Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace was a British naturalist and biologist who is best known for his theory of evolution through natural selection. He was born in Hertfordshire, England in 1823 and studied at University College London. Wallace's work on the Galapagos finches and the Malay Archipelago led him to develop his theory, which he published in a paper titled On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and was knighted in 1889 for his services to science. Wallace died in 1913 at the age of 90.