Article

Richard Chapman Weldon

Published Online December 18, 2007

Last Edited December 14, 2013

Richard Chapman Weldon, educator, politician (b at Sussex, NB 19 Jan 1849; d at Dartmouth, NS 26 Nov 1925). His education was unusually broad for his day: BA (1866) and MA (1870) from Mount Allison; he received his doctorate in international law from Yale at age 23.

Weldon, Richard Chapman

Richard Chapman Weldon, educator, politician (b at Sussex, NB 19 Jan 1849; d at Dartmouth, NS 26 Nov 1925). His education was unusually broad for his day: BA (1866) and MA (1870) from Mount Allison; he received his doctorate in international law from Yale at age 23. Returning to Mount Allison, he was appointed professor of political economy and mathematics, but after a year took leave to study public law at Heidelberg. Thus equipped he became a pioneer in legal education, being co-founder of Dalhousie Law School in 1883 and its first dean 1884-1914. Dalhousie was the first university law school in the common-law provinces; under Weldon's guidance it offered a systematic and liberal course of instruction, in contrast to the haphazard program of legal apprenticeship then prevalent. A prominent Conservative, he was MP, 1887-96, and a friend of Sir John THOMPSON.