^8 
Walter Frank Raphael Weldon. 1860—1906. 
and zoology coordinated in at least one aspect of their work, and that research of 
a scientific kind should be introduced into the proceedings of each of them. He 
strove to make two schools, widely diverse in method and aim, understand each 
other. He wanted to keep individuals and societies up to their work, and prevent 
overlappings. But it was not to be. The members were pulling in opposite 
directions, there was too much friction, and too little compromise. A false anti- 
thesis was raised between what was termed " natural history " and any sort of 
statistical inquiry leading to numerical results. The biometric members ceased to 
attend regularly and finally resigned towards the end of 1899. Thiselton-Dyer 
and Meldola also left the Committee, which became from that date confined to one 
special school and one limited form of investigation. From beginning to end the 
Committee has, in the opinion of the present writer, been a mistake ; not only 
because at first it distinctly forced the pace and hampered Weldon's work, but 
because experience shows that such a committee can only work effectually in the 
interests of one school of ideas, and this, whatever safeguards may be taken, has at 
least the appearance of destroying the impartiality of the parent body, a matter of 
very grave importance. 
During the eight years of Weldon's London professoriate his development was 
great ; he became step by step a sound mathematician, and gained largely in his 
power of clear and luminous exposition. His laboratory was always full of 
enthusiastic workers, and over forty memoirs were published by his students, who 
included E. J. Allen, E. T. Browne, F. Buchanan, G. H. Fowler, E. S. Goodrich, 
H. Thompson, E. Warren, and others of known name. The following lines, pro- 
vided by a friend, graphically recall Weldon in his early London days : — 
" In so vivid a personality it is hard to point to the period of greatest mental activity, but of 
the nineteen years in which I Icnew him I should select the first few years of his Professorship 
at University College, London. Fresh from contemplative research at the Plymouth Laboratoi-y 
of the Marine Biological Association, and with his mind full of the new problems to which the 
study of marine life had introduced him, he threw himself into teaching with renewed zest. The 
effect on his students was amazing ; most of them began a zoological course as a compulsory but 
annoying preliminary to a degree ; Weldon soon changed that. Without ever forgetting the 
requirements of examinations, he made the subject alive and absorbing ; his advanced classes 
soon filled up ; and while on the one hand, the scholarships at London University were always 
claimed by his students, on the other the output of original investigation published by his 
department was one of which no university need have felt ashamed. Besides all this his 
students loved him ; he was so intensely human.... Into the question of remodelling the 
University and the defence of his College, Weldon threw himself as if unencumbered with 
arduous teaching and research ; his notably lofty ideals and vigorous championship were far 
from being wasted ; but his removal to Oxford at the time of the birth of the new University 
was a severe loss to the cause of real education in London. Gentle with ignorance, he was 
fiercely intolerant of educational shams and ca.nts." 
As the present writer has indicated, the stress during these London years was 
very great — the struggle with new mathematical processes, the wear of incessant 
calculation, the worry of unending controversy to a man fully occupied with 
research and teaching, all told on Weldon. The holidays were more limited in 
