Blogs

Probably the historically most important of all the enclosures to any of Wallace's correspondence in the Wallace Family Archive at the Natural History Museum, London, is an offprint of the famous 1858 Darwin-Wallace paper on natural selection - the scientific article which launched the evolution revolution. This paper is widely regarded as being one of the most important scientific papers of all time, and what is special about the NHM's copy is that it was owned and annotated by Wallace. A pdf of this document is now available for the first time.

The WCP is looking for 2 enthusiastic volunteers to join our small team at the Natural History Museum, London, for one day a week to assist with various project tasks.

We are looking for someone with;
- Good IT skills
- Attention to detail
- Experience of using databases
- Experience of cataloguing
- Interest in history of science/Victorian history
- Enthusiasm

After several days of work I have managed to migrate the data from a 116 page MS Word table which lists all of the British Library's (BL) Wallace correspondence, into the Project's Access database. This table was produced by our previous Archivist Anna Mayer, who visited the BL numerous times in order to carefully thumb through and catalogue all of their Wallace letters. Our database now holds records for a grand total of 3100 letters. Of these 1200 are deposited in the NHM and 1600 are in the BL.

I am please to report that thanks to help from Simon Rycroft of the Scratchpad Project team, the WCP's Wallace Forum is now up and running and eager for users (http://wallaceletters.info/forum)!!! The Forum was created both as a venue for volunteer transcribers to discuss problems they might be having trying to decipher difficult handwriting etc, and also for anyone else who wants to talk about any aspect of Wallace's life and work with like minded people.

The Wallace Correspondence Project is looking for dedicated volunteers to help us transcribe letters written by Wallace, as well as letters sent to him from his many correspondents. Ideally we would like volunteers who already have experience of transcribing (sometimes difficult) Victorian handwriting, but enthusiasm and persistence are more important, and we will provide a palaeography guide!