WCP162

Letter (WCP162.162)

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset

Feby. 9th. 1899

My dear Will

Your letter describing Mack’s machine just to hand, and I now understand it sufficiently in principle though not in detail. Did I ever tell you that I wrote to Mr. Parsons1 the inventor of the 36 mile an hour ship & the Steam turbines, about my flat ship idea? I have had two very nice letters from him, & he invited me to visit him at Newcastle.

You are quite under a misapprehension in supposing that I think you are wasting time in America & want you to come back. All I said & meant, was, that you are wasting your time in such a high cold dreary place as you are at, not only getting no game, no skeletons & skins, but having no interesting country to explore. I am glad to hear you have a good working conscience— I have a very poor one myself— but you need not let it hurt you because you are enjoying yourself in America. I am sorry you cannot get better pay or get to be [2] Boss of some job, but so long as you can earn a living I believe you cannot do better for a year or two, as the experience will be sure to be useful some day. I therefore hope you will if possible get to California, and as you and Mac can turn your hands to almost any work I feel sure you will get something that will enable you to get on. In a letter you will get about now you will see what I have said about the Southern States where I think you will have a good chance of work. You will also I hope spend a month at Ruskin.

Now as to my health it is just as good as when you were here, except that I have had a little more of a kind of Asthmatic cough, owing to the very wet autumn & winter we had, but it is going away and I hope to be all right when spring weather comes. I hope to live another ten years as I think I can do a little useful work yet.

The orchids are getting on fairly well, but I [3] lost a lot owing to cold dry winds getting into the house during the roof-raising. Ever since these have been getting worse and dying gradually but the majority are all right and I think are doing better than before. I have had very few in flower lately but now some are coming on. In the garden I have put in a lot of Parrot-tulips gladiolus, and iris, and hope to have a good show next summer.

I have been lately hunting up ancestors for the autobiography. To find what particular family of the Scotch Wallaces my father belonged to is most difficult, but Professor Robert Wallace of Edinburgh told me about a book called "The Book of Wallace" published about 12 years ago by the "Grampian Club", and after some trouble he has found in Edinburgh a second-hand copy which I have got. It is in 2 large vols. about the size of Word’s Nat[ural]. Hist[ory]. One vol. contains all that can be found out about the various families of Wallace in Scotland or abroad, and the other [4] the history of Sir W. Wallace. There are such a lot of Wallace’s in Scotland that it seems doubtful whether I shall find to which one my father’s father belonged; but I must try. About the Greenell’s I have got some good information from the present master of the Hertford Grammar School. My grandfather Greenell was, he says, twice Mayor of Hertford. He was dead nearly thirty years before I was born. On looking again I find this was my Great-Grandfather. He was the Mayor & died in 1797 aged 80. His son died in 1824, aged 79. Both were John Greenells. Now I have to find out what they were. There is also William Greenell, a brother of the older John Greenell who was born & buried at Hertford but lived 56 years in Marylebone (London). He died in 1791, aged 71. (effect of London as compared with country life). He was the Architect after whom my eldest brother was named, & became an architect. I do not know if you ever heard about the [5] family portraits, which I stupidly neglected and now cannot get. They were 4 large oil paintings, very old and not first rate. The best was of the Architect rather youngish, and something like me, with a model of a building on a table by him. The others were older men and I fancy were his father & uncles. These portraits I think must have been in the possession of Mrs. Wilson2 my mother’s sister, and when the Wilsons all went to Australia they came to us. That was when I was about 16 I think. While my sister was in America, and my mother living in lodgings &c. they must have been taken care of by some friend. Then, after Mrs. Sims3 was married she had them in London, and when they left London, the pictures being big dirty & generally shabby, they were lent or given to Miss Roberts4, or she took charge of them, and "the architect" used to hang in her spare bedroom. I am sure I could have had them again at any time, but somehow I stupidly took no interest in them, never imagining I should write an Autobiography! and we never had [6] any room for them. Miss Roberts left her house and furniture to her mother’s relations, the O’Haras; her second cousins who are no relations whatever to the Greenells. I may tell you now that some years before, when I had lost a lot of money by mines which my friend Geach5 had induced me to invest in, & was in a very bad way, Miss Roberts very kindly said that instead of leaving me a thousand pounds in her will, as she intended she would give it me at once, which she did, in shares in a Company which her father had a very high opinion of and which she strongly advised me not to sell. I believe the shares will increase in value. It is called the Gen[era]l. Reversion & Investment Company, and has always paid 5 per. cent. with a bonus of 2 per. cent usually. The eldest of the Miss O’Haras married a Mr. Gorringe6, an oil & colour man in London, a rather coarse looking disagreeable young man. These had the house & lived in it, and of course the furniture & pictures. Mr. Gorringe was very cross with me because after the funeral I wrote to ask if anything had been left to my sister, & [7] that I expected the will would have been read after the funeral. In reply he wrote a most rude letter, and said nobody was mentioned in the will but Mrs. Gorringes family. This was nine years ago. They have now let the Epsom house and gone to live at Finchley near his business. Thinking it would be nice to have a copy of the Architect picture for the book, I wrote a very polite letter to Mrs. G[orringe]. asking her to allow me to have a photograph taken of it, telling her what it was for, and asking her to send me the name of a good photographer near her and I would tell him what I wanted. I added— "perhaps he may which to have it at his studio in order to get a proper light for a copy." I was afraid the pictures had all been left behind or sold as rubbish, but we did not expect the answer we got which was evidently dictated by Mr. Gorringe. It said— "I do not care to let the picture go out of the house therefore I must refuse your request. I am sorry I am obliged to do so."!! The "refuse" and "obliged" tell the story. [8] Our idea is now, that when you come home you can call on Mrs. Gorringe and ask to look at the picture of the ancestor you are named after, get the date if on it, and name of painter, and then ask if you may come & photograph it for yourself. She would not I think refuse you, and I am sure, if she had her own way she would not refuse me.

The Chant’s servant is a native of Epsom, & she wrote to her mother to get the Gorringes London address for me, as they only left Epsom last year. She says that her mother tells her it was well known in Epsom that Mr. G[orringe]. ill-treated his wife! and was a very disagreeable man.

I suppose you are looking out for any new American or foreign stamps you have not got. Where did you put all the duplicate American stamps? Miss Evans has asked me for some duplicates. Should you want money badly, either borrow as I said before, or wire me 2 words— "hundred dollars"— or to that effect. Socialism seems to be going ahead in America.

Your affectionate Pa | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Parsons, Charles Algernon (1854-1931). British engineer, best known for his invention of the steam turbine.
Wilson (née Greenell), Martha (1790-1858). ARW's aunt; sister of ARW's mother; wife of Thomas Wilson.
Sims (née Wallace), Frances ("Fanny") (1812-1893). Sister of ARW; teacher.
Roberts, Elizabeth ("Eliza") (c. 1815- ). Second cousin of ARW; lived in Epsom, Surrey.
Geach, Frederick F. (1835-1890). British mining engineer and friend of ARW.
Gorringe, Thomas James Hamilton (1856-1926). British landowner and ARW's relation by marriage.

Please cite as “WCP162,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP162