William Weldon (officer of arms)

Sir William Henry Weldon, KCVO, FSA (1837–25 August 1919) was a long-serving officer of arms at the College of Arms in London. Weldon is most unusual among the heralds of the College of Arms for having once been the owner of a circus. He was involved in a long-standing and very public civil suit with his wife.

Weldon's career at the College of Arms began in 1870 with his appointment as Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary. This was followed in 1880 with an appointment as Windsor Herald of Arms in Ordinary. He was appointed Norroy King of Arms in 1894 and served in that post until 1911, when he was made Clarenceux King of Arms. Weldon served in the final post until 1919.

He was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) by King Edward VII in 1902, and was later promoted to a Knight Commander (KCVO) of the Order.

His estranged wife was Georgina Weldon, campaigner against the lunacy laws, a celebrated litigant and noted amateur soprano of the Victorian era. They married in 1860 at Aldershot in Hampshire, against her father's wishes. They later lived in in Bloomsbury, London, and for a period the French composer Charles Gounod lodged with them. There were rumours that Gounod and Mrs Weldon were lovers. When Gounod returned to his wife in Paris the Weldons refused to return his belongings, including a draft score for a new opera. In 1863 William Weldon took a mistress, the nineteen-year-old Annie Stanley Dobson (born 1843), who secretly became his partner for life. She claimed to be a widow and went by the names Mrs Weldon and Mrs Lowe, and gave him a son, Francis Stanley Lowe (1868-1955), who was educated at Harrow. On the death of his grandmother Weldon inherited £10,000 a year and in 1870 he leased in Bloomsbury, which had a small theatre that had been added by Charles Dickens, a former resident.

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