For nearly three months I had beheld the sun rise daily above the palm groves, mount to
the zenith, and descend like a globe of fire into the ocean, unobscured for a single moment
of its course. Now dark leaden clouds had gathered over the whole heavens, and it seemed
to have rendered him permanently invisible. The strong east winds, warm and dry and dust-
laden, which had hitherto blown as certainly as the sun had risen, were now replaced by
variable gusty breezes and heavy rains, often continuous for three days and nights together;
and the parched and fissured rice stubbles, which during the dry weather had extended in
every direction for miles around the town, were already so flooded as to be only passable
by boats, or by means of a labyrinth of paths on top of the narrow banks which divided the
separate properties.During his time in the jungles of the Indonesian archipelago Wallace would have
dreamed of returning to England and living in a grand country home as a ‘gentleman
scientist’. He loved searching for the ideal country location and then designing and
building his own home. Unfortunately, the cost of these ventures usually exceeded his
income and after occupying them for a few years he was forced to sell and move his
family somewhere else. Wallace continued to look for a suitable country home and he
found a four-acre site near the Thames and the village of Grays about twenty miles
east of London. He was himself involved in building the house and the family moved
in in March 1872, three months after the birth of his son William and a few weeks
after he was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society. He finally settled in a house at
Broadstone in Dorset which he purchased in 1890 because ‘of the rich golden clumps
of the dwarf gorse and because rhododendrons and water-lilies could be grown in the
garden’.
Wallace seemed to have inherited some of his father’s characteristic incaution with
money and after supporting his extended family and making some poor investments,
he was never financially independent. Finally, through the efforts of Darwin, Huxley
and Hooker, he was awarded in 1881 a government pension which provided a steady
income for the rest of his life. It had been a long campaign to gain this recognition but
Darwin’s persistence on his behalf had finally paid off.
At the age of fifty-eight Alfred Russel Wallace had for the first time in his life a
regular income and his thanks to Charles Darwin were heartfelt:
I must again return to you my best thanks, and assure you that there is no one living to
whose kindness in such a matter I could feel myself indebted with so much pleasure and
satisfaction.Alfred Russel Wallace – The return to England 191