As he approached his 60s, he settled down in England, building Nutwood Cottage in Godalming, Surrey, but “more and more houses kept on being built around him”, said Beccaloni.
“He hated that, he wanted to get away from people, so he thought Dorset would be a good area and he found a fairly isolated house called Corfe View in Parkstone, Poole.
“He lived there for several years and more houses got built around him there. So, he looked for a patch of land where he could build a house and found one in Broadstone.”
It was 1901 and Wallace was thrilled with his find. In correspondence, he wrote: “It is almost perfection. It is on the slope of the Broadstone middle plateau, looking south over Poole Harbour with the Purbeck Hills beyond.”
The house he had built was called Old Orchard. It was bulldozed in 1964 but remnants of Wallace survive.
“I live in what is now Wallace Road,” said local historian Jill Floyd. “Probably 100 yards away from where his house was. There are relics of his garden, people have some rather exotic plants in their gardens.”
The Parkstone property no longer survives either. which means the best memento of Wallace in Dorset today is his grave.
It was renovated by Beccaloni’s Wallace Memorial Fund at the turn of the century.
“He was very famous in his lifetime but was forgotten after his death,” said the science historian, adding: “Darwin’s buried in Westminster Abbey and here’s Wallace’s grave being totally neglected.”