whether you were shipwrecked, or got married” or overdosed “on plum pudding.” Finally learned of the fire that took your ship and collections; sympathize with your “sufferings and irreparable losses” and admire your stoicism. “I [too] have] looked death in the face.” Local Indians became drunk at a public feast and “threatened to murder all the whites” (all three of us). We were obliged to keep “constant [armed] watch for two days and nights.” Had they attacked, they could have easily killed us “for they were 150 against 3.” Local scoundrel named Chagas, “with a face exactly like the back of a Surinam toad” (ie. hideously pock-marked), has been helpful in arranging river expeditions for plant collecting, but “also took a special delight in cheating me.” Currently we’re preparing for a voyage up the Casiquiare, with the intention of entering the Rio Cunucunuma; next year we’ll explore the sources of the Orinoco.
No summary available.
Application made to the Royal Geographical Society detailing ARW’s proposed trip to the Malay Archipelago and requesting free passage for the journey.
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.”
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.
No summary available.
No summary available.
“Grieved to hear of the great loss my brother has suffered.” Unfortunately, fires at sea and shipwreck have become common. He will survive “and the name of Sir Alfred Wallace may [yet] shine forth.” Columbia is a gold mining community of fifteen thousand inhabitants, and is growing rapidly based on the achievements of our Company in providing water for the mines. Miners mostly get their own way. Foreigners are supposed to have a right to employment if they pay a state tax, but “Chinese and Mexicans are not allowed by the miners to work at all...and they carry out their ideas of liberty and equality by driving them out.” But our Company would not be pushed around when some miners protested that our rates are too high. I told them we must maintain current prices, and cut off the most prominent activists from buying water at any price, which deterred other “insolent” complainers.