Florence Weldon
{{Short description|English mathematician (1858 – 1936)}}
Florence Joy Weldon (née Tebb, 1858 – 1936) was an English mathematician who worked as "one of the first college-educated human computers,"{{Cite book |last=Grier |first=David Alan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YTcDAQAAQBAJ&dq=florence+weldon&pg=PA107 |title=When Computers Were Human |date=2013-11-01 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-4936-9 |language=en}} analysing data about biological variation.
Early life
Florence was the daughter of businessman and activist William Tebb. Her younger sister was physiologist Mary Tebb. In the early 1880s she studied mathematics at Girton College, Cambridge.{{Cite book |last=Radick |first=Gregory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QLDBEAAAQBAJ&dq=florence+tebb&pg=PA624 |title=Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology |date=2023-08-18 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-82271-6 |pages=72 |language=en}} She married evolutionary biologist Raphael Weldon in March 1883.{{Cite book |last=Radick |first=Gregory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QLDBEAAAQBAJ&dq=florence+tebb&pg=PA624 |title=Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology |date=2023-08-18 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-82271-6 |language=en}}{{Cite news |date=1883 |title=Marriage of Miss Tebb |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vqIOAAAAQAAJ&dq=florence+joy+weldon&pg=PA236 |work=The Medium and Daybreak |pages=236}}
Computation
Florence joined with Weldon’s work on biological variation in shrimps and crabs. The pair travelled around England, Italy and the Bahamas, collecting about a thousand specimens at a time. Florence worked as Weldon’s chief computer in analysing the data collected by measuring the specimens.{{Cite journal |last=Davis |first=Lea K. |date=2022-10-27 |title=Weldon, Bateson, and the origins of genetics: Reflections on the unraveling and rebuilding of a scientific community |journal=PLOS Genetics |volume=18 |issue=10 |pages=e1010379 |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1010379 |doi-access=free |issn=1553-7390 |pmc=9612466 |pmid=36301806}} With no calculating machines available, she used logarithms and Crelle tables. One study involved taking twenty-three measurements each from a thousand shore crab specimens from the Bay of Naples, which demonstrated that twenty-two of the features measured were normally distributed and the other was bimodal.{{Cite web |title=Oxford's female computing pioneers {{!}} Mathematical Institute |url=https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/groups/history-mathematics/oxford%E2%80%99s-female-computing-pioneers |access-date=2024-09-01 |website=www.maths.ox.ac.uk}} Another study included taking measurements in duplicate from over eight thousand crabs.{{Cite book |last= |first= |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YruifIx88AQC&dq=florence+joy+weldon&pg=PA288 |title=Mathematics in Victorian Britain |date=2011-09-29 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-162794-1 |editor-last=Flood |editor-first=Raymond |language=en}}
Florence’s contribution was acknowledged by her long-time friend and correspondent Karl Pearson, who completed her husband's manuscripts after his death.
Art collection and legacy
In 1928, Florence received an honorary degree of Master of Arts from the University of Oxford after making a significant bequest of French paintings there.{{Cite journal |date=1928-02-01 |title=University and Educational Intelligence |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/121262a0 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=121 |issue=3042 |pages=262 |doi=10.1038/121262a0 |bibcode=1928Natur.121..262. |issn=1476-4687}} The Ashmolean Museum also contains a room named in her honour.
Florence died in 1936, leaving the residue of her estate to establish a Chair of Biometry at the University of London.{{Cite book |last=Pearson |first=Egon Sharpe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lxw9AAAAIAAJ&dq=florence+joy+weldon&pg=PA121 |title=Karl Pearson |publisher=CUP Archive |pages=121 |language=en}}
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