WCP5438

Letter (WCP5438.6160)

[1]

23 Ithaca Road,

Elizabeth Bay

Sydney, N[ew]. S[outh]. W[ales].

June 9th. 1908

Dr. A. Russel Wallace F[ellow]. [of the] R[oyal]. S[ociety].

Broadstone

Wimborne.

Sir

The President, Council, and Members of the Linnean Society of New South Wales1 desire with enthusiastic unanimity to ask leave to present to you their hearty felicitations upon attaining to the jubilee of the presentation of your epoch-making Paper2, simultaneously with that of Charles Darwin3, to the Linnean Society of London4, in July 1858.

We beg, Sir, to congratulate you upon living to see effected the great revolution in Biology, and in general scientific and popular thought, which had its beginnings in those fundamental Papers on Evolution, based upon Natural Selection as its dominant factor[.]

In common with the Linnean Society of London, our younger and distant sister Society of New South Wales has derived inspiration for its labours from the flood of light thrown upon Biological Science by your great Theory, and we gladly seize this opportunity of expressing to you our profound admiration of your life-work and of your vigorous personal character

Signed on behalf of the Society

A. H. S. Lucas5 [signature]

President

J. J. Fletcher6 [signature]

Secretary

1
The Society was founded in 1874 and incorporated in 1884. Financial support came from its first President, Sir William Macleay (1820-1891), who provided the Society with its original accommodation and staff, set up a library and established the Proceedings (1875).
2
Charles Darwin (see Endnote 4) was writing up his theory in 1858 when he received an essay from ARW who was in Borneo, describing ARW’s own theory of natural selection. Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker agreed on a joint paper to be presented at the Linnean Society of London (see Endnote 5) on 1 July 1858. The papers entitled respectively as "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection" incorporated Wallace's writing and extracts from Darwin's 1844 essay and his 1857 letter to Asa Gray. This attracted little notice, but spurred Darwin to write an abstract of his work which was published in 1859 as his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
3
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882). English naturalist and writer, and jointly with ARW, originator of the theory of evolution by natural selection.
4
A learned society founded in 1788, for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history, named in honour of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist, regarded as the father of modern taxonomy.
5
Lucas, Arthur Henry Shakespeare (1853-1936) English-born schoolmaster and scientist who was President of the Linnean Society of New South Wales (see Endnote 1) from 1907-1909. He described several new species of Australian reptiles (recorded in Proceedings), wrote with Arthur Dendy An Introduction to the Study of Botany (1892) and with W. H. D. Le Souef, The Animals of Australia (1909), and The Birds of Australia (1911).
6
Fletcher, Joseph James (1850-1926) Australian biologist. He was made Director and Librarian of the Linnean Society of New South Wales (see Endnote 1) in 1885 (afterwards changed to Secretary). He edited 33 volumes of Proceedings during his period of service.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP5438.6160)]

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Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP5438,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 3 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP5438