My history hero: Steve Backshall chooses Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913)
Naturalist, explorer and television presenter Steve Backshall chooses Alfred Russel Wallace as a history hero
In profile
Alfred Russel Wallace was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist. Besides independently conceiving the idea of evolution through natural selection at around the same time as Charles Darwin, he explored the Amazon river basin and the Malay Archipelago, collecting thousands of specimens which he wrote about in bestselling books such as The Malay Archipelago (1869). Often dubbed ‘the father of biogeography’, he died in Dorset, aged 90.
When did you first hear about Wallace?
I found a well-worn copy of his book The Malay Archipelago in a second-hand bookshop while travelling around south-east Asia in 1990. I read it from cover to cover in a couple of weeks and it was a real watershed moment for me. He’s undoubtedly the human being in history I’d most like to spend a few minutes with.
What kind of man was he?
He had a big personality and a real lust for life, but unlike so many of his contemporaries, did not come from a privileged background; he had to work for everything he achieved. There were so many different facets to the man: he was an explorer, anthropologist and one of the first conservationists, as well as a hunter. His writing is also very different in style to Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, which I found a real slog. In contrast, Wallace’s books are characterised by derring-do and adrenaline, reflecting the fact that he was someone who wanted adventure from life.
What made him a hero?
Until reading The Malay Archipelago, the only things I’d read with the same sense of excitement were fictional. But Wallace actually led the life of an explorer, collecting more than 100,000 specimens of fauna and flora, which is absolutely insane. The subject of the book – the Malay Archipelago – was still quite hard to visit when I travelled there in 1990, yet he was visiting the same places more than a century earlier with fewer resources, and nobody to help him if he got into trouble.
That’s partly why he’s such a hero to me. Furthermore, he lived alongside local people and saw much to admire about them – not the sort of thing you’d have expected of an Englishman at a time when British colonialism was at its height and the white man’s sense of superiority was rife. The way he described nature was also very modern – which, again, was unlike Darwin, who examined species in a dry, methodical way.
Can you see any parallels between his life and your own?
Yes, I’ve done a lot of exploratory expeditions, too, and even walked the same trails that he walked – although his achievements make mine look very small indeed. I suppose a key contrast is that
I don’t have an Alfred Russel Wallace-style beard!
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Does he deserve to be better known today?
Yes. He’s still well known in the fields of zoology and natural history, as well as in Malaysia (where you’ll find Wallace orchids and even flying frogs named in his honour). But he’s largely forgotten among the wider public in his homeland.
Steve Backshall is a naturalist and explorer best known for presenting the BBC television series Deadly 60 and books including Deep Blue: My Ocean Journeys (Witness Books). For details of his forthcoming tour, visit stevebackshall.com
This article was first published in the May 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine
Authors
York Membery is a regular contributor to BBC History Magazine, the Daily Mail and Sunday Times among other publications. York, who lives in London, worked on the Mirror, Express and Times before turning freelance. He studied history at Cardiff University and the Institute of Historical Research, and has a History PhD from Maastricht University.
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