John Hampden
1819/20–91
Controversialist. Son of a Dorset clergyman. Matriculated at St Mary Hall, Oxford, 1839, but left without a degree. Author of works on cosmology and military subjects. Famous for his offer of £500 to anyone who could prove the earth was round, and for his subsequent refusal to accept A. R. Wallace’s experimental proof.
Sources
Modern English biography
Raby 2001.
Bibliography
Modern English biography: Modern English biography, containing many thousand concise memoirs of persons who have died since the year 1850. By Frederick Boase. 3 vols. and supplement (3 vols.). Truro, Cornwall: the author. 1892–1921.
Raby, Peter. 2001. Alfred Russel Wallace: a life. London: Chatto & Windus.
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