6 Walter Frank Raphael Weldon. 1860—1906. 
" We find little Raphael Weldon one of the best of children. Seeker is mowing 
the grass at this moment, and he harnessed like a pony is drawing the machine. 
The Pater calls him ' Young Meritorious.' " And again : 
" [Agnes] and Raphael are the best of friends, and their ringing laughter comes 
to us in the garden through the open window, as they sit in the dining-room 
painting the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack for each other's amusement,... 
Agnes is a little free-spoken American full of fun and dash. Raphael more silent 
and contemplative. They sit painting pictures together for hours at a time. 
I feel quite proud of them both."* 
In 1870 comes the flying visit to Brussels; in 1872 a still more memorable first 
visit to Paris, where the destruction caused by the Commune to the Tuileries and 
other buildings much impressed the boy. The Weldons had moved meanwhile to 
The Cedars, Putney, and shortly afterwards went to the Abbey Lodge, Merton, near 
Wimbledon. The visits and the changes give one the impression of a rather 
broken education. We have no record of what school Raphael Weldon attended, 
if any, at Highgate. At Putney he had as tutor a neighbouring clergyman. In 
1873 he was sent to a boarding-school at Caversham, and from this time onwards 
the educational career is more definite. 
Even before 1870, however, we find in the boy the father of the man. His 
great pleasure was to organise lectures for his children friends, and the adult 
population, if it could be procured. The seats were formally arranged, tickets 
provided, and the boy would discourse on slug or beetle procured in the garden, 
observation and the scanty literature available providing the material. According 
to a surviving auditor the lectures were carefully prepared and good so far as they 
extended. 
Of the school at Caversham we have some detailed information. Mr W.Watson, 
its headmaster, had been a private 'coach' in London to University College students. 
In 1865 he opened a school at Reading, which was transferred to the hill out of 
Caversham in 1873f. Mr Watson's daughter Ellen Watson had a brief but 
brilliant career as a mathematician and pupil of W. K. Clifford's. Her life has 
been written by Miss Buckland. It is possible that she first stirred Weldon's 
mathematical tastes, as he spoke with admiration of her powers ; she does not, 
however, appear to have taught in the school. The pupils were chiefly sons 
of Nonconformists of some eminence. Among the earlier scholars were Viriamu 
Jones, Alfred Martin, and E. B. Poulton, and among the later pupils Owen 
Seaman, F. W. Andrewes, P. Jacomb-Hood, and W. F. R. Weldon ; names 
afterwards distinguished in literature, science, or art. The headmaster appears 
to have been a clever man of wide knowledge and sympathy, but there was little 
to specially encourage biological tastes in the school. It is reported of one under- 
* Loc. cit. p. IG'2 et seq. 
t As an illustration of Weldon's reticence I may state that we had passed this house several times 
together, before he mentioned it as his old school. 
