Darwin-Wallace Paper (1858): Natural Selection Goes Public

The Darwin–Wallace papers were read at the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858, marking the first public announcement of the theory of evolution by natural selection. The joint presentation was prompted by a letter from the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, working in the Malay Archipelago, who had independently reached the same idea that Charles Darwin had been developing privately for twenty years.

Background: two naturalists, one idea

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) had begun thinking about the transformation of species after the voyage of HMS Beagle. By 1838, after reading Thomas Malthus on population, he had formed the idea of natural selection: individuals with useful variations survive and reproduce more, so species change over time. He wrote a sketch in 1842 and a longer essay in 1844, but published nothing and was working slowly on a very large book.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) came from a modest background and earned his living by collecting specimens for sale. After four years in the Amazon he went to the Malay Archipelago in 1854. In 1855 he published a paper, often called the Sarawak Law paper, arguing that new species arise close to related existing ones. Lyell noticed it and warned Darwin that he might be overtaken.

Wallace’s letter

In early 1858, while based on the island of Ternate in the Moluccas and recovering from a bout of fever, Wallace worked out the mechanism of natural selection. He wrote an essay, “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type”, and posted it to Darwin, asking him to pass it on to Lyell if he thought it worthwhile.

Darwin wrote to Lyell on 18 June 1858 that he had received it and that he had never seen a more striking coincidence. He was distressed: he feared that publishing his own work now would look dishonourable, yet he risked losing all credit for decades of research. At the same time his family faced illness, and his baby son Charles Waring Darwin died of scarlet fever on 28 June.

The meeting of 1 July 1858

Lyell and the botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker took charge. They proposed that Wallace’s essay be read together with two pieces showing Darwin’s priority: an extract from his 1844 essay and part of a letter he had written in September 1857 to the American botanist Asa Gray. The Linnean Society had a meeting arranged for 1 July 1858 at Burlington House, Piccadilly.

The Society’s secretary, John Joseph Bennett, read the papers, Darwin’s first, to a modest audience of fellows. There was no debate. Darwin was at home in Downe, Kent, and Wallace, thousands of miles away, did not learn of the arrangement until months later. The papers were printed in the Society’s journal on 20 August 1858.

Reaction and consequences

The announcement caused little stir. In his address in May 1859 the Society’s president, Thomas Bell, commented that the past year had not been marked by any of the striking discoveries that revolutionise science, a remark now often quoted for its irony.

The real effect was on Darwin. He abandoned his giant manuscript and wrote what he called an abstract, published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species. It was this book, not the 1858 papers, that set off public debate.

Wallace accepted the arrangement graciously. He returned to Britain in 1862, became friends with Darwin, and later published a book on the theory titled Darwinism (1889). The two men did disagree on some points, notably on whether natural selection could explain the human mind.

Myths and facts

Myth: Darwin stole Wallace’s ideas. Darwin’s notebooks, his 1844 essay and his 1857 letter to Gray show that he had developed the theory long before Wallace’s essay arrived. A few writers have argued that the letter reached Darwin earlier than he said, but most historians find the evidence for deliberate wrongdoing unconvincing.

Myth: Wallace was cheated of credit. The theory was presented in both names, and Wallace himself always called it Darwin’s theory. His lower public profile later owed more to Darwin’s book and fame than to the 1858 meeting.

Timeline

• 1855: Wallace publishes his Sarawak Law paper on the origin of species.
• 1857, 5 September: Darwin outlines natural selection in a letter to Asa Gray.
• 1858, early: Wallace writes his essay on Ternate.
• 1858, 18 June: Darwin tells Lyell he has received Wallace’s essay.
• 1858, 28 June: Darwin’s infant son dies of scarlet fever.
• 1858, 1 July: The Darwin and Wallace papers are read at the Linnean Society.
• 1858, 20 August: The papers are published in the Society’s journal.
• 1908, 1 July: The Linnean Society marks the fiftieth anniversary and awards its first Darwin–Wallace Medal.

Why it matters

The 1858 meeting was the moment natural selection entered the scientific record, credited jointly to two naturalists who reached it independently. It pushed Darwin into publishing the book that transformed biology, a foundation later strengthened by genetics, beginning with Mendel’s pea experiments.