AustLit

William Walker arrived in Sydney as a nine-year-old after his father was recruited by the Reverend J. D. Lang to open a Presbyterian school at Windsor, N.S.W. He was educated at the school and by the Reverend Matthew Adam before being articled to the solicitor Francis Beddek in 1841. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1852. In the following decade, Walker entered politics, holding the seat of Windsor in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1860 through to 1869. Much later, in 1888, he was appointed to the New South Wales Legislative Council, where he remained until his death in 1908. In addition to his other interests, Walker was also an elder of the Presbyterian Church for the Hawkesbury region. Walker's writing included articles on the Windsor floods, a collection of lectures, speeches and articles, a volume of poetry, Poems, written in youth (1884) and a number of reminiscences.