WCP6163

Letter (WCP6163.7138)

[1]1

ST. HELEN’S COTTAGE,

ST. HELENS,

ISLE OF WIGHT

Aug[ust]. 8. 1919.

Dear Mr Wallace2,

I think D[octo]r. Harmer3 would be the right person in any case to write to. He would see the specimens or get someone else to do so at the B[ritish]. A[ssociation] 4.

All our plans for coming are destroyed: we have had a terrible tragedy in our family — the 3rd in a little over 4 years5. Our dear youngest child6, — not [2] yet 27, was killed in a bicycle accident on July 23. She was riding to the Redhill Station to go to her brother’s7 at Woldingham8, when the front mud guard suddenly shook loose & that deadly[?] few inches behind the [1 word illeg.], with a sharp edge directed against the motion, caught in the tyre & stopped the machine instantly. She was thrown onto her face & her neck was broken. She died in an hour. We shall in the end get much comfort from her two little boys — the eldest just over three. They are with us now & her husband9.

With kind regards | Yours sincerely | E. B. Poulton10 [signature]

1
The page is numbered WP16/1/105 in pencil in the top LH corner.
2
Wallace, William Greenell (1871-1951) Electrical engineer, second son and third child of ARW.
3
Harmer, Sidney Frederic (1862-1950) British marine zoologist. He was Keeper of Zoology at the Natural History Museum 1909-1921 and Director of the Museum 1919-1927.
4
The British Association for the Advancement of Science (founded 1831) is a learned society promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters and facilitating interaction between scientific workers.
5
The author was married to Emily, neé Palmer and they had five children. Their younger son, Ronald Poulton-Palmer was killed in May 1915 in World War I. Their oldest daughter Hilda, married to Dr Ernest Ainsley-Walker, died in 1917. The author was outlived only by his second daughter Margaret Lucy (1887-1965), wife of Dr Maxwell Garnett.
6
The author’s youngest daughter was Janet Palmer Symonds.
7
Poulton, Edward Palmer (1883-1939) Elder son of the author. Working at Guy’s Hospital, London from 1912, his research in Physiology in relation to Medicine included diabetes, oxygen therapy, pernicious anaemia and visceral sensations.
8
Redhill is a town and Woldingham a village in Surrey.
9
Symonds, Charles Putnam (1890-1978) English neurologist. He married Janet Palmer Poulton in 1915. They were to have two sons before her accidental death in 1919.
10
Poulton, Edward Bagnall (1856-1943) British evolutionary biologist, friend of ARW and lifelong advocate of natural selection. He did pioneering work on warning or protective colouration in animals and became Hope Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford in 1893.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP6163.7138)]

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

Revision history

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

Please cite as “WCP6163,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 1 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP6163