knew (Memoirs of Wakefield, 1804, i. 227). Nottingham was a focus of political opinion, which Walker led both by special sermons and by drafting petitions and addresses sent forward by the town in favour of the independence of the United States and the advocacy of parliamentary and other reforms. His ability and his constitutional spirit won the high commendation of Edmund Burke [q. v.] His reform speech at the county meeting at Mansfield, 28 Oct. 1782, was his greatest effort. William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, third duke of Portland [q. v.], compared him with Cicero, to the disadvantage of the latter. From 1787 he was chairman of the associated dissenters of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and part of Yorkshire, whose object was to achieve the repeal of the Test Acts. His ‘Dissenters' Plea,’ Birmingham [1790], 8vo, was reckoned by Charles James Fox [q. v.] the best publication on the subject. He was an early advocate of the abolition of the slave trade. The variety of his interests is shown by his publication (1794, 4to) of his treatise on conic sections, while he was agitating against measures for the suppression of public opinion, which culminated in the ‘gagging act’ of 1795.
Towards the close of 1797, after a fruitless application to Thomas Belsham [q. v.], Walker was invited to succeed Thomas Barnes [q. v.] as professor of theology in Manchester College. He felt it a duty to comply, and resigned his Nottingham charge on 5 May 1798. There was one other tutor, but the funds were low, and Walker's appeal (19 April 1799) for increased subscriptions met with scant response. From 1800 the entire burden of teaching, including classics and mathematics, fell on him, nor was his remuneration proportionally increased. In addition he took charge (1801–3) of the congregation at Dob Lane Chapel, Failsworth. He resigned in 1803, and the college was removed to York [see Wellbeloved, Charles].
Walker remained for two years in the neighbourhood of Manchester, and continued to take an active part in its Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he was elected president on the death of Thomas Percival (1740–1804) [q. v.] In 1805 he removed to Wavertree, near Liverpool, still keeping up a connection with Manchester. In the spring of 1807 he went to London on a publishing errand. His powers suddenly failed. He died at Draper Hall, London, on 21 April 1807, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. His portrait is in the possession of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and has been twice engraved. He married in 1772, and left a widow. His only son, George Walker, his father's biographer and author of ‘Letters to a Friend’ (1843) on his reasons for nonconformity, became a resident in France. His only daughter, Sarah (d. 8 Dec. 1854), married, on 9 July 1795, Sir George Cayley, bart., of Brompton, near Scarborough. William Manning Walker (1784–1833), minister at Preston and Manchester, was his nephew.
Walker's theology, a ‘tempered Arianism,’ plays no part in his own compositions, but shows itself in omissions and alterations in his ‘Collection of Psalms and Hymns,’ Warrington, 1788, 8vo. He wrote a few hymns. Many of his speeches and political addresses will be found in his ‘Life’ and collected ‘Essays.’ Besides the mathematical works already mentioned, he published:
- ‘Sermons,’ 1790, 2 vols. 8vo.
Posthumous were:
- ‘Sermons,’ 1808, 4 vols. 8vo (including reprint of No. 1).
- ‘Essays … prefixed … Life of the Author,’ 1809, 2 vols. 8vo.
[Obituary by Aikin, in Athenæum, June 1807 p. 638; Life, by his Son, prefixed to Essays, also separately, 1809; Monthly Repository, 1807 p. 217, 1810 pp. 264, 352, 475, 500, 504, 1811 p. 18, 1813 p. 577; Wicksteed's Memory of the Just, 1849, p. 127; Bright's Historical Sketch of Warrington Academy, 1859, p. 16; Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1861, ii. 183; Carpenter's Presbyterianism in Nottingham [1862], p. 161; Halley's Lancashire, 1869, ii. 395, 409, 468; Roll of Students, Manchester Coll. 1868; Browne's Hist. of Congregationalism in Norfolk and Suffolk, 1877, p. 251; Nightingale's Lancashire Nonconformity, 1891 i. 17, 1893 v. 47; Julian's Dict. of Hymnology, 1892, pp. 12, 30.]
WALKER, GEORGE (1772–1847), novelist, was born in Falcon Square, Cripplegate, London, 24 Dec. 1772. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a bookseller named Cuthell in Middle Row, Holborn, and two years afterwards started in the same business for himself with a capital of a few shillings. He remained in this business the whole of his life, and became prosperous. He first transferred his shop to Portland Street, where he added a musical publishing department, and finally, as a music publisher solely, he removed to Golden Square, and took his son George Walker (1803–1879) [q. v.] into partnership with him. He died on 8 Feb. 1847.
He wrote numerous novels after the then popular style of Mrs. Radcliffe:
- ‘Romance of the Cavern,’ London, 1792, 2 vols.
- ‘Haunted Castle,’ London, 1794, 2 vols.
- ‘House of Tynian,’ London, 1795, 4 vols.
- ‘Theodore Cyphon,’ London, 1796, 3 vols.
