10 
Walter Frank Raphael Weldon. 1860—1906. 
took Henry Fawcett's furnished house and settled down in Cambridge for the 
May term. Raphael Weldon still had his scholarship, and he was demonstrating for 
Sedgwick. He was now compelled to undertake " coaching," — work which he gave 
up as soon as his means would allow of it, for his whole heart was then as 
afterwards in research. Still this coaching work brought him in touch with many 
men who afterwards distinguished themselves in biological or other fields. 
After the death, on the 14th January, 1883, of Forbes, a fellow Johnian, Weldon 
for four months — June 15 to October 1-5 — acted as locum tenens for the Prosector 
at the Zoological Gardens, London, and during that time he read the following 
papers before the Zoological Society : " On some points in the Anatomy of 
Phoenicopterus and its Allies" (4); a " Note on the Placentation of Tetraceros 
qiiadricornis" (5), and "Notes on Callithrix gigot" (6). Weldon did not succeed 
Forbes — it was rum.oured that some of the electors doubted the fitness of his 
physique for the work and considered that the post was not without danger. But 
the temporary work into which he threw his usual energy gave him increased 
insight into vertebrate anatomy and had the further advantage of making him 
personally known to the active workers in zoology of the metropolis. 
In the following year (1884) the paper above referred to on the development 
of the suprarenal bodies was published in the R. S. Proceedings. Weldon was 
now demonstrating in comparative anatomy at Cambridge, and the holidays 
were devoted to collection. At Easter Banyuls was visited, and the summer 
vacation found Weldon in Naples again for three months preparing his fellowship 
dissertation. In Naples the cholera had broken out, and the Weldons experienced 
not only difficulty in getting the precious dissertation back to England, but in 
returning themselves. This was done by an Orient liner, the last allowed to call. 
Thus began the long series of holidays in Italy with the sea passage to or fro. 
The summer heat of Naples seemed to suit Weldon, and he could work and think 
under circumstances which only allow mere existence to an ordinary Englishman. 
On returning to Cambridge, Weldon was elected to a fellowship at St John's 
College on November 3rd, and was shortly afterwards appointed University 
Lecturer in Invertebrate Morphology. About this time the Weldons took a 
permanent home at No. 14, Brookside, which soon became a centre for Cambridge 
workers in biology*. The Weldons' home, whether in Cambridge, London, or 
Oxford, was always a centre, where not only the right people met, but whence 
actual profit came by the right people interchanging ideas and planning work. 
On his return to Cambridge in November 1884 Weldon had taken up again 
his invertebrate work. His next memoir "On Dinophilus gigas" (7) dealt with 
the anatomy and affinities of Dinophilus, at that time a very little known Annelid. 
A. E. Shipley had been fortunate enough to collect a number of these minute 
worms at Mounts Bay, Penzance, and had handed them over to Weldon for 
* "The house in Brookside in which he lived after his marriage until he left Cambridge was a 
delightful and hospitable centre, where all sorts of subjects were discussed, attacked and defended until 
all sorts of hours in the morning." A. E. S. 
