On July 1, 1858, a joint reading at the Linnean Society of London of papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace debuted a new explanation of speciation and biological evolution.
Linnean Society records record that eminent scientists Charles Lyell and Joseph Dalton Hooker “communicated” the papers of the two breakthrough theorists:
- An extract from Darwin’s unpublished manuscript (written in 1844, part of his Essay).
- An abstract of Darwin’s 1857 letter to Asa Gray, outlining his theory.
- Wallace’s essay, “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type” (written in 1858).
Though attended by about 30 prominent intellectuals and scientists of the day, conspicuously not in attendance were either Wallace (who was in the East Indies) or Darwin (whose son Charles Waring Darwin had died two days earlier).
The event proved to be one of the more significant scientific presentations in the history of western civilization.