WCP6326

[1]

6, Brunswick Square,

W.C.

Dec 12/[19]14

Dear Sir,

I regret to inform you that Mrs. Wallace, window of the late Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace O.M. died a few days ago. The pension, which through your kind intervention, was allowed to Mrs. Wallace will therefore cease.

The family now consists of one son who is in bad health & unable to earn a living & one daughter who will be thrown upon the world to support herself by teaching. Owing to the war the family have been unable to dispose of their house & this loss combined with the expenditure necessitated by the continued illness of Mrs. Wallace during the past year has left their resources at a very low ebb.

Before the death of Mrs. Wallace the Scientific Relief Committee of the Royal Society had place £50 at my disposal [2] to be paid to her in two quarterly instalments. I am about to obtain the sanction of the Committee to allot this sum to the family. At the same time the Committee had authorised the Assistant Secretary to approach you with the object of obtaining an increased pension for the widow. This application may possibly have already reached you.

Under the present conditions the case assumes a different aspect. When the £50 which I shall I hope be allowed to hand over to the family is exhausted the Royal Society can give no further assistance as we have no fund for pensioning purposes — only for temporary relief.

As one of the late Dr. Wallace's oldest scientific friends I am therefore venturing to ask you whether in view of his enormously important services to British Science it might not be considered on public grounds the right thing to grant a modest pension from the civil list fund [3] to the family in recognition of their father's <services>. This is of course a request proffered entirely on my own responsibility but I have ventured to make it because you know all the circumstances of the case & you were so good as to interest yourself in it from the beginning.

Should you require any endorsement from the Royal Society I am sure that the Scientific Relief Committee would support the application & any details concerning the actual position of the family at the present time can be easily obtained for your information.

With many apologies for troubling you in these troublous times

I am, | Yours obediently, | Raphael Meldola [signature]

To the Rt. Hon. H.H. Asquith, F.R.S. | Prime Minister.