Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of evolution with Charles Darwin, died 7 November 1913 in Usk, Monmouthshire. If Darwin’s life lacked adventure following his famous world circumnavigation in the Beagle, Wallace’s was for many years the opposite. And if Darwin engaged in recognized sciences, his associate dabbled in several dubious pursuits in later life. Phrenology and spiritualism may have engaged many a respectable Victorian – and the latter a lawyer and past prime minister of Canada – suffrage and socialism were not greeted quite so enthusiastically at the time – or since in certain quarters. Nevertheless, David Quammen in a recent issue of the journal Nature has called him ‘the greatest field biologist of the nineteenth century.’
