Editing Alfred Russel Wallace (section)

== Biography ==

=== Early life ===
Alfred Russel Wallace was born on 8 January 1823 in [[Llanbadoc]], Monmouthshire.<!--Whether Monmouthshire was in Wales in 1872 is debatable. Please leave this alone; this page is not the place for this debate-->{{efn|name=fn1}}{{sfn|Wilson|2000|p=1}} He was the eighth of nine children born to Mary Anne Wallace ({{née|Greenell}}) and Thomas Vere Wallace. His mother was English, while his father was of Scottish ancestry. His family claimed a connection to [[William Wallace]], a leader of Scottish forces during the [[Wars of Scottish Independence]] in the 13th century.<ref name=WKU_bio/>

Wallace's father graduated in law but never practised it. He owned some income-generating property, but bad investments and failed business ventures resulted in a steady deterioration of the family's financial position. Wallace's mother was from a middle-class family of [[Hertford]],<ref name="WKU_bio">{{cite web |url=https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/BIOG.htm |title=Alfred Russel Wallace: Capsule Biography |last=Smith |first=Charles H.  |author-link=Charles H. Smith (historian)|website=The Alfred Russel Wallace Page |access-date=25 May 2022}}</ref> to which place his family moved when Wallace was five years old. He attended [[Richard Hale School|Hertford Grammar School]] until 1837, when he reached the age of 14, the normal leaving age for a pupil not going on to university.<ref name="Wyhe bio sketch">{{cite web |last=van Wyhe |first=John |author-link=John van Wyhe |title=Alfred Russel Wallace. A biographical sketch |website=Wallace Online | url=http://wallace-online.org/Wallace-Bio-Sketch_John_van_Wyhe.html |access-date=22 September 2022 }}</ref>{{sfn|Wilson|2000|pp=6–10}}

[[File:Wallace Mechanics Institute (crop).jpg|thumb|left|upright|A photograph from Wallace's autobiography shows the building Wallace and his brother John designed and built for the Neath [[Mechanics' Institute]].|alt=a building designed by Wallace and his brother]]

Wallace then moved to London to board with his older brother John, a 19-year-old apprentice builder. This was a stopgap measure until William, his oldest brother, was ready to take him on as an apprentice [[surveying|surveyor]]. While in London, Alfred attended lectures and read books at the [[London Mechanics Institute]]. Here he was exposed to the radical political ideas of the Welsh social reformer [[Robert Owen]] and of the English-born political theorist [[Thomas Paine]]. He left London in 1837 to live with William and work as his apprentice for six years. They moved repeatedly to different places in Mid-Wales. Then at the end of 1839, they moved to [[Kington, Herefordshire]], near the Welsh border, before eventually settling at [[Neath]] in Wales. Between 1840 and 1843, Wallace worked as a land surveyor in the countryside of the west of England and Wales.{{sfn|Raby|2002|pp=77–78}}{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=11–14}} The [[natural history]] of his surroundings aroused his interest; from 1841 he collected flowers and plants as an amateur [[botanist]].<ref name="Wyhe bio sketch" />

One result of Wallace's early travels is a modern controversy about his nationality. Since he was born in [[Monmouthshire (historic)|Monmouthshire]], some sources have considered him to be Welsh.<ref>{{cite web |title=28. Alfred Russel Wallace |publisher=100 Welsh heroes |url=http://www.100welshheroes.com/en/biography/alfredrussellwallace |access-date=23 September 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100124191414/http://www.100welshheroes.com/en/biography/alfredrussellwallace |archive-date=24 January 2010}}</ref> Other historians have questioned this because neither of his parents were Welsh, his family only briefly lived in Monmouthshire, the Welsh people Wallace knew in his childhood considered him to be English, and because he consistently referred to himself as English rather than Welsh. One Wallace scholar has stated that the most reasonable interpretation is therefore that he was an Englishman born in Wales.<ref name="Smith"/>

In 1843 Wallace's father died, and a decline in demand for surveying meant William's business no longer had work available.<ref name="Wyhe bio sketch" /> For a short time Wallace was unemployed, then early in 1844 he was engaged by the Collegiate School in [[Leicester]] to teach drawing, mapmaking, and surveying.{{sfn|Shermer|2002|p=53}}{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=22–26}} He had already read [[George Combe]]'s ''[[The Constitution of Man]]'', and after [[Spencer Timothy Hall|Spencer Hall]] lectured on [[Animal magnetism|mesmerism]], Wallace as well as some of the older pupils tried it out. Wallace spent many hours at the town library in Leicester; he read ''[[An Essay on the Principle of Population]]'' by [[Thomas Robert Malthus]], [[Alexander von Humboldt]]'s ''Personal Narrative'', Darwin's ''Journal'' (''[[The Voyage of the Beagle]]''), and [[Charles Lyell]]'s ''[[Principles of Geology]]''.<ref name="Wyhe bio sketch" />{{sfn|Wallace|1905a|pp=[http://wallace-online.org/content/frameset?pageseq=275&itemID=S729.1&viewtype=side 232–235], [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=A237.1&pageseq=289 256]}} One evening Wallace met the entomologist [[Henry Walter Bates|Henry Bates]], who was 19 years old, and had published an 1843 paper on beetles in the journal ''Zoologist''. He befriended Wallace and started him collecting insects.{{sfn|Shermer|2002|p=53}}{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=22–26}}

When Wallace's brother William died in March 1845, Wallace left his teaching position to assume control of his brother's firm in Neath, but his brother John and he were unable to make the business work. After a few months, he found work as a civil engineer for a nearby firm that was working on a survey for a proposed railway in the [[River Neath|Vale of Neath]]. Wallace's work on the survey was largely outdoors in the countryside, allowing him to indulge his new passion for collecting insects. Wallace persuaded his brother John to join him in starting another architecture and civil engineering firm. It carried out projects including the design of a building for the Neath [[Mechanics' Institute]], founded in 1843.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tlysau.org.uk/cgi-bin/anw/search2?coll_id=11281&inst_id=35&term=Neath |title=Neath Mechanics' Institute |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110014026/http://www.tlysau.org.uk/cgi-bin/anw/search2?coll_id=11281&inst_id=35&term=Neath |archive-date=10 November 2013 |publisher=[[Swansea University]] |access-date=21 April 2013}}</ref>  During this period, he exchanged letters with Bates about books. By the end of 1845, Wallace was convinced by [[Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802)|Robert Chambers]]'s anonymously published treatise on [[orthogenesis|progressive development]], ''[[Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation]]'', but he found Bates was more critical.{{sfn|Wallace|1905a|p=[https://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=293&itemID=A237.1&viewtype=text 254]}}{{sfn|Shermer|2002|p=65}} Wallace re-read Darwin's ''Journal'', and on 11 April 1846 wrote "As the Journal of a scientific traveller, it is second only to Humboldt's 'Personal Narrative'—as a work of general interest, perhaps superior to it."{{sfn|Wallace|1905a|p=[https://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=295&itemID=A237.1&viewtype=text 256]}}

William Jevons, the founder of the Neath institute, was impressed by Wallace and persuaded him to give lectures there on science and engineering. In the autumn of 1846, Wallace and his brother John purchased a cottage near Neath, where they lived with their mother and sister Fanny.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=26–29}}{{sfn|Wilson|2000|pp=19–20}}

=== Exploration and study of the natural world ===
Inspired by the chronicles of earlier and contemporary travelling naturalists, Wallace decided to travel abroad.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=34–37}} He later wrote that Darwin's ''Journal'' and Humboldt's ''Personal Narrative'' were "the two works to whose inspiration I owe my determination to visit the tropics as a collector."{{sfn|Wallace|1905a|p= [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=A237.1&pageseq=289 256]}} After reading ''A Voyage up the River Amazon'' by [[William Henry Edwards]], Wallace and Bates estimated that by collecting and selling natural history specimens such as birds and insects they could meet their costs, with the prospect of good profits.<ref name="Wyhe bio sketch" /> They therefore engaged as their agent [[Samuel Stevens (naturalist)|Samuel Stevens]] who would advertise and arrange sales to institutions and private collectors, for a commission of 20% on sales plus 5% on despatching freight and remittances of money.{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|pp=34–36}}

In 1848, Wallace and Bates left for Brazil aboard the ''Mischief''. They intended to collect insects and other animal specimens in the [[Amazon Rainforest]] for their private collections, selling the duplicates to museums and collectors back in Britain to fund the trip. Wallace hoped to gather evidence of the [[transmutation of species]]. Bates and he spent most of their first year collecting near [[Belém]], then explored inland separately, occasionally meeting to discuss their findings. In 1849, they were briefly joined by another young explorer, the botanist [[Richard Spruce]], along with Wallace's younger brother Herbert. Herbert soon left (dying two years later from [[yellow fever]]), but Spruce, like Bates, would spend over ten years collecting in South America.{{sfn|Wilson|2000|p=36}}{{sfn|Raby|2002|pp=89, 98–99, 120–121}} Wallace spent four years charting the [[Rio Negro (Amazon)|Rio Negro]], collecting specimens and making notes on the peoples and languages he encountered as well as the geography, flora, and fauna.{{sfn|Raby|2002|pp=89–95}}

On 12 July 1852, Wallace embarked for the UK on the brig ''Helen''. After 25 days at sea, the ship's cargo caught fire, and the crew was forced to abandon ship. All the specimens Wallace had on the ship, mostly collected during the last, and most interesting, two years of his trip, were lost. He managed to save a few notes and pencil sketches, but little else. Wallace and the crew spent ten days in an open boat before being picked up by the brig ''Jordeson'', which was sailing from Cuba to London. The ''Jordeson''{{'s}} provisions were strained by the unexpected passengers, but after a difficult passage on short rations, the ship reached its destination on 1 October 1852.{{sfn|Shermer|2002|pp=72–73}}{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=84–88}}

The lost collection had been insured for £200 by Stevens.{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|p=36}} After his return to Britain, Wallace spent 18 months in London living on the insurance payment, and selling a few specimens that had been shipped home. During this period, despite having lost almost all the notes from his South American expedition, he wrote six academic papers (including "On the Monkeys of the Amazon") and two books, ''Palm Trees of the Amazon and Their Uses'' and ''Travels on the Amazon''.{{sfn|Wilson|2000|p=45}} At the same time, he made connections with several other British naturalists.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=84–88}}{{sfn|Raby|2002|p=148}}<ref name="Bibliography"/>

[[File:Wallace map archipelago.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|A map from ''[[The Malay Archipelago]]'' shows the physical geography of the archipelago and Wallace's travels around the area. The thin black lines indicate where Wallace travelled; the red lines indicate chains of volcanoes.|alt=Map of Wallace's travels in the Malay Archipelago]]

Bates and others were collecting in the Amazon area, Wallace was more interested in new opportunities in the [[Malay Archipelago]] as demonstrated by the travel writings of [[Ida Laura Pfeiffer]], and valuable insect specimens she collected which Stevens sold as her agent. In March 1853 Wallace wrote to Sir [[James Brooke]], Rajah of Sarawak, who was then in London, and who arranged assistance in Sarawak for Wallace.{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|pp=37–40}}<ref name="WCP3072">{{cite web|url=https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3072|title=Letter WCP3072 – James Brooke to Alfred Russel Wallace, 1 April (1853), from Ranger's Lodge, Hyde Park, London| publisher =Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection|access-date=13 October 2022}}</ref> In June Wallace wrote to [[Roderick Murchison|Murchison]] at the [[Royal Geographical Society]] (RGS) for support, proposing to again fund his exploring entirely from sale of duplicate collections.<ref name="WCP4308">{{cite web|url=https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4308|title=Letter WCP4308 – Alfred Russel Wallace to Roderick Impey Murchison, Royal Geographical Society, June 1853| publisher =Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection|access-date=14 October 2022}}</ref> He later recalled that, while researching in the insect-room of the [[British Museum]], he was introduced to Darwin and they "had a few minutes' conversation." After presenting a paper and a large map of the Rio Negro to the RGS, Wallace was elected a Fellow of the society on 27 February 1854.{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|p=41}}<ref name="Black & White 1903">{{cite web | url=http://wallace-online.org/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=S599&viewtype=text |title=Alfred Russel Wallace, The dawn of a great discovery: 'My relations with Darwin in reference to the theory of natural selection' |date=17 January 1903 |magazine=[[Black & White (magazine)|Black & White]]| access-date=14 October 2022}}</ref> Free passage arranged on [[Royal Navy]] ships was stalled by the [[Crimean War]], but eventually the RGS funded first class travel by [[P&O (company)|P&O]] steamships. Wallace and a young assistant, Charles Allen, embarked at Southampton on 4 March 1854. After the overland journey to Suez and another change of ship at Ceylon they disembarked at Singapore on 19 April 1854.{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|pp=41, 46, 54–59}}

From 1854 to 1862, Wallace travelled around the islands of the Malay Archipelago or [[East Indies]] (now Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia).<ref name="travels Malay Archipelago">{{cite web | title=Chronology of Wallace's travels in the Malay Archipelago | website=The Alfred Russel Wallace Website | date=4 April 2018 | url=https://wallacefund.myspecies.info/content/chronology-wallaces-travels-malay-archipelago | access-date=20 October 2022}}</ref> His main objective "was to obtain specimens of natural history, both for my private collection and to supply duplicates to museums and amateurs". In addition to Allen, he "generally employed one or two, and sometimes three Malay servants" as assistants, and paid large numbers of local people at various places to bring specimens. His total was 125,660 specimens, most of which were insects including more than 83,000 beetles,{{sfn|Wallace|1869|pp=[http://wallace-online.org/content/frameset?pageseq=25&itemID=S715.1&viewtype=text xiii–xiv]}}<ref name="Wallace's Help">{{cite journal | last=van Wyhe | first=John | title=Wallace's Help: The Many People Who Aided A. R. Wallace in the Malay Archipelago | journal=Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society | publisher=Project Muse | volume=91 | issue=1 | year=2018 | issn=2180-4338 | doi=10.1353/ras.2018.0003 | pages=41–68| s2cid=201769115 }} [http://darwin-online.org.uk/people/2018,%20John%20van%20Wyhe,%20Wallace's%20help.pdf pdf at Darwin Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221031162707/http://darwin-online.org.uk/people/2018%2C%20John%20van%20Wyhe%2C%20Wallace%27s%20help.pdf |date=31 October 2022 }}</ref> Several thousand of the specimens represented species new to science,{{sfn|Shermer|2002|p=14}} Overall, more than thirty men worked for him at some stage as full-time paid collectors. He also hired guides, porters, cooks and boat crews, so well over 100 individuals worked for him.<ref name="ali" />

[[File:SANTUBONG Mission’s seaside resort (1850s), watercolour by Harriette McDougall.png|thumb|[[Mount Santubong]] around 1855, watercolour by missionary [[Harriette McDougall]]]]

After collecting expeditions to [[Bukit Timah Hill]] in Singapore, and to [[Malacca]], Wallace and Allen reached Sarawak in October 1854, and were welcomed at [[Kuching]] by Sir James Brooke's (then) heir [[John Brooke Johnson Brooke|Captain John Brooke]]. Wallace hired a Malay named [[Ali Wallace (naturalist)|Ali]] as a general servant and cook, and spent the early 1855 wet season in a small Dyak house at the foot of [[Mount Santubong]], overlooking [[Santubong River|a branch outlet of the Sarawak River]]. He read about species distribution, notes on [[François Jules Pictet de la Rive|Pictets]]'s Palaeontology, and wrote his "Sarawak Paper".{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|pp=97, 99–101, 103–105}} In March he moved to the [[Simunjan District|Simunjon]] coal-works, operated by the [[Borneo Company]] under [[Ludvig Verner Helms]], and supplemented collecting by paying workers a cent for each insect. A specimen of the previously unknown gliding tree frog ''[[Rhacophorus nigropalmatus]]'' (now called Wallace's [[flying frog]]) came from a Chinese workman who told Wallace that it glided down. Local people also assisted with shooting [[orangutan]]s.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://wallacefund.myspecies.info/file/225 |title=Wallace's Flying Frog (''Rhacophorus nigropalmatus'') |publisher=The Alfred Russel Wallace Website |access-date=20 October 2022}}</ref><ref name="Wallace's Help" /> They spent time with Sir James, then in February 1856 Allen chose to stay on with [[Francis McDougall|the missionaries]] at Kuching.<ref name="Alen">{{cite journal | last1=Rookmaaker | first1=Kees | last2=Wyhe | first2=John van | title=In Alfred Russel Wallace's Shadow: His Forgotten Assistant, Charles Allen (1839–1892) | journal=Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society | volume=85 | issue=2 303 | year=2012 | issn=0126-7353 | jstor=24894190 | pages=17–54 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24894190 | access-date=24 October 2022}} [http://darwin-online.org.uk/people/2012,%20Rookmaaker%20&%20van%20Wyhe,%20In%20Wallace's%20shadow,%20Charles%20Allen.pdf pdf at Darwin Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221031162707/http://darwin-online.org.uk/people/2012%2C%20Rookmaaker%20%26%20van%20Wyhe%2C%20In%20Wallace%27s%20shadow%2C%20Charles%20Allen.pdf |date=31 October 2022 }}</ref>{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|pp=133–137}}

On reaching Singapore in May 1856, Wallace hired a bird-skinner. With Ali as cook, they collected for two days on [[Bali]], then from 17 June to 30 August on [[Lombok]].{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|pp=137, 145–147}} In December 1856, Darwin had written to contacts worldwide to get specimens for his continuing research into variation under [[domestication]].{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|pp=133–134}}<ref name="Letter 1812, CD memo">{{cite web | title= Letter no. 1812, CD memorandum | website=Darwin Correspondence Project | date=December 1855 | url=https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1812.xml | access-date=30 October 2022}}</ref> At Lombok's port city, [[Mataram (city)|Ampanam]], Wallace wrote telling his agent, Stevens, about specimens shipped, including a [[domestic duck]] variety "for Mr. Darwin & he would perhaps also like the [[Junglefowl|jungle cock]], which is often domesticated here & is doubtless one of the originals of the domestic breed of poultry."<ref name="WCP1703 Lombok">{{cite web|url=https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP1703 |title=Letter WCP1703 – Alfred Russel Wallace to Samuel Stevens, from Ampanam, Lombock Island, 21 August 1856 | publisher =Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection|access-date=30 October 2022}}</ref>
In the same letter, Wallace said birds from Bali and Lombok, divided by a narrow strait, "belong to two quite distinct zoological provinces, of which they form the extreme limits", [[Indomalayan realm|Java, Borneo, Sumatra and Malacca]], and [[Australasian realm|Australia and the Moluccas]]. Stevens arranged publication of relevant paragraphs in the January 1857 issue of ''[[The Zoologist]]''. After further investigation, the zoogeographical boundary eventually became known as the [[Wallace Line]].{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|pp=149–151}}<ref name="Zoologist 1857">{{cite web |title=S31. Wallace, A. R. 1857. [Letter dated 21 August 1856, Lombock]. Zoologist 15 (171–172): 5414–5416. | website=Wallace Online | url=http://wallace-online.org/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=S031&viewtype=side | access-date=8 November 2022}}, also [https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S031.htm Proceedings of Natural-History Collectors in Foreign Countries, by Alfred Russel Wallace]</ref>

Ali became Wallace's most trusted assistant, a skilled collector and researcher. Wallace collected and preserved the delicate insect specimens, while most of the birds were collected and prepared by his assistants; of those, Ali collected and prepared around 5000.<ref name="ali">{{cite journal |last1=van Wyhe |first1=John |last2=Drawhorn |first2=Gerrell M. |title='I am Ali Wallace': The Malay Assistant of Alfred Russel Wallace |journal=Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=88 |pages=3–31 |year=2015 |doi=10.1353/ras.2015.0012 |s2cid=159453047 }} [http://darwin-online.org.uk/people/2015,%20John%20van%20Wyhe,%20I%20am%20Ali%20Wallace.pdf pdf at Darwin Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221031163208/http://darwin-online.org.uk/people/2015,%20John%20van%20Wyhe,%20I%20am%20Ali%20Wallace.pdf |date=31 October 2022 }}</ref>
While exploring the archipelago, Wallace refined his thoughts about evolution, and had his famous insight on [[natural selection]]. In 1858 he sent an article outlining his theory to Darwin; it was published, along with a description of Darwin's theory, that same year.{{sfn|Browne|2002|pp=35–42}}

Accounts of Wallace's studies and adventures were eventually published in 1869 as ''[[The Malay Archipelago]]''. This became one of the most popular books of scientific exploration of the 19th century, and has never been out of print. It was praised by scientists such as Darwin (to whom the book was dedicated), by Lyell, and by non-scientists such as the novelist [[Joseph Conrad]]. Conrad called the book his "favorite bedside companion" and used information from it for several of his novels, especially ''[[Lord Jim]]''.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|p=267}}
A set of 80 bird skeletons Wallace collected in Indonesia are held in the [[Cambridge University Museum of Zoology]], and described as of exceptional historical significance.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/collections.archives/historical.significance/ |title=Historical significance |publisher=[[Cambridge University Museum of Zoology]] |date=18 April 2009 |access-date=13 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119040924/https://www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/collections.archives/historical.significance |archive-date=19 November 2010}}</ref>

{| class="center toccolours"
|+ '''Specimens and illustrations'''
|<gallery mode="packed" heights="200px" style="line-height:130%">
File:Alfred Russel Wallace01.jpg|''[[Arenga pinnata]]'' sketched by Wallace in [[Sulawesi|Celebes]], reworked by [[Walter Hood Fitch]]|alt=Wallace's sketch of a tree
File:Naturalis Biodiversity Center - RMNH.AVES.144722 2 - Mino anais anais (Lesson, 1839) - Sturnidae - bird skin specimen.jpeg|Wallace collected many specimens, such as this ''[[Mino anais]] anais'' from South [[Western New Guinea|West Papua]], 1863.|alt=photograph of a bird specimen collected by Wallace
File:Wallace frog.jpg|An illustration from ''[[The Malay Archipelago]]'' depicts the [[flying frog]] that a workman handed to Wallace.|alt=illustration of Wallace's flying frog
</gallery>
|-
| style="text-align:left" | 
|}

===Return to Britain, marriage and children===
[[File:Alfred Russel Wallace 1862 - Project Gutenberg eText 15997.png|thumb|upright|A photograph of Wallace taken in Singapore in 1862|alt=portrait photograph of Wallace]]

In 1862, Wallace returned to Britain, where he moved in with his sister Fanny Sims and her husband Thomas. While recovering from his travels, Wallace organised his collections and gave numerous lectures about his adventures and discoveries to scientific societies such as the [[Zoological Society of London]]. Later that year, he visited Darwin at [[Down House]], and became friendly with both Lyell and the philosopher [[Herbert Spencer]].{{sfn|Shermer|2002|pp=151–152}} During the 1860s, Wallace wrote papers and gave lectures defending natural selection. He corresponded with Darwin about topics including [[sexual selection]], [[warning coloration]]<!--yes, BE uses -or- here-->, and the possible effect of natural selection on hybridisation and the divergence of species.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=249–258}} In 1865, he began investigating spiritualism.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|p=235}}

After a year of courtship, Wallace became engaged in 1864 to a young woman whom, in his autobiography, he would only identify as Miss L. Miss L. was the daughter of Lewis Leslie who played chess with Wallace,{{sfn|van Wyhe|2013|p=210}} but to Wallace's great dismay, she broke off the engagement.{{sfn|Shermer|2002|p=156}} In 1866, Wallace married Annie Mitten. Wallace had been introduced to Mitten through the botanist Richard Spruce, who had befriended Wallace in Brazil and who was a friend of Annie Mitten's father, [[William Mitten]], an expert on mosses. In 1872, Wallace built [[The Dell (Thurrock)|the Dell]], a house of concrete, on land he leased in [[Grays, Essex|Grays]] in Essex, where he lived until 1876. The Wallaces had three children: Herbert (1867–1874), Violet (1869–1945), and William (1871–1951).{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=239–240}}

=== Financial struggles ===

In the late 1860s and 1870s, Wallace was very concerned about the financial security of his family. While he was in the Malay Archipelago, the sale of specimens had brought in a considerable amount of money, which had been carefully invested by the agent who sold the specimens for Wallace. On his return to the UK, Wallace made a series of bad investments in railways and mines that squandered most of the money, and he found himself badly in need of the proceeds from the publication of ''The Malay Archipelago''.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=265–267}}

Despite assistance from his friends, he was never able to secure a permanent salaried position such as a curatorship in a museum. To remain financially solvent, Wallace worked grading government examinations, wrote 25 papers for publication between 1872 and 1876 for various modest sums, and was paid by Lyell and Darwin to help edit some of their works.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=299–300}}

In 1876, Wallace needed a £500 advance from the publisher of ''The Geographical Distribution of Animals'' to avoid having to sell some of his personal property.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|p=325}} Darwin was very aware of Wallace's financial difficulties and lobbied long and hard to get Wallace awarded a government pension for his lifetime contributions to science. When the £200 annual pension was awarded in 1881, it helped to stabilise Wallace's financial position by supplementing the income from his writings.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=361–364}}

=== Social activism ===
[[File:Article written by Professor Wallace, published in the report of the proceedings of the International Worker's Congress.jpg|thumb|Article written by Professor Wallace, published in the report of the proceedings of the International Worker's Congress]]
In 1881, Wallace was elected as the first president of the newly formed Land Nationalisation Society. In the next year, he published a book, ''Land Nationalisation; Its Necessity and Its Aims'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Wallace |first=Alfred Russel |year=1906 |title=Land Nationalisation; Its Necessity and Its Aims |publisher=Swan Sonnenschein <!--|url=http://wallacefund.info/land-nationalisation-its-necessity-and-its-aims-being-comparison-system-landlord-and-tenant-occupyin |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120621134408/http://wallacefund.info/land-nationalisation-its-necessity-and-its-aims-being-comparison-system-landlord-and-tenant-occupyin |archive-date=2012-06-21--> }}</ref> on the subject. He criticised the UK's [[free trade]] policies for the negative impact they had on working-class people.<ref name="Bibliography">{{cite web |url=http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/bibintro.htm|title=Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred Russel Wallace|last=Smith |first=Charles H. |website=The Alfred Russel Wallace Page |access-date=25 May 2022}}</ref>{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=365–372}} In 1889, Wallace read ''[[Looking Backward]]'' by [[Edward Bellamy]] and declared himself a socialist, despite his earlier foray as a speculative investor.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|p=436}} After reading ''[[Progress and Poverty]]'', the bestselling book by the progressive land reformist [[Henry George]], Wallace described it as "Undoubtedly the most remarkable and important book of the present century."<ref>{{cite book |last=Stanley |first=Buder |title=Visionaries and Planners: The Garden City Movement and the Modern Community |year=1990 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=evBdKUyXY7UC |isbn=978-0195362886 |page=20 }}</ref>

Wallace opposed [[eugenics]], an idea supported by other prominent 19th-century evolutionary thinkers, on the grounds that contemporary society was too corrupt and unjust to allow any reasonable determination of who was fit or unfit.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=436–438}} In his 1890 article "Human Selection" he wrote, "Those who succeed in the race for wealth are by no means the best or the most intelligent&nbsp;..."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S427.htm |title=Human Selection (S427: 1890) |last=Wallace |first=Alfred Russel |website=The Alfred Russel Wallace Page |access-date=25 May 2022}}</ref>   He said, "The world does not want the eugenicist to set it straight," "Give the people good conditions, improve their environment, and all will tend towards the highest type. Eugenics is simply the meddlesome interference of an arrogant, scientific priestcraft."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Saini |first=Angela |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1091260230 |title=Superior : the return of race science |date=2019 |isbn=978-0-8070-7691-0 |publisher=Beacon Press |location=Boston |pages=66 |oclc=1091260230}}</ref>

In 1898, Wallace wrote a paper advocating a [[Fiat money|pure paper money system, not backed by silver or gold]], which impressed the economist [[Irving Fisher]] so much that he dedicated his 1920 book ''Stabilizing the Dollar'' to Wallace.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S557.htm |title=Paper Money as a Standard of Value (S557: 1898)|first=Alfred Russel |last=Wallace |website=The Alfred Russel Wallace Page |access-date=25 May 2022}}</ref>

Wallace wrote on other social and political topics, including in support of [[women's suffrage]] and repeatedly on the dangers and wastefulness of [[militarism]].{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=366, 453, 487–488}}{{sfn|Shermer|2002|pp=23, 279}} In an 1899 essay, he called for popular opinion to be rallied against warfare by showing people "that all modern wars are dynastic; that they are caused by the ambition, the interests, the jealousies, and the insatiable greed of power of their rulers, or of the great mercantile and financial classes which have power and influence over their rulers; and that the results of war are never good for the people, who yet bear all its burthens (burdens)".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S567.htm |title=The Causes of War, and the Remedies (S567: 1899) |first=Alfred Russel |last=Wallace |website=The Alfred Russel Wallace Page |access-date=25 May 2022}}</ref> In a letter published by the ''[[Daily Mail]]'' in 1909, with aviation in its infancy, he advocated an international treaty to ban the military use of aircraft, arguing against the idea "that this new horror is 'inevitable', and that all we can do is to be sure and be in the front rank of the aerial assassins—for surely no other term can so fitly describe the dropping of, say, ten thousand bombs at midnight into an enemy's capital from an invisible flight of airships."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S670.htm |title=Flying Machines in War. (S670: 1909) |last=Wallace |first=Alfred Russel |website=The Alfred Russel Wallace Page |access-date=25 May 2022}}</ref>

In 1898, Wallace published ''The Wonderful Century: Its Successes and Its Failures'', about developments in the 19th century. The first part of the book covered the major scientific and technical advances of the century; the second part covered what Wallace considered to be its social failures including the destruction and waste of wars and arms races, the rise of the urban poor and the dangerous conditions in which they lived and worked, a harsh criminal justice system that failed to reform criminals, abuses in a mental health system based on privately owned sanatoriums, the environmental damage caused by capitalism, and the evils of European colonialism.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=453–455}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Wallace |first=Alfred Russel |title=The Wonderful Century: Its Successes and Its Failures |year=1903 |orig-year=1898 |publisher=Swan Sonnenschein |url=https://archive.org/details/wonderfulcentur03wallgoog |oclc=935283134 }}</ref> Wallace continued his social activism for the rest of his life, publishing the book ''The Revolt of Democracy'' just weeks before his death.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S734.htm |title=The Revolt of Democracy (S734: 1913) |last=Wallace |first=Alfred Russel |website=The Alfred Russel Wallace Page |access-date=25 May 2022}}</ref>

=== Further scientific work ===

In 1880, he published ''Island Life'' as a sequel to ''The Geographic Distribution of Animals''. In November 1886, Wallace began a ten-month trip to the United States to give a series of popular lectures. Most of the lectures were on Darwinism (evolution through natural selection), but he also gave speeches on [[biogeography]], spiritualism, and socio-economic reform. During the trip, he was reunited with his brother John who had emigrated to California years before. He spent a week in Colorado, with the American botanist [[Alice Eastwood]] as his guide, exploring the flora of the [[Rocky Mountains]] and gathering evidence that would lead him to a theory on how [[glaciation]] might explain certain commonalities between the mountain flora of Europe, Asia and North America, which he published in 1891 in the paper "English and American Flowers". He met many other prominent American naturalists and viewed their collections. His 1889 book ''[[Darwinism (book)|Darwinism]]'' used information he collected on his American trip and information he had compiled for the lectures.{{sfn|Shermer|2002|pp=274–278}}{{sfn|Slotten|2004|pp=379–400}}

=== Death ===
[[File:Restored grave of AR Wallace.jpg|thumb|upright|Wallace's grave in [[Broadstone, Dorset|Broadstone]] Cemetery, Dorset, restored by the A. R. Wallace Memorial Fund in 2000. It features a [[Petrified wood|fossil tree trunk]] 7 feet (2.1 m) tall from [[Isle of Portland|Portland]], mounted on a block of [[Purbeck limestone]].|alt=photograph of Wallace's grave]]

On 7 November 1913, Wallace died at home, aged 90, in the country house he called Old Orchard, which he had built a decade earlier.{{sfn|Slotten|2004|p=490}} His death was widely reported in the press. ''[[The New York Times]]'' called him "the last of the giants [belonging] to that wonderful group of intellectuals composed of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Lyell, Owen, and other scientists, whose daring investigations revolutionized and evolutionized the thought of the century".<ref>{{cite news |author=Anon |title=We Are Guarded by Spirits, Declares Dr. A. R. Wallace |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=8 October 1911 |url=https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S748A.htm }}</ref> Another commentator in the same edition said: "No apology need be made for the few literary or scientific follies of the author of that great book on the 'Malay Archipelago'." ([https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2530 Vol.1], [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2539 Vol.2]){{sfn|Slotten|2004|p=491}}

Some of Wallace's friends suggested that he be buried in [[Westminster Abbey]], but his wife followed his wishes and had him buried in the small cemetery at [[Broadstone, Dorset]].{{sfn|Slotten|2004|p=490}} Several prominent British scientists formed a committee to have a medallion of Wallace placed in Westminster Abbey near where Darwin had been buried. The medallion was unveiled on 1 November 1915.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hall |first=A. R. |title=The Abbey Scientists |page=52 |publisher=Roger & Robert Nicholson |year=1966 |oclc=2553524 }}</ref>