bimetallism, without, however, seeking to justify any one nation in the attempt to maintain parity between gold and silver. A collection of posthumously published Discussions in Education (1899) was made up of essays and addresses prepared after his taking the presidency of the Institute of Technology: their most noteworthy argument is that chemistry, physics and the other sciences promote a more exact and more serviceable mental training than metaphysics or rhetoric. Walker's general tendency was towards a rational conservatism. On the question of rent he called himself a “Ricardian of the Ricardians.” To his Wages Question is due in great part the conception formed by English students of the place and functions of the employer in modern industrial economics. A remarkable feature of his writings is his treatment of economic tendencies not as mere abstractions, but as facts making for the happiness or misery of living men. General Walker died in Boston on the 5th of January 1897.
WALKER, FREDERICK (1840–1875), English subject painter, the son of a designer of jewelry, was born in Marylebone, London, on the 24th of May 1840. When very young he began to draw from the antique in the British Museum, and at the age of sixteen he was placed in the office of an architect named Baker. The occupation proved uncongenial, at the end of eighteen months he resumed his work from the Elgin marbles at the British Museum, and attended Leigh's life school in Newman Street. In March 1858 he was admitted a student of the Royal Academy. But his study in the academy schools was disconnected, and ceased before he reached the life class, as he was anxious to begin earning his own living. As a means to this end, he turned his attention to designing for the wood-engravers, and worked three days a week for about two years in the studio of J. W. Whymper, under whose tuition he quickly mastered the technicalities of drawing on wood. His earliest book illustrations appeared in 1860 in Once a Week, a periodical to which he was a prolific contributor, as also to the Cornhill Magazine, where his admirable designs appeared to the works of Thackeray and those of his daughter. These woodcuts, especially his illustrations to Thackeray's Adventures of Philip and Denis Duval, are among the most spirited and artistic works of their class, and entitle Walker to rank with Millais at the very head of the draughtsmen who have dealt with scenes of contemporary life. Indeed, by his contributions to Once a Week alone he made an immediate reputation as an artist of rare accomplishment, and although he was associated on that periodical with such men as Millais, Holman Hunt, Leech, Sandys, Charles Keene, Tenniel, and Du Maurier, he more than held his own against all competitors. In the intervals of work as a book illustrator he practised painting in water-colours, his subjects being frequently more considered and refined repetitions in colour of his black-and-white designs. Among the more notable of his productions in water-colour are “Spring,” “A Fishmonger's Shop,” “The Ferry,” and “Philip in Church,” which gained a medal in the Paris International Exhibition of 1867. He was elected an associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1864 and a full member in 1866; and in 1871 he became an associate of the Royal Academy. In this same year he was made an honorary member of the Belgian Society of Painters in Water Colours. His first oil picture, “The Lost Path,” was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1863, where it was followed in 1867 by “The Bathers,” one of the artist's finest works, in 1868 by “The Vagrants,” now in the National Gallery of British Art, in 1869 by “The Old Gate," and in 1870 by “The Plough,” a powerful and impressive rendering of ruddy evening light, of which the landscape was studied in Somerset. In 1871 he exhibited his tragic life-sized figure of “A Female Prisoner at the Bar,” a subject which now exists only in a finished oil study, for the painter afterwards effaced the head, with which he was dissatisfied, but was prevented by death from again completing the picture. The last of his fully successful works was “A Harbour of Refuge,” shown in 1872 (also in the National Gallery of British Art), for “The Right of Way,” exhibited in 1875, bears evident signs of the artist's failing strength. He had suffered indeed for some years from a consumptive tendency; in 1868 he made a sea voyage, for his health's sake, to Venice, where he stayed with Orchardson and Birket Foster, and at the end of 1873 he went for a while to Algiers with J. W. North, in the hope that he might derive benefit from a change of climate. But, returning in the bitter English spring, he was again prostrated; and on the 5th of June 1875 he died of consumption at St Fillan's, Perthshire.
The works of Frederick Walker are thoroughly original and individual, both in the quality of their colour and handling and in their view of nature and humanity. His colour, especially in his water-colours, is distinctive, powerful and full of delicate gradations. He had an admirable sense of design, and the figures of his peasants at their daily toil show a grace and sweeping largeness of line in which can be plainly traced the effect produced upon his taste by his early study of the antique; at the same time the sentiment of his subjects is unfailingly refined and poetic. His vigour of design may be seen in his poster for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, now in the National Gallery of British Art.
See Life and Letters of Frederick Walker, A.R.A., by John George Marks (1896), a full biography of a personal rather than a critical kind. Frederick Walker and his Works, by Claude Phillips (1897), should be consuhed as an excellent critical supplement to the larger volume. See also Essays on Art, by J. Comyns Carr, which includes a judicious essay on Walker.
WALKER, GEORGE (c. 1618-1690), hero of the siege of Londonderry, was the son of George Walker, rector of Kilmore and chancellor of Armagh (d. 1677), and of Ursula, daughter of Sir John Stanhope of Melwood, and is said to have been born in 1618 in Tyrone. He was educated at Glasgow University, and appointed to the livings of Lessan and Desertlyn, in the diocese of Armagh, near Londonderry, in 1669. In 1674 he obtained that of Donaghmore, which he held with Lessan. At the outbreak of the Civil War in Ireland towards the close of 1688, Walker, though in Holy Orders and advanced in years, raised a regiment and endeavoured to concert measures with Robert Lundy, the acting governor of Londonderry, for the defence of Dungannon. But Lundy, after having sent some troops to his support, ordered their withdrawal and the abandonment of the place on the 14th of March 1689. On the 17th of March Walker marched with his men to Strabane, and subsequently was ordered by Lundy to move to Rash and then to St Johnstown, 5 m. from Londonderry. On the approach of the enemy (April 13th) Walker rode hastily to Londonderry to inform Lundy, but was unable to convince him of his danger. He returned to his men at Lifford, where, on the 14th, he took part in a brush with the enemy, afterwards following the retreat of the army to Londonderry. The town was in great confusion, and Walker found the gates shut against him and his regiment. He was forced to pass the night outside, and only entered the next day “with much difficulty and some violence upon the Gentry.” Immediately on his arrival he urged Lundy to take the field and refused the demand to disband his own soldiers. On the 17th of April Lundy determined to give up the town to James, and called a council from which Walker and others were especially excluded; but the next day the king and his troops, who had advanced to receive the surrender, were fired upon from the walls contrary to Lundy's orders, and the arrival of Captain Adam Murray with a troop of horse saved the situation. Lundy was deprived of all power, and was allowed to escape in disguise from the town. On the 19th of April Walker and Baker were chosen joint-governors. Walker commanded fifteen companies, amounting to 900 men, and to him was also entrusted the supervision of the commissariat. He showed great energy, courage and resource throughout the siege, and led several successful sallies. Meanwhile his duties as a clergyman were not neglected. The Nonconformists were allowed the use of the cathedral on Sunday afternoons, but in the morning Walker preached. Those few of his sermons which remain, though simple in their language, are eloquent and inspiring. Meanwhile he had to contend with jealousies and suspicions within the town; but he succeeded in dispelling all misgivings and in reaffirming his
