WCP6207

Letter (WCP6207.7183)

[1]1

ST. HELEN’S COTTAGE,

ST. HELENS,

ISLE OF WIGHT

15. IV.1923

Dear Mr Wallace2,

I am working at the obituary of your father for the Roy[al]. Soc[iet].y.3 & I should like to know if possible the causes which led to the separation between him and Bates4 in S[outh]. America. Was it due to scientific reasons — the advantages of being able to work two areas, or to some temporary disagreement. If the latter it was evidently temporary. There is abundant evidence of their friendship in the correspondence & in other ways. The only definite statement I have even heard was from by the late R[obert]. McLachlan5 & it was to the effect that there was a difference about spiritualism or views approaching spiritualism. R[obert]. M[cLachlan]. was I think intimate with Bates & must have heard it from him. I had this statement myself from R[obert]. M[cLachlan]. He was rather a bitter man & things would not [2] be by any means softened down in the telling! But it is difficult to believe that there was not some foundation for so definite a statement. In such intimate relations as those imposed by travel together different points of view & different opinions might well produce effects which would have been absent under other conditions.

With kindest regards, | Yours sincerely, | E. B. Poulton6 [signature]

P[ost]. S[criptum]. Perhaps your sister7 might know something or Mrs Buckley Fisher8. If so can you give me her address? She has left Oxford now. Or perhaps you may know of someone else.

E. B. P.

[Annotation in pencil in the hand of the recipient]

Ans[were]d quoting p[age]. 146 My Life9 2nd Ed[ition].10

1
The page is numbered WP16/1/113 in pencil in the top LH corner.
2
Wallace, William Greenell (1871-1951) Electrical engineer, second son and third child of ARW.
3
Learned society for Science founded in November 1660 and granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II. The obituary was actually marking the centenary of ARW’s birth in 1823; he died in 1913.
4
Bates, Henry Walter (1825-1892) English naturalist and explorer, most famous for his expedition to the rainforests of the Amazon with ARW, starting in 1848. ARW returned in 1852, but lost his collection on the return voyage when his ship caught fire. When Bates arrived home in 1859, he had sent back over 14,712 species (mostly of insects) of which 8,000 were new to science.
5
McLachlan, Robert (1837-1904) British entomologist, specializing in the study of the Neuroptera. He was successively a member, secretary, treasurer and president of the Entomological Society of London and a member of various British and foreign learned societies.
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
Wallace, Violet Isabel (1869-1945) ARW’s daughter and sister of the recipient.
8
Fisher, Arabella Burton (née Buckley) (1840-1929) British writer and science educator. She was secretary to Charles Lyell until his death in 1875, then began lecturing and writing on science. She was married (Mrs Fisher), but published under her maiden name, Buckley.
9
Wallace, A. R. (1905) My Life; A Record of Events and Opinions London, Chapman & Hall Ltd.; New York, Dodd Mead & Company. 2 vols. (2nd edition published 1908).
10
The separation appears to have been amicable. On page 146 of My Life 2nd Edition ARW writes: "For the first four months Bates and I lived and collected together in and around Pará, but on our return from an expedition which we had made up the Tocantins river, we agreed that it would be better for many reasons to travel and collect independently; one reason being that the country was so vast and so rich in birds and insects that much better results would be obtained if we each explored separate districts. We therefore separated, but we again met at Santarem and at the Barra."

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP6207.7183)]

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 “WCP6207,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP6207