Monument to 'Darwin's Rival', Alfred Russel Wallace, the Co-discoverer of Evolution by Natural Selection, is Unveiled on Indonesian Island
By George Beccaloni, 2024
On October 5th 2024 a large crowd from the local community, distinguished Indonesian scientists, and VIPs, including the British Ambassador to Indonesia and Timor-Leste, Dominic Jermey, and Samsuddin Abdul Kadir, Governor of Indonesia's North Maluku province, gathered in the small village of Dodinga on the remote Indonesian Island of Halmahera to unveil a large granite plaque and associated information board. Among them was William (Bill) Wallace, great grandson of Victorian scientist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), who had travelled halfway around the world from his home in Canada to attend the ceremony and help unveil the monument to his illustrious ancestor.
The plaque commemorates Wallace's independent discovery of the driving force of evolution, natural selection, which he conceived in a "sudden flash of insight" while suffering from a fever in a house which used to stand nearby. When he had enough strength, he wrote a detailed essay explaining his idea and posted it from neighbouring Ternate Island to Charles Darwin in England, in order to get his opinion of it. Unknown to Wallace, Darwin had devised exactly the same hypothesis 20 years earlier, but hadn't yet published it. He was therefore horrified when he read the essay, as he was worried that Wallace would now get all the credit for the idea. He asked his close friends Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker what he should do, and they decided to present both men's hypotheses at a meeting of the Linnean Society of London on the 1st July 1858, only 14 days after Wallace's essay had arrived in England. The following month, it and extracts from Darwin's previously unpublished writings on the subject, were published in the Society's journal, giving the two men equal credit as co-discoverer’s of what was originally termed “the Darwin-Wallace theory of evolution by natural means of selection”.
This episode prompted Darwin to quickly write his famous book On the Origin of Species, which appeared 15 months later in 1859. The book popularised his and Wallace's joint theory, but after Wallace's death many people mistakenly came to believe that natural selection was Darwin's idea alone and that it had originated in his book.
In a short speech, Bill Wallace, who is Treasurer of the UK based Wallace Memorial Fund which helped to organise the event, remarked how delighted he was that his great grandfather is slowly but surely getting more of the recognition he deserves, partly thanks to the efforts of the Fund over many years.
From left to right: George Beccaloni, Samsuddin Abdul Kadir, Bill Wallace, Dominic Jermey, Dheni Tjan, and Clare Jermey
George Beccaloni, founder of the Fund, who was also present at the ceremony, said "Wallace is admired in Indonesia and neighbouring countries, both for his scientific work and the respect he showed to the local people he employed and lived among. His discovery here in Dodinga was the culmination of 10 years of research on evolution in the Amazon Basin and South-east Asia. Had he sent his essay directly to a journal for publication, as he normally did, he would have scooped Darwin, who would now be a mere footnote in the history books.
We are extremely grateful to the government of North Maluku for funding and organising this event. Our sincere thanks also go to the people of Dodinga for their enthusiasm and help, to SeaTrek Sailing Adventures for funding and commissioning the plaque, to Wallacea Nature for designing the information board and for logistics, and to the Governor of North Maluku and the British Ambassador for their support and for their speeches at the ceremony. We hope the plaque attracts more tourists to Dodinga, creating new opportunities for the local community.
The Dodinga plaque. Photo by Christine Chua
The event was part of North Maluku Province's celebrations to mark its 25th anniversary of autonomy and the British Embassy's celebrations of 75 years of UK-Indonesia diplomacy.
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For more information, including a high resolution image of the information board next to the plaque, see https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UPM3QVv1B_AyrP0tFkcehTNNfYdB97sB?usp=drive_link