22 
Walter Frank Raphael Weldon. 1860—1906. 
University, he continued to work and fight for truer ideals of academic adminis- 
tration. 
As an administrator and committeeman Weldon combined geniality with 
strong convictions; he saw at once through flimsy pretexts, and expressed clearly and 
concisely his own point of view, — "An impulsive loveable man going to the heart 
of any subject immediately, and always speaking up with great feeling for what he 
thought right," is how one of his former colleagues aptly describes him. But 
he lacked several of the essentials which go to make the completely effective 
committeeman. He was always full of the current piece of research and he 
grudged all time taken from it; to carry through his own projects he did not adopt 
the manner of the bull and crush down all opposition ; some few men can do 
this, but it needs not only physique, but its combination with very dominant 
intellectual power ; nor had he the persistency of the corncrake, to wear down his 
colleagues by continual nagging ; nor silent in committee would he molelike be 
active underneath, "lobbying" his men, and thus more effectually work his wilL 
These types I have known and each was less loved, but more successful than 
Weldon. He " played the game," threw firmly and well the lance for the cause he 
thought right, and went his way. He remained to the end the public school or 
'varsity lad, whom the idea of " good form " controlled ; but unfortunately the type 
is not so persistent in practical life that it dominates scientific or academic politics. 
From this standpoint Weldon's death removed from the field a healthy adminis- 
trator, who acted as a tonic upon weaker colleagues. It was in this sense that he 
did excellent work, not only on various bodies connected with University College 
and the University of London, but on the Council of the Royal Society (1896-8), 
and on its Government Grant and Sectional Committees. 
To the biometrician, perhaps, the most interesting committee wdth which 
Weldon was associated in these years was that which came later to be called the 
Royal Society Evolution (Animals and Plants) Committee. It is somewhat 
difficult to give the full history at present, but some attempt at a sketch of 
Weldon's connection with it must be made here. Weldon's papers on variation 
and correlation in shrimps and crabs had brought him closely in touch with 
Francis Galton, and both w^ere keenly interested in the discovery of further 
dimorphic forms such as had been suggested by the frontal breadths of the Naples 
crabs. Weldon was full also of other ideas ripe for investigation. He had started 
his great attempt at the measurement of a selective death-rate in the crabs of 
Plymouth Sound; experiments on repeated selection of infusoria were going on in 
his laboratory ; he was gathering an ardent band of workers about him, and much 
seemed possible with proper assistance and that friendly sympathy which was ever 
essential to him. 
The idea that a group of men can achieve more than a single investigator, if 
true in some forms of social work, is rarely applicable to scientific committees; but 
such committees have often been tried in the past, and will no doubt be again 
attempted in the future. If used as instruments of research, the work done is too 
