Walter Frank Raphael Weldon - Life and Education

Life and Education

Weldon was the second child of the journalist and industrial chemist, Walter Weldon (FRS 1882), and his wife Anne Cotton. Weldon père moved around the country so frequently that Raphael could not attend school until he was thirteen years old. Walter and Anne had three children; their first child was a girl, with Raphael born next followed by his younger brother Dante.

Raphael did receive some tutoring from a local clergyman before he was thirteen years old then, in 1873, he entered Mr Watson's boarding school at Caversham near Reading. After three years there, plus several months of private study, he entered University College London. Weldon spent the academic year 1876/1877 at UCL, being taught by the zoologist E. Ray Lankester and the German mathematician Olaus Henrici. There he studied a wide range of subjects which he took in preparation for studying medicine. Henrici impressed Weldon more than any other lecturer; he later wrote that Henrici was the first naturally gifted teacher he had studied under.

Later in 1877 he transferred to King's College London and then to St John's College, Cambridge in 1878. There Weldon studied with the developmental morphologist Francis Balfour who influenced him greatly: Weldon gave up his plans for a career in medicine. In 1881 he gained a first-class honours degree in the Natural Science Tripos despite the loss of his brother Dante, who died suddenly. In the autumn he left for the Naples Zoological Station to begin the first of his studies on marine biological organisms.

Weldon married Florence Tebb, daughter of William Tebb of Rede Hall, Burstow in Surrey, on 13 March 1883. She played a large role in his scientific work, assisting him on many of his projects. He died in 1906 of acute pneumonia, and is buried at Holywell Church, Oxford.