William Charles Wells

He lived a life of extraordinary variety, did some notable medical research, and made the first clear statement about natural selection.

He had been called upon to sign a paper the object of which was to unite the people in a resistance to the claims of the British Government.

In the autumn he returned to London, and attended a course of William Hunter's lectures, took instructions in practical Anatomy, and became a surgeon's pupil at St Bartholomew's Hospital.

[7] The title description of his thesis is: Disputatio medica, inauguralis, de frigore ... - Edinburgi : Balfour et Smellie, 1780.

He died on 18 September 1817 at Serjeant's Inn in London,[10] after suffering symptoms of heart malfunction (auricular fibrillation).

A tablet was erected by Louisa Susannah Wells "as a tribute of duty to her parents and of affection to her brother."

This was Two Essays... with some observations on the causes of the differences of colour and form between the white and negro races of men.

[12][13][14] After some preliminary remarks on the different races of man, and of the selection of domesticated animals, he observes that: Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace were not aware of this work when they published their theory in 1858, but later Darwin acknowledged: Credit for the first appreciation of natural selection could therefore go to Wells rather than to Edward Blyth or Patrick Matthew.

The triumph is limited to the extent of being applied only to skin colour, and not, as Darwin and Wallace did, to the whole range of life.

[16] A form of the idea had already been set out by an earlier Edinburgh author, James Hutton, but in that case the effect was limited to improvement of varieties rather than the formation of new species.

He compared the formation of dew under varying conditions of material, location, temperature, humidity, weather, cloud cover, season, and time of day.