Ɛpsilon

WCP6167

Letter (WCP6167.7142)

[1]1

Wykeham House:

Oxford.

Feb[ruary]. 18, 1921

Dear Mr Wallace2,

I thought it would interest you & your sister3 to see a copy of the plate I have had made (I do not want it back.) It had to be this shape as so the lid, which lifts up, is not a suitable position for it. & there is nothing else by the border of the slope to which to attach it.4 I am hoping to take it to London on Monday so that it can be in the new home5for the first meeting on March 2. Will you kindly shew [sic] or send it to your sister?

[2]

Hoping that you are both well, & with kindest regards, I am,

Yours sincerely, | E. B. Poulton6 [signature]

P[ost]. S[criptum]. The brass is "dull finished" which is best for things not new.

E. B. P.

When in London I hope you and your sister will go to see the desk slope at 45 Queen’s Gate, nearly opposite the L[?]. wing of the Nat[ural]. Hist[ory]. Mus[eum].7

E. B. P.

1
The page is numbered WP16/1/108 in pencil in the top LH corner.
2
Wallace, William Greenell (1871-1951) Electrical engineer, second son and third child of ARW.
3
Wallace, Violet Isabel (1869-1945) ARW’s daughter and sister of the recipient.
4
The desk slope was a writing desk owned by ARW, which his son, the recipient, offered to the author in memoriam. The author has presented it to the Linnean Society (see Endnote 5) and ordered a suitable brass plate to fix to the desk showing the provenance.
5
The Linnean Society was 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.
6
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.
7
The British Museum (Natural History) opened in South Kensington in 1881. It is now commonly referred to as the Natural History Museum.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP6167.7142)]

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 “WCP6167,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP6167