Happy Birthday Thomas Barbour

Posted on 08. Aug, 2025 by Paul Sochaczewski in Books

Happy Birthday Thomas Barbour

The Ernst Mayr Library and Archives of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University

Thomas Barbour (1884–1946), a well-travelled and respected American herpetologist, provided the most convincing evidence that Ali spent his “retirement” years in Ternate. Barbour wrote of meeting a “wizened old Malay man” who was versed in natural history and identified himself as Ali Wallace.

When writing about historical characters, scholars search letters, journals, media accounts, and personal memories for the holy grail that “proves” a speculation about events and motivations.

From these sources, historians then evaluate and triangulate until, like Miss Marple, they reach a satisfactory solution to the puzzle. (Or as cynical Napoleon said: “History is a set of lies that people have agreed upon.”) This conclusion would then become the generally accepted “fact” and enshrined as conventional wisdom, at least until a similarly determined researcher comes along, unearths new clues, and “disproves” the earlier historian’s theory.

* * *

History is a slippery beast, as I learned while writing a speculative biography of Ali, a Malay teenager who assisted Alfred Russel Wallace during much of his eight-year journey through the Malay Archipelago.

All we know for certain about Ali comes from the narratives written by Alfred Russel Wallace, and, to a more speculative degree, by Spenser St. John, Frederick Boyle, and Thomas Barbour. Wallace was a scientist who was mostly meticulous in his record-keeping. He left scores of notebooks, inventories, letters, and journals. Luckily, he was also a prolific diarist and recounted scores of episodes that occurred during his eight years in Southeast Asia. He mentions Ali, often in detail, 42 times in his classic travel book The Malay Archipelago. Nevertheless, Wallace is just one source through which we learn about Ali’s story, and he, like every writer everywhere, wrote through his individual prism.

Yet we still confront uncertainty. We have to make do with educated speculation and take the liberty of venturing a guess on what might have happened, what he might have said, what he might have thought. And why not sprinkle a few just-over-the-top scenarios, simply to see if anyone’s paying attention? Let’s call this approach an “enhanced biography.”

* * *

One question to which I’ve sought an answer was: What happened to Ali after Wallace sailed to England from Singapore in April 1862? Wallace wrote that he gave Ali substantial gifts of money and goods, but then what? Where did Ali “retire”?

My guess is that Ali returned to the tiny east Indonesian island of Ternate. The circumstantial evidence:

Wallace wrote twice that Ali married and started a family while living in Ternate.

And because of his skill in shooting rare birds and taxidermy, Ali likely would have found easy employment with Maarten Dirk van Renesse van Duivenbode. Duivenbode supported and befriended Wallace during his stay on the island, famed as the Spice Island from where cloves originated. Wallace said Duivenbode was known as the “king of Ternate” in recognition of the man’s wealth and influence, and, as a leading trader in rare birds, he was likely to have known of the young man’s reliability and experience.

But the closest we have to a smoking gun is the startling encounter between American herpetologist Thomas Barbour and a “wizened old man” who described himself as Ali Wallace.

* * *

Trustees of the British Museum

The only photo we have of Ali, taken in Singapore in early 1862 shortly before Wallace left for England. Ali would have been around 21 or 22.

Photographic manipulation by Kelly Cleary.

A computer-generated image of how Ali might have looked at approximately age 67, when Thomas Barbour met him in Ternate.

Thomas Barbour (1884-1946) was a leading naturalist with a global reputation. Although he collected all manner of birds and insects (particularly butterflies), he is primarily known for his study of amphibians and reptiles; some 18 new species he discovered are named after him. He led major collecting expeditions to Africa, Asia, North America, South America, and Central America.

In 1907 Thomas Barbour visited Ternate and claimed he met Ali. We know that Ali was about 15 when he met Wallace in 1855, so he would have been around 67 when he accidentally ran into Barbour, a relatively old man but well within the limits of possibility.

Barbour, his wife, and assistants would have stood out on a village path, strangely outfitted Europeans decked out with butterfly nets, collecting jars, and other paraphernalia of the naturalist’s trade familiar to Ali.

Barbour, who was to become director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, mentions meeting Ali three times.

In 1912, he wrote in a scientific paper:

I showed a Ceram specimen of L. muelleri [Lerista muelleri, common name: wood mulch-slider] to many intelligent natives of Ternate, including indeed Ali, the faithful companion of Wallace during his many journeys, now an old man, and all agreed that they had not seen such a lizard before.

Brian Bush

The wood mulch-slider, or Mueller’s three-toed lerista (Lerista muelleri), is a small terrestrial lizard, about the length of an outstretched hand. A key distinguishing feature of the species is the presence of three digits on each of the forelimbs and hindlimbs. The genus Lerista was revised by Glen Storr in 1971, who determined the entire genus is endemic to Australia, with L. muelleri restricted to western Australia. But this geographic classification took place well after Barbour met Ali, so we do not know what specific critter Barbour and Ali discussed.

In 1921, in another scientific paper, Barbour wrote:

On the day of my walk to the Ternate lake an old Malay spoke to me; he had long forgotten his English, but he tapped his chest, drew himself up and told me he was Ali Wallace. No lover of ‘The Malay Archipelago’ but remembers Ali who was Wallace’s young companion on many a hazardous journey. After my return a letter from Mr. Wallace speaks of his envy of my having so recently met his old associate.

And in his autobiography of 1943, Naturalist at Large, Barbour wrote the most detailed (and goose-bumpy) account:

Here came a real thrill, for I was stopped in the street [in Ternate] one day as my wife and I were preparing to climb up to the Crater Lake. With us were Ah Woo with his butterfly net, Indit and Bandoung, our well-trained Javanese collectors, with shotguns, cloth bags, and a vasculum for carrying the birds. We were stopped by a wizened old Malay man. I can see him now, with a faded blue fez on his head. He said, ‘I am Ali Wallace.’ I knew at once that there stood before me Wallace’s faithful companion of many years, the boy who not only helped him collect but nursed him when he was sick. We took his photograph and sent it to Wallace when we got home. He wrote me a delightful letter acknowledging it and reminiscing over the time when Ali had saved his life, nursing him through a terrific attack of malaria. This letter I have managed to lose, to my eternal chagrin.

* * *

This should be sufficient evidence, but questions remain about Barbour’s claims — which I’ve detailed in the book — that primarily relate to how Barbour “misremembered” sending a photo of Ali to Wallace.

Nonetheless, I am inclined to accept Barbour’s account. He was a prominent naturalist, a careful scientist, and was aware of the Wallace-Ali story. He was genuinely thrilled to meet Ali, just one step removed from meeting the great Wallace himself. And how likely is it that he would have had a conversation about an obscure lizard on a dirt track in isolated Ternate with anyone except Ali?

Natalie Ong

The statues of Ali and Wallace, located at the Lee Kong Chiang Natural History Museum, Singapore, were sculpted by Chang Ting Hsuan, Lim XingYi, Subashri Sankarasubramanian, and Lim Soo Ngee of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

They were not equals, but Ali helped and cared for Wallace and vice versa. It is likely that Wallace would not have been as successful as he was without Ali’s support.

Imagined Conversation

Since I’ve written a speculative biography, here is an imagined conversation between Barbour and Ali:

Thomas Barbour, his wife Rosamond (they are on an extended world-traversing honeymoon, collecting snakes and other critters), and two assistants walk along a dirt road just outside the town of Ternate, eastern Indonesia. They are headed to Crater Lake, in the center of the island, on a collecting mission. Barbour is a multi-faceted naturalist, but herpetology is his first love — in particular, he takes an inordinate interest in snakes and amphibians — slithering creatures that hold little interest for most people.

A short, older man runs after them. He wears a clean, but faded sarong, a cotton shirt that once was white, and a songkok, a Malay version of the Middle Eastern fez. He is out of breath, having jogged up the hill. He hadn’t wanted to call after them — that wouldn’t have been polite — but he does want to speak with this white man.

“Excuse me, sir,” Ali says in English, still out of breath.

“Selamat pagi,” Barbour says in Malay.

“Ah, you speak Malay,” Ali says in the same language. He switches back to English. “You are collecting?”

Barbour and Ali have a conversation, assisted by Barbour’s Indonesian assistants where necessary. They discuss the best places to find lizards and frogs.

“You are very knowledgeable,” Barbour says.

Ali beams.

“And may I know your name?”

“I am Ali Wallace,” Ali says, with more than a hint of pride in his voice.

Barbour and his wife look at each other. Couldn’t be. But yes, here he is.

“You are Ali, who accompanied Alfred Russel Wallace?”

“You know my Tuan, sir?”

“I’ve never met him. But everyone knows Wallace. He is a great man.”

“Yes. And how is he? You are from the same kampong?”

“Er, no. I live in America. Wallace lives in England.”

Ali rolls the two words in his mouth like hard candies, savoring the taste of the names. America. England. “Does he ask about me?”

“I’m sure he thinks about you, Pak Ali. You were very important for him.”

Ali, to the surprise of Barbour, begins to cry. “I am an old man, Tuan. Thanks to God, I have lived so long. I live, every day, praying to Allah, hoping for a letter from Tuan Wallace…”

Barbour’s wife, Rosamond, also starts to cry. “We’ll be sure to tell him we saw you.” She doesn’t ask if Ali has a mailing address.

Ali continues, in Malay, as if he hasn’t heard her. “Tuan Wallace left; I came back here. He could have sent me a letter care of the Dutch administrator. They have a good mail service.” He is rambling now. “Tuan Wallace wrote so many letters, so many, to his friends in England. Does he have a family? Does he speak about me? Is he in good health?”

“Let’s take a photo, Pak Ali,” Barbour says. “I’ll send it to Wallace and tell him we met.” Then, as he was setting up the equipment, muttered: “My camera’s been acting up; I hope it turns out…”

This short article is abridged from a longer chapter in:

Look Here, Sir, What a Curious Bird
Searching for Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace’s Faithful Companion