![]() Alfred only stayed there for a few months, though, before leaving the capital and moving in with another of his brothers, William, who could take him on as an apprentice land surveyor. They could not afford to keep Alfred in school anymore so, instead, they sent him to London to live with his older brother, John, who found an apprenticeship as a carpenter. When Alfred was a teenager in 1837, his family’s financial situation went from bad to worse after his father basically lost everything in a swindle. ![]() Wallace never went to college because he never had the money, but this did not stop him from becoming a first-class naturalist and explorer. Young Alfred enrolled at Richard Hale’s Grammar School where he received the only formal education of his life. When Wallace was five, his parents once again set off for greener (and cheaper) pastures and relocated to Hertford. Instead, he relied on an inheritance for the first half of his adult life, and, when that ran out, he attempted various business ventures that usually proved unsuccessful and left the family worse off than it was at the start. Thomas Wallace had a law degree but, for some reason, never went into practice. Before he was born, his parents lived in London but relocated to Monmouthshire to lower their cost of living. Speaking of him, we do have a video on William Wallace, if you want to check it out in the link below.īack to Alfred, when he was young, his family moved around due to money troubles that would plague Wallace for most of his life. His mother was English while his father was Scottish and claimed to be a descendant of the famed William Wallace, although this was never attested conclusively. ![]() He was the eighth of nine children of Thomas Vere Wallace and Mary Anne Greenell. ![]() This might sound inconsequential to us, but some people have argued that this would make Wallace Welsh, while others believed that he was English, including Wallace himself who always referred to himself as an Englishman. Early YearsĪlfred Russel Wallace was born on January 8, 1823, at Kensington Cottage near the town of Usk, Monmouthshire, which is in Wales today, but back then was located in more of a gray area that some considered part of Wales and others part of England. Today, Alfred Wallace receives some of the recognition he richly deserves as we take a look at the life and career of one of the luminaries of natural history. And, to top it off, he was an autodidact – he was self-taught, more out of necessity than desire because he didn’t come from money and couldn’t afford a good education. And he was more than just a naturalist, as he also studied geography, anthropology, ecology, and even astrobiology. Alfred Wallace was one of the most notable scientists of the 19th century. ![]()
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