Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/170

 lished; also a collection of songs with violin and flute accompaniments, and many single songs. Specially popular among these was ‘From Grave Lessons,’ which is printed by Hawkins. In sacred music Weldon was still more successful; two of his anthems, ‘In Thee, O Lord,’ and ‘Hear my crying,’ were printed in Boyce's ‘Cathedral Music,’ and are still frequently performed. Others were printed in the collections of Arnold and Page. ‘Blessed art Thou’ was published in the ‘Parish Choir,’ vol. iii., and with Welsh words in J. Roberts's ‘Cerddor y Tonic Sol-fa.’ Weldon published only six solo anthems, which he had composed for the celebrated counter-tenor Richard Elford [q. v.], and entitled ‘Divine Harmony;’ but these have not maintained their place upon the repertory. Five pieces, arranged for the organ, were included in Vincent Novello's ‘Cathedral Voluntaries,’ 1831; and two others in A. H. Brown's ‘Organ Arrangements,’ 1879. The cheap editions of Novello and Curwen contain anthems by Weldon, both in staff notation and tonic sol-fa. Burney speaks very inappreciatively of Weldon's anthems, but time has shown he was wrong; and probably not a week passes without a performance of one or more.

[Hawkins's History of Music, chaps. cxlvi. clxiv.; Burney's History of Music, iii. 612 ff.; The Choir and Musical Record, May 1865, p. 430; Grove's Dict. of Music and Musicians, i. 71, iv. 435; Emil Vogel's Katalog der … Bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel; Barrett's English Church Composers, pp. 112–16, contains a good account of Weldon's anthems, but a very exaggerated statement of his importance as an inventor of new harmonies; Cheque-book of the Chapel Royal (Camden Soc.), 1872; Davey's History of English Music, pp. 329, 345, 373; Weldon's compositions in the British Museum and Christ Church, Oxford.]  WELDON, RALPH (1674–1713), Benedictine monk, of the ancient family of Weldon of Swanscombe, Kent, was the seventeenth child of Colonel George Weldon (youngest son of Sir Anthony Weldon [q. v.]) and of his wife, Lucy Necton. He was born in London on 12 April (N.S.) 1674, and was christened at the Savoy. Being converted to the catholic religion by Father Joseph Johnstone, he made his abjuration at St. James's Chapel on 12 Oct. 1687. He made his profession as a Benedictine monk in the convent of St. Edmund at Paris on 13 Jan. 1691–2. Although a very learned man, he could never be induced to take priest's orders. He died at St. Edmund's on 23 Nov. 1713.

He was the author of ‘A Chronicle of the English Benedictine Monks from the renewing of their Congregation in the days of Queen Mary to the death of King James II’ [London, 1882], 4to. The original manuscript, consisting of two folio volumes of ‘Chronological Notes,’ is preserved at Ampleforth, and there is an abridgment of it at St. Gregory's, Downside.

[Rambler, 1850, vii. 433; Oliver's Cornwall, p. 529; Snow's Chronology, p. 87; Taunton's English Benedictines, 1898.]  WELDON, WALTER (1832–1885), chemist, eldest son of Reuben Weldon, manufacturer, and his wife, whose maiden name was Esther Fowke, was born at Loughborough on 31 Oct. 1832. He was employed for some years in his father's business, but, finding he had a taste for literature, he went to London as a journalist shortly after his marriage in March 1854. He contributed to the ‘Dial,’ afterwards incorporated with the ‘Morning Star.’ On 1 Aug. 1860 he issued the first number of a sixpenny monthly magazine, called ‘Weldon's Register of Facts and Occurrences relating to Literature, the Sciences, and the Arts,’ but, although ably conducted, it proved a failure, and was abandoned in 1864. Among the contributors were George Augustus Sala, Edmund Yates, Mr. William Michael Rossetti, James Hain Friswell, and Percy Greg. About this time, probably through the influence of a friend and fellow-Swedenborgian, Charles Townsend Hook, a paper manufacturer of Snodland, near Rochester, his attention was drawn to technological chemistry. He read widely and took out his first patents for the ‘manganese-regeneration process,’ which eventually made his name famous, before he had ever seen a chemical experiment. On 18 Sept. 1865 Weldon and his friend Greg met Mr. John Spiller to explain to him two processes devised by Weldon for the cheaper manufacture of magnesium and aluminium, which proved, however, impracticable. In the latter part of 1866 he met Colonel Gamble, and explained that he ‘thought he had obtained a peroxide of manganese’ from the protoxide by suspending it in water and blowing air through, a process which, with certain important modifications, proved ultimately successful. He was at this time, says Colonel Gamble, totally unacquainted with the methods of quantitative chemical analysis, and the results to be obtained thereby. The object of Weldon (and of various unsuccessful predecessors) was to regenerate the manganese peroxide used in enormous quantities in the manufacture of chlorine, and converted into a valueless by-product which was thrown away. From this time onwards