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Wallace News Blog

New news and views on news, usually by George Beccaloni

Bill Bailey becomes Wallace Fund Patron!

Edited by George Beccaloni on Thu, 02/02/2012 - 07:57

Exciting news just in! The famous British comedian Bill Bailey has very kindly agreed to become the patron of the Wallace Memorial Fund! Bill is very interested in natural history and in South-East Asia and is a big fan of Wallace. In fact, such is his interest that he will be presenting a two part BBC series about Wallace which will be filmed this year in preparation for the anniversary next year. This programme should hopefully raise awareness of Wallace and his achievements more than anything else than has happened since Wallace's death in 1913!

Catalogue of the NHM's Wallace Family Papers now available

Submitted by George Beccaloni on Wed, 25/01/2012 - 22:45

A pdf manuscript catalogue of the Natural History Museum's Wallace Family Archive has been added to the WCP's database of documents, with permission from the NHM's library. This catalogue lists and describes the c. 5000 Wallace-related documents purchased by the Museum in 2002 from Wallace's grandsons. These records have been available for several years via the NHM Archive's online catalogue (see http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/library/archives/catalogue/search.html and search for "wp*" in the FindingNo field), but it is far easier to browse through them in the pdf catalogue. Note that since 2002 about 1000 additional documents have been kindly donated by the Wallace family, or purchased from them, and added to the NHM's Archive, but the records for these are not yet available for public viewing. The pdf catalogue can be downloaded by clicking HERE.

Wallace's annotated copy of the 1858 Darwin-Wallace paper on natural selection

Submitted by George Beccaloni on Mon, 19/12/2011 - 11:26

Probably the historically most important of all enclosures to any of Wallace's correspondence in the Wallace Family Archive at the Natural History Museum, London, is an offprint of 1858 Darwin-Wallace paper on natural selection - the scientific article which launched the evolution revolution. This paper is widely regarded as being one of the most important scientific papers of all time, and what is special about the NHM's copy is that it was owned and annotated by Wallace. A pdf of this document is now available for the first time.....

To read the rest of this post and download a copy of the offprint, please CLICK HERE.

Alfred Russel Wallace's address books are now available for downloading

Submitted by George Beccaloni on Sat, 10/12/2011 - 21:52

If you are interested in downloading a copy of Alfred Russel Wallace's address books go to the Wallace Correspondence Project site, here - http://wallaceletters.info/content/alfred-russel-wallaces-address-books-are-now-available-downloading

Correspondents listed include Charles Darwin, Rajah James Brooke (ruler of Sarawak) and hundreds of other, many of whom were very famous at the time.

Volunteers needed to help the Wallace Correspondence Project at the NHM in London

Submitted by George Beccaloni on Thu, 08/12/2011 - 17:21

The Wallace Correspondence Project is looking for 2 enthusiastic volunteers to join their small team at the Natural History Museum, London, for one day a week, to assist with various project tasks.

The WCP is a three year project to locate, catalogue and summarise all known correspondence of the great Victorian naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace’s greatest claim to fame is that he was the co-discoverer of natural selection with Charles Darwin. The catalogue, plus scans of as many of the letters as possible, will be made available online free of charge.

We are looking for someone with;
- Good IT skills
- Attention to detail
- Experience of using databases
- Experience of cataloguing
- Interest in history of science/Victorian history
- Enthusiasm


If you are interested in applying, please send your CV or a summary of your experience, by email to Caroline Catchpole, WCP Archivist at c.catchpole@nhm.ac.uk. If interest is high, it is likely we will invite short listed candidates to come and meet the team for an informal chat and see the Wallace Collection in early January.


For more information about volunteering at the Museum, please see http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/jobs-volunteering-internships/volunteering-interns-information/index.html

Alfred Russel Wallace's Last Will & Testament

Submitted by George Beccaloni on Mon, 05/12/2011 - 23:23

In 2010 Wallace's grandson John very kindly donated about 600 assorted documents which had belonged to his grandfather to the Wallace Family Archive at the Natural History Museum, London. Amongst them was a copy of ARW's will, which I have just finished creating a pdf version of. Since it makes quite interesting reading I have decided to make it available on the Wallace Correspondence Project website - click HERE to download the 3.48 MB pdf file.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) Wallace's wealth at the time of his death on 7th November 1913 was "£5823 0s. 6d.: probate, 24 Dec 1913, CGPLA Eng. & Wales"1. This amounts to about £250,738.38 (GBP) in today's money according to http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/default0.asp#mid It is interesting to contrast this with the wealth of his friend and colleague Charles Darwin. According again to the ODNB, Darwin's wealth when he died in 1882 was "£146,911 7s. 10d.: CGPLA Eng. & Wales, 1882"2, which equates to a whopping £7,097,270.41 (GBP) in today's money! Darwin's will can be seen here:- http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=YorkProbateSubRegistry&pageseq=1


References

1Charles H. Smith, ‘Wallace, Alfred Russel (1823–1913)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011 [http://www.oxforddnb.com.bicorn.nhm.ac.uk:2048/view/article/36700, accessed 5 Dec 2011]

2Adrian Desmond, James Moore, Janet Browne, ‘Darwin, Charles Robert (1809–1882)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com.bicorn.nhm.ac.uk:2048/view/article/7176, accessed 5 Dec 2011]

Can you identify this gentleman?

Submitted by George Beccaloni on Sat, 26/11/2011 - 09:54

Unidentified personI have been trying unsuccessfully to identify the sitter in the photo to the right and wondered whether anyone might recognise him? The image was scanned from a CDV (carte de visite) which Wallace owned and an inscription on the back reads "from a photograph by Mr Fry 1852" (Fry was a professional photographer). The CDV is clearly a copy of an earlier photo and it was produced by Wallace's brother-in-law Thomas Sims, also a professional photographer (details about his photographic studio are printed on the back). Interestingly, there is also a large version of this image in the Sims Archive at the Tunbridge Wells Museum - one of only a few photos they have from Sims. Someone had identified the sitter as Huxley, but it doesn't look like Huxley to me!

If you think you know who the chap is, then please contact me at g.beccaloni@nhm.ac.uk

New book on Wallace.

Submitted by George Beccaloni on Mon, 14/11/2011 - 23:16

A colleague of mine, Alexander Reeuwijk, from The Netherlands together with the well known British travel writer Redmond O'Hanlon, recently published a book called "Wallace, Darwin and Others". The cover looks nice, but that's about as much as I will be able to say about it since it's written in Dutch! Alex says that is almost sold out already, so it must be good! If you want more information about it, and can read Dutch, then go here: http://www.uitgeverijatlas.nl/result_titel.asp?Id=3153


-George-

Join the Wallace Forum!

Submitted by George Beccaloni on Mon, 14/11/2011 - 10:51

The Wallace Forum is (perhaps not surprisingly!) the World's first Forum dedicated to Wallace. I would like to encourage EVERYONE who is interested in any aspect of his life and work to join and share their thoughts and information with other interested people.


If you would like to become a user of the Forum then go to http://wallaceletters.info/ and click on the “Wallace Forum” link at the top right of the page. Then click the "Login to post new content in the forum." link, which is displayed above the Forum. You will then need to click on “Create new account” and follow the instructions which you are given. Simple!


-George-

Volunteers Needed to Transcribe Alfred Russel Wallace's Letters!

Edited by George Beccaloni on Sun, 06/11/2011 - 09:24

The Wallace Correspondence Project is looking for dedicated volunteers to help them transcribe letters written by Wallace, as well as letters sent to him from his many correspondents. Ideally they would like volunteers who already have experience of transcribing (sometimes difficult) Victorian handwriting, but enthusiasm and persistence are more important, and they will provide a palaeography guide!


Volunteers can be located anywhere in the World but must have access to the Internet. Alternatively, it might be possible to arrange for volunteers living in London to come in to the Natural History Museum Library Reading Room and work there.


Volunteers will be sent batches of letters as jpg images, and these will need to be transcribed as wordprocessor files following the WCP's transcription policy, and then sent back to the Project by email. Volunteers will be credited for their work by having their name recorded as the transcriber of a letter in the WCP's database and displayed on the Project's future website.

If you would like to consider volunteering then please contact WCP Archivist Caroline Catchpole at c.catchpole@nhm.ac.uk Please briefly tell Caroline what experience you have of transcribing handwritten documents and also whether or not you would like your name to be listed on the Project's Volunteers page. Caroline will then send you a fairly challenging letter to transcribe. This will give you a good idea of what the work will involve and whether you are likely to like it or not! It will also enable the Project to pick up on any problems with your transcription at an early stage - rather than discovering something after you have transcribed lots of letters.

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