Weldon’s Unpublished Manuscript: An Attempt at Reconciliation Between Mendelism and Biometry?

Abstract

From 1902 to 1906, there was a bitter controversy in Great Britain between the Mendelians, headed by William Bateson (1861–1926), and the biometricians (ancestralists), headed by Walter Frank Raphael Weldon (1860–1906) and Karl Pearson (1857–1936). Discussions concerning evolutionary and hereditary processes were carried out in their publications, scientific meetings, and correspondence. During this period there were attempts at reconciliation between the two parties, but it did not come about. However, Eilleen Magnello (Ann Sci 55(1): 35–94, 1998) mentions that before Weldon’s premature death in 1906, he and Pearson worked jointly to find a synthesis of Mendelism and biometry, and this is apparent in Weldon’s manuscripts. This paper aims to analyze those manuscripts and other unpublished materials from Weldon to ascertain if this historiographical interpretation is true. The paper shows that Weldon’s unpublished material represented an attempt at reconciliation between Mendel and Biometry. This reinforces our argument that one of the main factors that have motivated the controversy was the struggle for authority in the field of heredity and evolution.