rare opportunity to hear Suzanne and Patrick Medway 1pm September 19
About the Presentation
The Wallace Line is the fauna and flora boundary line drawn in 1859 by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913). The present talk will explore this transitional zone between Asia and Australia.
About the Presenters
Suzanne Medway, National President of the Australian Wildlife Society since 2011, and Patrick Medway, former President (now CEO and Hon. Secretary) were both appointed Members of the Order of Australia in 2003 for their distinguished services to Australian wildlife conservation and education, and the raising of its profile worldwide.
Patrick Medway, a keen ornithologist, has campaigned tirelessly to reduce land-clearing to save Australia's native wildlife. Our well-published presenters have also served as editors of Australian Wildlife magazine.
Alfred Russel Wallace and the Theosophical Society
The English naturalist, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist was born in Llanbadoc, Monmouthshire, Wales, on January 8, 1823, and died at Broadstone in Dorset, England, on November 7, 1913. Wallace was famous for having formulated, simultaneously with Charles Darwin, a theory about the origin of species by natural selection. Among his many distinctions Wallace was awarded the Royal Society’s Royal Medal in 1868 and the Copley Metal and the Order of Merit both in 1908; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1893. His most important work, Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, was published in 1870, and in it he differed from Darwin, contending that mankind had not, like other animals, been produced by the unaided operation of natural selection, but that other, some nonphysical, causes had operated.
Within the Theosophical Society he is famous for being one of our illustrious members. Wallace was active in social matters, supporting the rights of workers and admiring Edward Bellamy's utopian novel Looking Backward, which appealed to many Theosophists also. He was interested in Spiritualism and other psychic phenomena and in 1875 published On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (revised and expanded third edition in 1896), in which he gave experimental reasons for his beliefs. He joined the Theosophical Society in 1876, shortly after its foundation, and was presented with a copy of ISIS UNVEILED by its author. Wallace had already been in correspondence with H. S. Olcott, who sent him a copy of his book People from the Other Worlds (published 1875).
