WCP3813

Letter (WCP3813.3731)

[1]

Waldron Edge, Duppas Hill, Croydon.

Sept.[embe]r 12th. 1878

Dear Sir Joseph1

Many thanks for your kind note. I now send two forms of testimonial, the larger I hope you will have no objection to sign, the shorter one is more suitable for persons who do not know me personally, or it might be added to by any persons who wish to give any special testimony. [2] If you sign the larger one will you please to keep the smaller one in case you sh[oul]d. have the opportunity of asking any one whose name would have weight to sign it.2

As so many people are now out of town I thought it best to have them printed to save time & also for safety to the signatures that may be obtained. Of course I have special testimony to my knowledge of surveying & my experience in planting.

[3] Believe me | Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Sir Joseph Hooker C.B. Pres[ident]. R[oyal]. Soc[iety].3

1
Great 19th century British botanist and explorer Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, KCB, FRS (1817 — 1911). Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and one of Charles Darwin’s closest friends. Hooker, along with Charles Lyell, played a vital role in the relatively peaceful co-publication of Darwin and Wallace’s papers on the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1858.
2
The testimonials which ARW mentions likely refer back to ARW’s August 27th, 1878 letter to Hooker, in which ARW requested Hooker’s support in his application to the position of Superintendent of Epping Forest—an application in which ARW would be unsuccessful. However, the testimonials mentioned were not found in the WCP files, and may no longer exist.
3
Hooker was elected President of the Royal Society in 1873.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP3813.3731)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Clerx, William [2012-08-16] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15]

Please cite as “WCP3813,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3813