Dr William Charles Wells FRS FRSE FRCP (24 May 1757 – 18 September 1817) was a Scottish-American physician and printer. He lived a life of extraordinary variety, did some notable medical research, and made the first clear statement about natural selection. He applied the idea to the origin of different skin colours in human races, and from the context it seems he thought it might be applied more widely. Charles Darwin said: "[Wells] distinctly recognises the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated". Life Wells was born in Charleston on 24 May 1757, the second son of Mary and Robert Wells, a printer. His parents were Scots who had settled in South Carolina in 1753. He is the brother of Louisa Susannah Wells and Helena Wells. He was sent to school in Dumfries, Scotland in 1768, at the age of 11, and after completing his preparatory school studies he attended the University of Edinburgh for a year. Wells returned to Charleston in 1771 and became a medical apprentice under Dr Alexander Garden, a naturalist and physician, who himself was a pupil of Charles Alston, Director of the Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh. In 1775, soon after the commencement of the American War of Independence, he left Charleston suddenly, and went to London in England. 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. This he would not do. In 1776 he returned to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine graduating with his medical degree in 1778. 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. In 1779 he went to Holland as a surgeon of the British Army attached to a Scottish regiment. There he received ill-treatment from his commanding officer, and resigned his commission. On the day on which he received his dismissal from the service, he challenged the officer to a duel: the officer refused to respond. Wells then moved to Leiden in the Netherlands and matriculated at the University of Leiden 19 Feb. 1780. On this university he prepared his dissertation. This was the Inaugural Thesis, published at Edinburgh in 1780 when he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine; the