Speaker:
Dr John van Wyhe

Synopsis:
Wallace, the quintessential Victorian collector-naturalist, is remembered for his eight years of collecting throughout the Southeast Asia. Accounts always note that he collected 125,660 natural history specimens, but almost no one mentions that he had a great deal of help in assembling this vast collection. His published and unpublished writings contain references to an array of hired assistants, boatmen, porters, cooks and guides. Along with the well-known assistants usually mentioned, Charles Allen and Ali, hundreds of local people helped Wallace by showing him where local animals lived and explaining how they behaved, and they procured the vast majority of the vertebrates in his collection. This reveals that 1,200 individuals helped Wallace in one way or another to achieve what he did.

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Mr Ambert Ang
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