[2] Born in 1911 in Sunderland in County Durham, the youngest of four brothers, Welch was educated at the Bede School.
Welch made his own distinctive theoretical contribution there and committed himself to furthering the explosive impact that statistics was beginning to make in industrial and agricultural fields.
Welch was a founder of the Industrial and Agricultural Research Section of the Royal Statistical Society.
From 1939 to 1946 Welch served as a Scientific Officer on the Ordnance Board of the Ministry of Supply.
He then returned to academic life by way of an appointment to a Readership in Statistics in the then Department of Mathematics in the University of Leeds.