12 
Walter Frank Ra^jfiaet Weldon. 1860—1906. 
spoiled by Weldon's consciousness that certain members of the audience were not 
following him. He would then turn his exposition into explanation of minor 
points, so that the lecture would not be completed, or he would settle down to 
speak to the few he realised to be following him, and neglect the audience as a 
whole. If a portion of his audience were hostile or actively unsympathetic, this 
always prevented Weldon from reaching his best ; it formed a strain on the 
lecturer's nervous temperament, which could only be realised by those of like 
fibre, and in some cases left its permanent mark. Thus it came about that the 
success of a public lecture by Weldon could not a priori be measured ; it depended 
far too much on the audience. Individual lectures at the British Association, 
the London Institution, at University College or elsewhere were brilliant achieve- 
ments, but at the same places on other occasions, Weldon was not so successful, 
for no man was ever more responsive to immediate environment than he was. To 
do his best and to be at his best he needed essentially a sympathetic environment. 
Weldon has been spoken of as an eager, ready and dramatic debater, keen to see 
a weak joint in his opponent's armour and quick in putting his own case with 
telling effectiveness. This is undoubtedly true, but it needs the qualification 
that this intellectual readiness when in full action meant a high pressure ; it was 
a strain the less oft repeated the better. A torpedo-boat destroyer is associated 
with a 26 knot speed, and such speed differentiates it from other vessels of war ; 
but the less it is run at this rate, the longer undoubtedly it will last. Controversy 
was not an atmosphere in which Weldon rejoiced*; it came to him because he 
felt bound to criticise what he held to be error, because he must defend a friend, 
but it was — running the destroyer at 26 knots ! 
This digression may be justified on the ground that we have reached the 
period when Weldon began to exercise a personal influence over his students at 
Cambridge, and the sources of that influence are to be found first in the lecture- 
room and then in strong personal sympathy. In the lecture-room he always im- 
pressed his hearers with the importance of his topic. You could not listen to 
him lecturing on a flame-cell or on the variations in the carapace of Pandalus 
annulicornis without sharing his intense conviction of the importance of the matter 
in hand. He aroused a consciousness in his students that things were worth 
studying for their own sake, apart from their examination value. 
The summer months of 188-5 were spent in Guernsey, and the death of 
Walter Weldon in the September of this year kept Raphael Weldon at other 
things than research. Christmas, however, found the Weldons at Rome. The 
Lent and May terms (1886) were spent in Cambridge as usual. In June came 
a visit to the south of France on Chlorine business, but in July came freedom, the 
crossing to America and the visit to the Bahamas in August to collect. From his 
* Actual experimental work which upset another man's views, Weldon declined to publish. " Yes, 
I know he is wrong, but I don't want merely to controvert him, I want to get at the truth of these 
things for myself." And when he had satisfied himself he would pass on to a new point of investigation 
and never publish at all. 
