Wallace Obituaries


The following is a list of good-sized Wallace obituaries that appeared after his death. From some of these I have drawn short quotations that give some indication of the kind of esteem felt for Wallace at the end of his life.

  • American Museum Journal 13 (Dec. 1913): 330-333 'A great naturalist; Alfred Russel Wallace, 1823-1913' (Henry Fairfield Osborn). (link to the Google Book Search database)
  • Athenæum no. 4490 (15 Nov. 1913): 564a-b 'Alfred Russel Wallace' (anon.). "Wallace's contributions to science could scarcely be over-estimated; and they are considerable even without the results of what has been called the creative vividness with which the idea of natural selection came to him after reading Malthus's 'Principles of Population.'"
  • Auk 31(1) (Jan. 1914): 138-141 (anon.). "Wallace, while standing in the highest rank among ornithologists, entomologists and botanists is best known in the broader field of philosophy and evolutionary thought."
  • Berliner Morgenpost 8 Nov. 1913 (anon.).
  • British Medical Journal (London) no. 2759 (15 Nov. 1913): 1338-1339 (anon.). "A life so long, so active, and so varied, cannot be dealt with in a small compass. Simple and unostentatious, he was a great man in the truest sense of the word."
  • Bulletin of the American Geographical Society 46(1) (1914): 54 (anon.). (link to the JSTOR database)
  • The Christian Commonwealth 12 Nov. 1913: 112d-112e 'The last of the Victorians; Death of Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace' (anon.). "Long ago Mr. G. K. Chesterton remarked that if he was asked what great man would be regarded as the most important and significant figure in the nineteenth century he would hesitate between Walt Whitman and Alfred Russel Wallace. And Mr. Chesterton went on to make it clear that he regarded the great scientist as one of the giants of the wonderful century because he was the leader of a revolution and a counter revolution; the first was the Darwinian movement, the other the movement of psychical research."
  • The Church Times (London) 14 Nov. 1913: 663d (anon.).
  • The Clarion (London) no. 1145 (14 Nov. 1913): 2a-2b (Harry Lowerison). "Now lies he there, and all are glad to give him reverence, for that with the weapons he had and the limitations he laboured under he fought as a man should fight for the truths it was given to him to see. If among those truths some error found its way, why trouble? He did a man's work manfully, and now he has won his peace. On the whole the world is better, sweeter, cleaner, nobler, for our great comrade's life in it."
  • Current Opinion (New York) 56(1) (Jan. 1914): 32-33 'Passing of one of the supreme figures in modern science' (anon.). "Only a great ruler could have been accorded by the press of the world any such elaborate obituary recognition as was evoked by the death of Alfred Russel Wallace . . . "
  • Daily Chronicle (London) no. 16140 (8 Nov. 1913): 1g, 5c-5d 'Death of great scientist' (anon.). "With his death passes one of the most fruitful and richly freighted lives ever devoted to the twin causes of Truth and Humanity."
  • The Daily Citizen (London & Manchester) No. 340 (8 Nov. 1913): 1d, 2d 'Alfred Russel Wallace. Death at 90 years of age. Last of the great Victorians.' (anon.). "He was one of the greatest and clearest thinkers of his age . . . of one thing I am certain, and that is that never has anybody come more fully within my favourite description of a great man, namely, that 'he is a combination of the head of a man and the heart of a boy.'"
  • The Daily Graphic (London) 8 Nov. 1913. (anon.).
  • Daily Mail (London) 8 Nov. 1913. (anon.).
  • Daily Mirror (London) (8 Nov. 1913): 4 '"Grand Old Man" of science dead' (anon.). "Science has lost its 'grand old man.' Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, the greatest of all modern scientists--co-originator with Charles Darwin of the theory of natural selection--died yesterday at his home . . ."
  • Daily News & Leader (London & Manchester) no. 21113 (8 Nov. 1913): 1a-b, 2a 'Dr. Wallace & his work' (anon.). "By the death of Alfred Russel Wallace this country loses not only a great scientist, but the last of the men who made the early part of the Victorian era so memorable."
  • Daily Telegraph (London) no. 18268 (8 Nov. 1913): 13a 'Two great scientists' (anon.).
  • Daily Telegraph (London) no. 18268 (8 Nov. 1913): 13g 'Dr. Russel Wallace and evolution' (anon.).
  • The Dial (Chicago) 55(698) (16 Nov. 1913): 416 (anon.). ". . . his heterodoxy brought upon him a liberal measure of abuse and ridicule from the hidebound of his own country and ours; but like Ruskin, he never recanted or compromised in the face of obloquy. His life has been a long and noble service to humanity, performed in a spirit of modest self-effacement as rare almost as the achievement itself."
  • The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 49, 2nd s. (Dec. 1913): 276-277 (J. J. Walker).
  • Entomological News 25(1) (Jan. 1914): 34-37 (anon.). (link to the Google Book Search database)
  • The Entomologist's Record 26 (Jan. 1914): 27-28 (Henry J. Turner). "Daily papers, weekly periodicals and magazines of all kinds have repeated the ordinary human details of the life of the great scientist who, for more than half a century, held the world at audience . . ."
  • The Evening News (London) 7 Nov. 1913 'The "G. O. M." of Science' (anon.).
  • Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette (London) No. 27871 (7 Nov. 1913) (anon.).
  • Forest and Stream 81(20) (15 Nov. 1913): 627 (anon.). "Alfred Russel Wallace, one the world's greatest scientists, who shared with Darwin the honor of the promulgation of the doctrine of natural selection, died Nov. 7."
  • Gardeners' Chronicle 54(1403), 3rd s. (15 Nov. 1913): 342a-c 'Dr. Russel Wallace' (anon.). (link to the Internet Archive database) ". . . there is always in what Wallace did the sign of the man who seeks truth with the ardour of a lover of truth and with contempt for conventional acceptances. He believed the that the subtle are as apt to err as the simple. . . "
  • The Geographical Journal 43(1) (Jan. 1914): 88-92 'Alfred Russel Wallace, O.M.' (Henry O. Forbes). (link to the JSTOR database) "By the death of Alfred Russel Wallace, on November 7 last, at the age of ninety years, the Royal Geographical Society, to which he was elected in 1854, loses one of its oldest and most distinguished Fellows; and Natural Science, especially in its biogeographical aspect, one of those who have, in most widely extending its boundaries and deeply influencing the thought of his time, achieved a name which will live as long as Natural Knowledge is cultivated."
  • The Globe & Traveller (London) 7 Nov. 1913 (anon.).
  • Ibis 2, 10th s. (1914): 133-136 (anon.)
  • Independent (New York) 76(3390) (20 Nov. 1913): 329 'A prophetic personality' (anon.). "We should not know where to look among the world's greatest men for a figure more worthy to be called unique. There is something curiously static in the aspect of human lives in retrospect. They take and keep their places in a portrait gallery. Alfred Russel Wallace will live in the biographical page as an untiring personality, pushing on."
  • International Psychic Gazette (London) 2(17) (Dec. 1913): 122-124 'Dr. A. Russel Wallace, scientist, spiritualist, socialist' (Felicia R. Scratcherd ("Felix Rudolph")).
  • Journal de la Société des Américanistes de Paris 11, n.s. (1914-1919): 251-253 'Alfred Russel Wallace' (Henry Vignaud). "Quoi qu'il en soit, avec Wallace disparaît un des hommes les plus éminents de notre temps, une de ces rares natures d'élite qui voient plus loin que les autres et qui ont ainsi puissamment contribué a élargir la portée de notre vision scientifique."
  • Journal of Botany (London) 52 (Jan. 1914): 15-18 (G. S. Boulger). "By the death of Alfred Russel Wallace, which took place at Broadstone, near Wimbourne, on November 7th, the last of the giants of English nineteenth-century science is removed."
  • Lancet no. 4707 (15 Nov. 1913): 1410 (anon.).
  • Light (London) (15 Nov. 1913): 546-547 'The promotion of Dr. A. R. Wallace' (anon.).
  • Literary Digest 48(1) (3 Jan. 1914): 17 'The last of the Darwinians' (anon.).
  • Living Age 279(3625) (27 Dec. 1913): 811-814. [reprint from Nation (London)] "But his true service to his age was in furnishing a stout barrier to the torrent of quasi-scientific rationalism which, drawing over-freely from the new evolutionary teaching, threatened to submerge all landmarks, not merely of dogmatic religion, but of morality and humanitarianism."
  • Nation (London) 14(7) (15 Nov. 1913): 310-312 'The greatness of Alfred Russel Wallace' (anon.).
  • Nation (U.S.) 97(2524) (13 Nov. 1913): 452-453 'The last of the Victorians' (anon.). "With the death of Alfred Russel Wallace there disappears the last of that great breed of men with whose names the glory of the Victorian era is inseparably bound up. . . in ranking him among the truly notable figures of his generation, one thinks not so much of his most famous achievement, but rather of the wide sweep of his scientific labors, the freshness and originality of his outlook, the vigor and energy of his attack on all manner of questions relating to man and society, and a certain quality of largeness which marks his style . . ."
  • Nature 92(2298) (13 Nov. 1913): 322 'Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, O.M., F.R.S.' (anon.). ". . . it was peculiarly his-- 'To see the world in a grain of sand, And heaven in a flower; To grasp infinity in the palm of the hand, And eternity in an hour.'"
  • Nature 92(2299) (20 Nov. 1913): 347-349 'Alfred Russel Wallace' (Edward B. Poulton). "The last link with the great evolutionary writers of the mid-nineteenth century--the men who transformed the thought of the world--is broken. How can I best speak of the long, happy, hard-working, many-sided life that has just come to a close?"
  • New York Times 63(20377) (8 Nov. 1913): 13e 'Dr. A. R. Wallace, scientist, dead' (anon.). (link to The Historical New York Times database)
  • New-York Tribune 8 Nov. 1913 (anon.).
  • Nuova Antologia di Lettere, Scienze ed Arti 168 (1 Dec. 1913): 498-508 (Guglielmo Salvadori).
  • Popular Science Monthly 83 (Dec. 1913): 522-537 (Henry Fairfield Osborn). ["abstract" of a sketch that appeared in Nature in 1912 as 'Scientific worthies']
  • Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club 35 (1914): lxxxiv-lxxxvi (E. R. Sykes). "Patient, industrious, broad-minded, with wonderful powers of concentration, the world has lost a great naturalist and philosopher."
  • Proceedings of the Geological Society of London 70 (April 1914): lxxxiii-lxxxiv (anon.).
  • Proceedings of the Royal Society of London XCV-B (1923-24): i-xxxv 'Alfred Russel Wallace, 1823-1913' (Edward B. Poulton). (link to the JSTOR database)
  • Review of Reviews (London) 48(288) (Dec. 1913): 421-425 'Character sketch. Alfred Russel Wallace.' (James Marchant).
  • The Sarawak Gazette No. 640 (17 Nov. 1913): 262 (anon.).
  • School World (London) no. 180 (Dec. 1913): 451-453 'Dr. A. Russel Wallace: Pioneer of the principle of evolution' (anon.). "Dr. A. Russel Wallace, whose death on November 7th, at ninety years of age, we regret to record, will be remembered not only as an independent discoverer of the influence of natural selection in evolutionary development, but also as one of the greatest naturalists of the nineteenth century."
  • Science 38(990) n.s. (19 Dec. 1913): 871-877 'Recollections of Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace' (T. D. A. Cockerell). (link to the JSTOR database) "It is impossible for any man to discuss adequately the life work of Alfred Russel Wallace. His activities covered such a long period, and were so varied, that no one living is in a position to critically appreciate more than a part of them . . . All must agree that a great and significant career has just been closed, but its full measure will probably never be known to any single man."
  • Scientific American 109 (15 Nov. 1913): 384, 387, 388 'Alfred Russel Wallace' (Benjamin C. Gruenberg).
  • Socialist Review 12 (Jan. 1914): 15-16 'Alfred Russel Wallace' ('The Editor'). "His death takes away from us one of the giant minds and most highly civilised and unblemished personalities of modern times. He was one of the great representative men of science, and ranks far above all his scientific contemporaries as a pioneer of social progress."
  • The Standard (London) 8 Nov. 1913 (anon.).
  • The Star (London) 7 Nov. 1913 (anon.).
  • The Theosophical Path 6(1) (Jan. 1914): 59-62 'The late Alfred Russel Wallace' (C. J. Ryan). "He never yielded to the subtle inference that man is a clod, ephemeral and helpless, the sport of circumstances, or a miserable worm whose only hope was in some external power. His message was the inspiring one that every man had the means of rising out of his low estate to the heights of the gods."
  • Tilskueren (Copenhagen) 30(2) (July/Dec. 1913): 1233-1237 'Alfred Russel Wallace' (Fr. Heide).
  • The Times (London) no. 40364 (8 Nov. 1913): 9f-10a 'Death of Dr. Russel Wallace' (anon.).
  • Two Worlds (Manchester) 26(1357) (1913): 570 'Alfred Russel Wallace, 1823-1913' (anon.). [submitted by Christine Garwood] ". . . his researches and theories will go down to posterity as the most serious and important of all attempts to raise the veil that enshrouds the vast abstract thing which men call the 'Universe' . . . But Alfred Russel Wallace has not finished his work for his fellows. He will remain amongst us, he will still inspire us, he has still other and greater messages for the world."
  • Volksrecht (Zürich) 11 Nov. 1913 (anon.).
  • Vorwärts (Berlin) 11 Nov. 1913 (anon.).
  • The Western Gazette (England) 14 Nov. 1913: 7 (anon.).
  • The Westminster Gazette (London) 7 Nov. 1913: 9 (anon.).
  • Zoologist 17, 4th ser. (15 Dec. 1913): 468-471 (Edward B. Poulton). "Thinking of Wallace's happy, strenuous life, we are led to realize man's independence of wealth and circumstance, to know by his example that, if it be great enough, 'the mind is its own place,' and is 'not to be changed by place or time.'"

In addition to the preceding, I have it on good authority (but have not had time to personally verify) that obituary notices appeared within days of his death (on 7 November 1913) in the following foreign newspapers: La Bataille Syndicaliste (Paris), Le Figaro (Paris) (8-11-13), Le Petit Bleu (Paris) (9-11-13), Le Temps (Paris) (9-11-13), L'Action (Paris) (9-11-13), L'Intransigeant (Paris) (9-11-13), Berliner Tageblatt (Berlin) (8-11-13), and Vossische Zeitung (Berlin) (8-11-13). Doubtlessly there were many others as well.


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