Wallace News Blog

Wallace100 or Wallace2013??

George Beccaloni — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:25:49 +0000

In 2013 the Natural History Museum in London will be celebrating 100 years since Wallace's death with a programme of activity which is likely to comprise a display/trail of Wallace material in the galleries, a Wallace area on the Museum's website, a conference, and other exciting events. The Museum needs a name for this series of events and would like your help in choosing it. To help please complete the following extremely quick survey by May 23, 2012:- http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/35LV33G

Thanks!!

More about Wallace's assistant Charles Allen

George Beccaloni — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:46:01 +0000

Dr Abigale Woods, an Historian of Medicine at Imperial College London, wrote to me to say:
“I just read your post from 2009, 'Musings on Wallace's Assistants, Charles Allen and Ali' [to read it CLICK HERE]. Very interesting, as I recently found out that my boyfriend's family are descended from Charles Allen's daughter, Amelia. The family lived in Singapore for several generations and had pretty eventful lives, only leaving in WWII.”

Mystery gentleman identified!

George Beccaloni — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:29:24 +0000

About four months ago I asked readers of this blog whether anyone could identify the mystery gentleman in the image to the right (to read the original blog post click HERE).

Publisher needed for important book on Wallace

George Beccaloni — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:14:57 +0000

World expert on Wallace, Prof. Charles Smith, who runs the excellent Wallace Page website, has nearly finished work on "an 'enhanced transcription' of the journal/diary Wallace kept during his ten-month North American lecture tour of 1886-1887." Charles explains:

Bill Bailey becomes Wallace Fund Patron!

George Beccaloni — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:50:53 +0000

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.

Catalogue of the NHM's Wallace Family Papers now available

George Beccaloni — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:45:37 +0000

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.

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

George Beccaloni — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:26:16 +0000

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.

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

George Beccaloni — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 21:52:22 +0000

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

George Beccaloni — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:21:34 +0000

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.

Alfred Russel Wallace's Last Will & Testament

George Beccaloni — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:23:39 +0000

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.