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 assistant secretary and librarian to the Royal Society, a post which he held for sixteen years. The senior secretary at the time was Dr. [q. v.] With Roget's warm encouragement Weld commenced at once upon the work by which he is remembered, and which appeared in two volumes in 1848 as ‘A History of the Royal Society with Memoirs of the Presidents, compiled from Authentic Documents’ (London, 8vo). The book was illustrated by drawings made by Mrs. Weld, and proved a well-written and much-needed supplement to the histories of Birch and Thomson. An interesting appendix to the volumes is the ‘Descriptive Catalogue of the Portraits in the possession of the Royal Society,’ which Weld compiled by order of the council in 1860.

In 1850 Weld commenced his agreeably written series of ‘Vacation Tours,’ with ‘Auvergne, Piedmont, and Savoy; a Summer Ramble,’ followed in 1854 by ‘A Vacation Tour in the United States and Canada,’ dedicated to Isaac Weld, whose own ‘Travels in North America’ had excited much attention in 1799. Next came ‘A Vacation in Brittany’ (1856), ‘A Vacation in Ireland’ (1857), ‘The Pyrenees, West and East’ (1859), ‘Two Months in the Highlands, Orcadia and Skye’ (1860), ‘Last Winter in Rome’ (1865), ‘Florence the New Capital of Italy’ (1867), and ‘Notes on Burgundy,’ edited by Mrs. Weld after her husband's death in 1869. Many of these were illustrated by the author's own sketches.

Weld was the chief helper of Sir John Franklin in the home work connected with his Arctic explorations, and was an authority on every matter connected with the polar circle. He issued in 1850 a well-timed lecture on ‘Arctic Expeditions,’ originally delivered at the London Institution on 6 Feb. 1850, and this was followed by pamphlets upon the search for Franklin during 1851.

In 1861 he resigned his post at the Royal Society, and he shortly afterwards became a partner in the publishing business with Lovell Reeve. In 1862 he was entrusted with the preparation and management of the philosophical department of the International Exhibition, and he was also appointed a ‘district superintendent’ of the exhibition. He represented Great Britain at the Paris Exhibition of 1867, as one of the assistant commissioners, and his able report on the ‘Philosophical Instruments and Apparatus for Teaching Science’ was printed, and afterwards abridged for the ‘Illustrated London News’ (5 Oct. 1867). In the autumn of 1868 he went on a tour in Burgundy, and during the winter season he delivered several papers at the ‘Bath Literary and Philosophical Association,’ in the welfare of which he took a warm interest. He died suddenly at his residence (since 1865), Bellevue, New Bridge Hill, near Bath, on 15 Jan. 1869. He was survived by a widow and a daughter, Miss Agnes Grace Weld. A portrait of Charles Richard Weld is prefixed to the posthumous ‘Notes on Burgundy’ which he was preparing for the press at the time of his death.



WELD, FREDERICK ALOYSIUS (1823–1891), colonial governor, born on 9 May 1823, came of a well-known Roman catholic family, being the third son of Humphrey Weld of Chideock Manor, Dorset, and Christina Maria, second daughter of Charles Clifford, sixth baron Clifford of Chudleigh. He was educated at Stonyhurst College and at Freiburg in Switzerland, and in 1844 emigrated to New Zealand in order to devote himself to grazing sheep and cattle. He soon attracted public notice, and was in 1848 offered a seat in the nominee council, which he declined, soon afterwards taking a leading part in the agitation for representative institutions. In 1850 and part of 1851 he was in England, but later in the latter year carried out explorations of some interest in the uninhabited districts of the middle island, and again in 1855 around Nelson. In that year he also paid a visit to the Sandwich Islands, and ascended Mauna Loa.

Weld became in September 1853 a member of the House of Representatives of New Zealand. In 1854 he was for a time one of the special members of the executive council. In November 1860 he joined the first Stafford ministry as minister for native affairs, but was thrown out of office in July 1861 by the resignation of the ministry. In November 1864 he was summoned by the governor, Sir George Grey, to form a ministry. The period was a critical one; there had been much dissension between the retiring ministry and the governor; the policy of the ministers as regards the Maoris was distrusted, and their interference in respect of military operations was resented. Weld laid down the conditions on which he could accept office in a memorandum which enunciated the sound principles of ministerial responsibility. The governor accepted them at once. On 24 Nov. 1864 he became premier and