Walter Frank Raphael Weldon. 1860 — 1906. 
47 
Weldon on our homeward way. " Having no anatomical training I think they are 
those of ." " A young woman, who has not been buried so very long," he 
interrupted, with a responsive twinkle in his eye, " Let us have a smoke and 
consider the scientific education of the English medical profession." His sense of 
humour was always keen, whether with word or pencil, and it remained with him 
to the end. The joy of life which in the early days led him to dance and sing on 
the completion of a heavy bit of work, made him in later manhood ripple over with 
quiet humour in talk and letter when problems were going well. 
Thus to Francis Galton : 
" I euclose the best I can do with one of the negatives you were kind enough to let me make. 
Please forgive me for caricaturing you in this way. — You know enough about the lower forms of 
man to know that respect and affection show themselves in strange ways : — look upon this as 
one of them and pardon it." [Oxford, 27/7/05.] 
Nor did he spare a quiet joke at a friend : 
"Your work on dams has filled the Italian papers with horror. They say you threaten the 
safety of all existing dams, however long they have stood." [Ferrara, 7/4/05.] 
In November, 1905, Weldon was unfortunately taken off from the work on his 
inheritance book by the presentation to the Royal Society of a paper by Captain 
C. C. Hurst : On the Inheritance of Coat-Colour in Horses. He had had no proper 
summer holiday, but he threw himself nine hours a day into the study of The 
General Studhook*. 
"I can do nothing else until I have found out what it means.... The question between Mendel 
and Galton's theory of Reversion ought to be answered out of these. Thank God, I have not 
finished that book. There must be a chapter on Race Horses ! " 
Weldon felt himself in a difficult position ; as Chairman of the Zoological 
Committee, he had at once directed the printing of Hurst's paper. But the subject 
being one in which he personally was keenly interested, he had immediately attacked 
the original material and to his surprise came to views definitely opposite to those 
of Hurst. He felt bound to report this result at once to the Society, and he did 
so on December 7, when the original paper was read. His results were provisional, 
as could only be the case considering the short period of preparation that had been 
possible. He promised to communicate a note to the Society involving more 
details of his inquiry. This was done on January 18, 1906 in a "Note on the 
Offspring of Thoroughbred Chestnut Mares " (39). 
* I cannot resist citing a last illustration of Weldon's humour : "What volumes of Weatherby have 
you? I have found in Bodley 17 — 20. To show you what Bodley is, I looked in the catalogue vainly 
under: Weatherby (found here and not under Kacing, Racing Calendar), Jockey Club (found here 
pamphlets about the J. C. but not its own pubhcations), Horses, Race Horses, Racing, Studbooks (found 
here only Clydesdale Studbook, Pigeon Studbooks, and Dog Studbooks), Turf, Sport, Race, all suggested 
by assistants in the Library. For a whole day I raged, and came back despairing. Next day I raged 
worse, and captured a man who knew something. He smiled and said : ' Oh, Yes, The General 
Studbook is entered under General of course.' I said, 'Why not under The'!' and he thought that 
unseemly ! " 
