Although the cataloguing of Waddington’s papers is complete, there is still some refoldering and reboxing to be done, to ensure that the material is stored in an archival-quality environment. During this process, one can often come across things one missed the first time around – such as this amusing ‘canon’, with words by Waddington and music by Ralph Alan Dale (an American doctor and Oriental acupuncture expert). (A canon, also sometimes called a ‘round’, is a contrapuntal composition technique which has a melody that is repeated after a certain duration.)

It appears that this highly alliterative piece was composed for a dinner party while Waddington was Einstein Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo in the early 1970s. I think you would be hard pressed to find a more ‘wordy’ set of lyrics:

It appears impossible to prevent the philoprogenitive propensities of persons peopling the planet with two times its present population of two timers.

The pressure to provide provender and prevent pestilence will be portentous.

People Science perceptive enough to empathize the problems and proposals will profit from a propitious posture to promote their personality potentials.

The querulous who merely question the qualifications of the scientific enquiry after quantity and quality will find that their eternal quest is querying whether their quasi quietude qualifies them for equality quashiokor quod’or the quietus unless these quandum Quixotes quite quit their queasy quibbling and take as quarry their quota of quotidian quiddities.

They will earn their quittance when they can qualify as equating ZBG with a quorum of the quick rather than an unquiet queue of the untimely quenched.

The instructions for performing this piece are almost as complex as the lyrics themselves:

The canon has two parts: the ‘p’ part and the ‘q’ part. The entire piece should first be performed in unison. Then part 1 begins alone. On reaching part II (the ‘q’ part), the second part enters at the beginning (the ‘p’ part). Both parts finish together on ending on the word ‘potentials’, the other ending on the word ‘quenched’. Repeat as many times as desired before ending.

For the more musical among you, it would be interesting to see how this piece sounds when performed – and not least how many times the performers were physically able to ‘repeat…before ending’!

With the cataloguing of C.H. Waddington’s papers now completed, my next task is to move on to the cataloguing of the papers of the Institute of Animal Genetics, which was housed in the handsome building pictured above.

The building’s architect was John Matthew of the firm Lorimer & Matthew, and construction took place 1929-1930. With its symmetrical design, Dutch gable, balcony and arched windows, the building is somewhat reminiscent of a country house.

In many ways, the ‘Institute’ was as much a concept as it was a building. As an organisation, its predecessor was the Department of Research in Animal Breeding, under the Directorship of Professor Crew. Originally housed in central Edinburgh, in 1924 the Department moved to the King’s Buildings site to the south of Edinburgh, before transferring to the newly opened Genetics Building nearby in 1930. At this point the Department itself became known as the Institute of Animal Genetics. As time went by however, this name became more attached to the building, which was to house numerous bodies and factions over the years, such as the Animal Breeding and Research Organisation (ABRO) and Waddington’s ARC Unit of Animal Genetics. The building, which still stands, has been renamed the Crew Building, and is now home to the School of Geosciences.

This picture was taken from a photograph album presented to Waddington in 1955 by his colleagues on the occasion of his 50th birthday celebrations at the Institute. The original photo album will be catalogued shortly, along with the rest of the Institute’s records.