8 Walter Franh Raphael Weldon. 1860—1906. 
The presence of a life-long friend, who had already gone to Cambridge, was at 
least one of the causes which led to Weldon's entering himself as a bye-term student 
at Cambridge, and probably his choice of St John's College was due to Garrod's 
influence. He was admitted on April 6, 1878, as a pupil of S. Parkinson's. In the 
record his father is given as a "Journalist," although the chlorine process had now 
become a success, and his reference is to the Professor of Mathematics at King's 
College, then W. H. Drew*. 
At Cambridge Weldon soon found his work more specialised and he rapidly 
came under new and marked influences. His first May term and Christmas term 
were devoted to his preparation for Little-Go and the London Preliminary Scientific. 
For the classical part of the former he seems to have worked by himself. After 
these examinations were over reading for the Tripos was begun and, under the 
influence of Balfour, Weldon's thoughts turned more and more to zoology, and the 
medical profession became less and less attractive. During the years 1879 and 
1880 Weldon worked steadily for his Tripos; in the first year he was given an 
exhibition at St John's, and almost the only break in his work was the York Meeting 
of the British Association. In the second year a little original investigation on 
beetles was started ; in May he took, for a month, Adam Sedgwick's place and 
demonstrated for Balfour. Overwork led to a serious breakdown, and resulted in 
insomnia and other ills, which occasionally troubled him again in later life. At the 
annual British Association holiday, this year in Swansea, Weldon saw for the first 
time Francis Galton, but an actual friendship was not begun till some years later. 
The Tripos work was continued in spite of ill-health, till the Easter of 1881, 
Avhen Weldon was unable to enter for the college scholarship examinations. By the 
influence of Francis Balfour, however, Weldon's real ability was recognised and a 
scholarship was awarded to him. A three months' holiday had become necessary, 
and Weldon went to the south of France, returning only shortly before his Tripos 
examination. At the very start of this, in itself all-sufficient, mental strain, 
Dante Weldon, who had joined Peterhouse, died suddenly of apoplexy. It 
says much for Weldon's self-control that the terrible shock of his brother's 
death, though it greatly affected him, did not interfere with his place in 
the first class of the Natural Sciences Tripos. The distress he had felt at his 
brother's death was redoubled a few weeks later when his mother passed away. 
She had never recovered from the blow resulting from the tragic death of her 
younger son. Of these things Weldon did not speak, but they undoubtedly 
influenced immensely his deeply emotional nature. Balfour's untimely death in 
the following year, and the early death of Weldon's father a few years later, left 
also their indelible impresses, a certain tinge of melancholy, a doubt whether he 
too would live to finish his work, and a tendency to take the joy and fulness of life 
while it was there. Few who saw the almost boyish delight in work and in play, 
the energy which spent itself for hours at a problem, or cycled eighty or a hundred 
* There are errors in the entries in the Eegister, Weldon's mother's maiden name is erroneously 
given as Chester, not Cotton. Weldon was actually born at Suffolk Villa, Highgate. 
