Alfred Russel Wallace

1823-1913, British naturalist.

Early Life and Education

Born on 8 January 1823, Alfred Russel Wallace was the eighth of nine children in his family, growing up in rural Wales and then in Hertford, Hertfordshire, England. Due to the financial difficulties, he had to leave school and work. In 1837, Wallace moved to London, living with his brother John. There he started to read books and attend lectures, which laid a foundation for his religious skepticism. From 1840 to 1843, he worked as a surveyor. However, because of difficulty economic conditions, Alfred left in January 1843. After a short period of unemployment, he was hired as a master at the Collegiate School in Leicester, where he spent many hours reading at the library. In 1844, Alfred met a naturalist, Henry Walter Bates, who became Alfred's lifelong friend. Motivated by Bates, Alfred showed interested in collecting insects. Later in 1848, the two left for the Amazon and started their adventures.

Contributions

Alfred and Bates split up after several ventures. In order to study the unknown regions of the Amazon River, Wallace learned local languages and habits. Meanwhile, he had been traveling, collecting, exploring, and writing for four years. Although many of his collection were missing during his return, some of his notes were preserved, with which he published several scientific articles, two books, and a map of the Negro River. Thus, the Royal Geographical Society supported his next venture in the Malay Archipelago in 1854.

The Malay Archipelago

Over eight years in Malay Archipelago, he accumulated "almost 110,000 insects, 7500 shells, 8050 bird skins, and 410 mammal and reptile specimens, including over a thousand species new to science" (Beccaloni).There Wallace also noted an imaginary line, later known as Wallace's Line. This line divided animals in different regions of Malay Archipelago. When returning home, a travel book, The Malay Archipelago, was published, introducing the islands through Wallace's detailed description.

Theory of Evolution

In 1855, he published "Sarawak Law" article ("On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species"), in which he concluded that "every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species" (Wallace, 196). This showed that Alfred and Darwin thought alike and had similar conclusions. In early 1858, while suffering fever, Wallace came up with the idea of natural selection. Then he wrote a letter to Darwin and enclosed his essay "On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type" outlining his ideas about evolution. Darwin consulted his closest colleagues, Charles Lyell and Dalton Hooker. They discussed and decided to send two of Darwin's previous articles, along with one Wallace's paper, to the Linnean Society. Later it was published, with both Darwin's and Wallace's names, entitled "On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection" in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society in 1858. This was without Wallace's permission. Moreover, Wallace's contributions were placed after Darwin's, which stressed Darwin's marked impact on the idea.

In 1859, Darwin's book On the Origin of Species was published, stating his theory of natural selection. Nowadays the theory is known as Darwin's theory.

Controversy

Wallace and Darwin did not have much in common except the theory of natural selection. Wallace started to show interest in spiritualism in 1865; then he reviewed the literature on this topic and accepted it. As a spiritualist, he was different from other scientists. It brought considerable controversy; people pay less attention on his contribution to biology.

Sources

• Beccaloni, George. "Mini Biography",

wallaceletters.info/content/mini-biography. Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.

• Camerini, R. Jane. "Alfred Russel Wallace." Encyclopædia Britannica,

www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Russel-Wallace. Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.

• McNish, James. "Who was Alfred Russel Wallace?"

www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/who-was-alfred-russel-wallace.html. Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.

• Wallace, R. Alfred. "On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species",

people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S020.htm. Accessed 17 Dec. 2020.