25 a.m., without regaining
consciousness." He was in his ninety-first year. It was suggested that
he should be buried in Westminster Abbey, beside Charles Darwin, but
Mrs. Wallace and the family, expressing his own wishes as well as
theirs, did not desire it. On Monday, November 10th, he was laid to rest
with touching simplicity in the little cemetery of Broadstone, on a
pine-clad hill swept by ocean breezes. He was followed on his last
earthly journey by his son and daughter, by Miss Mitten, his
sister-in-law, and by the present writer. Mrs. Wallace, being an
invalid, was unable to attend. The funeral service was conducted by the
Bishop of Salisbury (Dr. Ridgeway), and among the official
representatives were Prof. Raphael Meldola and Prof. E.B. Poulton
representing the Royal Society; the latter and Dr. Scott representing
the Linnean Society, and Mr. Joseph Hyder the Land Nationalisation
Society. A singularly appropriate monument, consisting of a fossil
tree-trunk from the Portland beds, has been erected over his grave upon
a base of Purbeck stone, which bears the following inscription:
ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, O.M.
Born Jan. 8th, 1823, Died Nov. 7th, 1913
A year later, on the 10th of December, 1914, his widow died after a long
illness, and was buried in the same grave. She was the eldest daughter
of Mr. William Mitten, of Hurstpierpoint, an enthusiastic botanist, and
in no mean degree she inherited her father's love of wild flowers and of
the beautiful in nature.
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