In 1890 he publicly announced his acceptance of socialism, which he had thought about since the late 1830’s. In the late 1870’s he became involved in the land nationalization movement and was the first president of the Land Nationalization Society in 1881. His interests also began to extend into other non biological areas.ĭuring the 1860’s Wallace was converted to Spiritualism, which affected his views about natural selection and man. He spent the rest of that decade publishing more articles, culminating with his classic The Malay Archipelago (1869), which went through countless editions and was translated into many foreign languages. Upon returning to England in 1862, Wallace enjoyed an enviable reputation as a naturalist. During that period of extensive exploration (1854-1862), Wallace formulated the principle of natural selection and made many other fundamental discoveries in biology, geology, geography, ethnography, and other natural sciences. After his rescue and arrival in England, Wallace decided to embark on another lengthy expedition, this time to the Malay Archipelago (now Indonesia and Malaysia). Edward’s A Voyage up the River Amazon (1847) prompted them to journey to the Amazon basin, where Wallace explored from 1848 until 1852.Īlthough he established as scientific reputation for his excellent work in the Amazon, Wallace lost most of his materials, and almost his life, when his ship caught fire and sank in the Atlantic during his return voyage. In 1847 he audaciously suggested to Bates that they transfer their collecting efforts to the forbidding continent of South America and support themselves by collecting objects of natural history. In 1845 his brother William’s death forced Wallace to return briefly to surveying and construction work, but he continued reading, collecting, and corresponding with Bates. These books profoundly influenced his subsequent intellectual development as did his amateurish explorations in Charnwood Forest in Leicester with his new friend, Henry Walter Bates. Malthus, Charles Darwin, Robert Chambers, Charles Lyell, and William Swainson. At Leicester during 1844-1845, Wallace read widely in the natural sciences indeed, during the period from 1842 to 1846, he consumed various works by Alexander von Humboldt, T. The purchase of a cheap book on botany (to assist in beginning a herbarium) marks the beginning of his scientific career, and his interests in botanical explorations and reading continued to grow from that point onward.Ībout December 1843 his brother’s surveying business diminished severely, and Wallace was forced to go to work in 1844 as a master at the Collegiate School in Leicester, where he taught English, arithmetic, surveying, and elementary drawing. (His agnosticism began at this point and prevented him at a later time from seriously considering orthodox views, largely with religious overtones, on the formation of new species.) The following summer he was apprenticed to his brother William, a surveyor, with whom he worked for the most part until mid December 1843.ĭuring his survey work, Wallace first began to experience the lure of nature, but not until 1841 did he timidly pursue interests which had barely been awakened in him. While there he attended lectures at the “Hall of Science” and became acquainted with Robert Owen’s socialistic ideas as well as the ideas of religious skeptics. More important for his intellectual development, apparently, was the extensive reading of travel works, biographies, novels, classics, and anything else he could find at home.Įarly in 1837 Wallace went to London to live temporarily with his brother John. Wallace later had a low opinion of his only formal education, which seems to have been quite pedestrian and dull. In the one-room Hertford Grammar School he studied Latin, French, geography, mathematics, and history. In the beautiful surroundings beside the Usk River Wallace spent the first five carefree years of his life before moving to Hertford, where he first attended school. Suffering from constant economic setbacks and having six children to support at the time, his parents had moved across the Severn River to the inexpensive rural environs of Wales less than a mile from the small village of Usk. Wallace was the eighth of nine children born to Thomas Vere Wallace and Mary Anne Greenell. Broadstone, Dorset, England, 7 November 1913), natural history. Usk, Monmouthshire, Wales, 8 January 1823 d.
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