LIXNEAX SOCIETY OF LOXDOX. IO9 



[The foUoiving Obituary Notice ivas onh/ received on the 'IlthSeptemher, 

 after the foregoing pages were in tijpeJ] 



Walter Fbaxk Eaphael "Weldox, the subject oE the present 

 memoir, was born on Marcli 15tb, 18G0, and was educated at 

 Caversliam School and afterwards, during 1876 and 1877, at 

 University and Kinji's Colleges, London. In April 1878 he 

 entered St. John's College, Cambridge, and studied Physiology 

 and Zoology under Prof. Michael Foster and the late Francis 

 Maitland l^alfour. He obtained a first class in the first part of 

 the ]S"atura] Science Tripos (under the old Statutes) in 1881 and 

 proceeded to the degree of B.A. in the same year. In 1882 he 

 was placed in the fii'st class in the second part of the Natural 

 Science Tripos, and after a period of study at the Zoological 

 Station at Naples, was resident chiefly at Cambridge, ^^-here he 

 was engaged in zoological research, and acted as a Demonstrator 

 to Mr. A. Sedgwick and Assistant Lecturer in the Zoological 

 Laboratories. He married in 1883 Florence Joy, the eldest 

 daughter of William Tebb, Esq., of Eede Hall, Burstow, Surrey, 

 and never was there a happier marriage. lu November 1884 

 AVeldon was elected to a Fellowship at St. John's College, and 

 almost simultaneously was appointed L^niversitj^ Lecturer in the 

 Advanced Morphology of Invertebrata at Cambridge. In 1886, 

 a year after his lather's death, he went in company with his wile 

 on a zoological expedition to the Bahamas, and returning to 

 Cambridge at the end of the same year, resumed his work as 

 L'niversity Lectxirer. In 1888, on the completion of the Laboratory 

 of the Marine Biological Association at Plymouth. AYeldon was 

 one of the first to make use of the opportunities offered for the 

 study of English Marine Zoology, and having obtained leave of 

 absence from Cambridge, he resided at Plymouth for two years, 

 and there began the course of biometrical research which was 

 the chief interest of the rest of his life. In December 1890 he 

 was elected to the Jodrell Chair of Zoology in University College. 

 London, in succession to Professor Bay Laukester; and in 1899, 

 when the latter was appointed Director of the British Museum of 

 Natural History, Weldon again succeeded him, this time as 

 Linaci'e Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Oxford. For the 

 next seven years he resided at Oxford, occupied with the duties of 

 his chair and with a constantly increasing quantity of biometrical 

 research. Though he was obviously straining his energies to the 

 utmost his health and vigour seemed to be unimpaired, and it was 

 a great shock to his many friends when they heard of his death, 

 after a very short illness, on April 13th, 1906. He was elected 

 Fellow of our Society, 4th June 1891, and of the Eoyal Societv 

 in 1890. 



Such is a brief outline of the life of one of the most gifted of 

 contemporary zoologists : it would take many pages adequately to 



