WCP6336

Letter (WCP6336.7330)

[1]1

Telegraph & Station,

Six Mile Bottom.2

HARE PARK,

SIX MILE BOTTOM.

CAMBS.3

Address

29 Thurloe Place

London. S.W.

Aug[ust]. 24 [1908][?]4

Dear Mrs Wallace,

I want to thank you and Dr Russell[sic] Wallace5 for so kindly receiving me at Broadstone6 last week. I meant to have asked you then and want to [2] ask you now — as to what your husband eats. as I think he is a model for scientific & literary men who wish for a happy and active old age.

You told me in July that he takes roast beef — but that it was specially cooked & of a special cut. Would you tell me more? Also does he take any wine, beer or spirit? [3] and does he eat very little & how many meals?

I was so pleased to see his beautiful & interesting garden & to talk with him.

Please give him my kind regards & accept the same yourself

Yours sincerely

E Ray Lankester7 [signature]

1
Text in another hand at the top of the page reads "WP1|4|31".
2
This text is printed in red at an angle across the top left corner of the page.
3
This address is printed in red but cancelled through by two lines of ink. It was the home of William Broderick Cloete (1851-1915), a British industrialist.
4

1 July 1908 was the fiftieth anniversary of the reading of the Darwin-Wallace papers. There was a celebration held at the Institute of Civil Engineers where Wallace gave an address. Lankester was also present. Raby, Peter (2002). Alfred Russel Wallace, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 354pp. [pp. 276-8].

On 2 July (the year unspecified) Lankester wrote to Wallace after meeting him at a 'reception' (WCP2955.2845) saying that that he hoped to visit him soon, and commenting that the Trustees of the British Museum had turned him out of house and home. He had been forced to retire at the end of 1907. <http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/library/archives/catalogue/dserve.exe?dsqServer=placid&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=(AltRefNo=='DF1000-DF1099')&PF=Yes> [accessed 23 October 2015]

It seems probable that this letter records Lankester's subsequent visit to Wallace after his retirement, and after meeting at the anniversary celebrations, i.e. 1908.

5
Wallace had received an honorary doctorate from the University of Dublin in 1882 and from the university of Oxford in 1889. The Alfred Russel Wallace website.
6
Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. Wallace lived here from 1902 until his death in 1913. The Alfred Russel Wallace Page.
7
Lankester, Sir Edwin Ray (1847-1929). Zoologist. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP6336.7330)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by Ghosh, Susan [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP6336,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 5 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP6336