50 years ago

At a meeting of the Linnean Society on July 1, attended by members of the Darwin and Wallace families, representatives of other societies and institutions and members of the Linnean Society, the president, Dr. C. F. A. Pantin, unveiled a plaque in the meeting room commemorating the centenary of the reading before the Society on July 1, 1858, of the joint communication by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace on their theory of evolution by natural selection. At the meeting a hundred years ago neither Darwin nor Wallace was present: Darwin because of family bereavement and illness, and Wallace was still in Ternate. The papers were communicated by Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. (later Sir) J. D. Hooker ... Hooker, writing to Francis Darwin at a later date giving an account of the meeting, said “ ...The interest excited was intense, but the subject too novel and too ominous for the old School to enter the lists before armouring. It was talked over after the meeting, 'with bated breath' ...”

From Nature 5 July 1958.

100 years ago

The list of honours issued on the occasion of His Majesty's birthday includes the name of a few men distinguished for their work in pure or applied science ... Some reference has been made in the daily papers to the ratio of honours awarded to naval and military men, the suggestion being that the Army receives an undue share of these distinctions. With the demands of the two services for recognition we are not concerned, but the question induces us to ask what ratio exists between the award of honours to men who devote their lives to work which promotes the scientific progress of the country and those who do not? ... Probably the reason is that ministers and officials who are chiefly concerned with the affairs of State and Court live in a world in which science and the results of science are almost unknown.

From Nature 2 July 1908.