Obituaries Australia

William Walker, n.d.

from Australasian Pastoralists' Review, 14 April 1900

With sorrow we record the death of Mr. William Henry Walker, of Tenterfield Station, Tenterfield, N.S.W., which occurred, as the result of an accident, at the home station, Tenterfield, on the 27th March last.

On the preceding Saturday Mr. Walker hurriedly mounted a horse, and was thrown. At first the injuries were not thought to be serious, but the shock and internal injuries soon convinced his medical attendant that the case was hopeless. For some time previous to the accident Mr. Walker had been in indifferent health, and in the beginning of 1897 he made an extended visit to England for recuperative purposes.

The deceased gentleman was in his fifty-third year, and was born at his father's station, Castlesteads, Burrowa, N.S.W., on the 24th May, 1846. At the age of three years he was taken to Scotland by his father, who settled in his native county of Midlothian. Young Walker received his education at the Edinburgh Academy, and at the age of seventeen returned to Australia, and, following the bent of his inclinations, sought a pastoral life with Messrs. Archer, of Gracemere, Rockhampton, Q., with whom he obtained his experience. He next acquired an interest in Leura Station, and subsequently entered into partnership with Mr. Harden, and took charge of Glenlyon Station. In 1878 he assumed the management of Tenterfield Station, the property of his cousin—the late Thomas Walker, of Yaralla, Concord—and upon the death of that gentleman he was appointed one of the trustees, and took over the general management of the Walker Estate station properties, which are numerous—positions which he filled at the time of his death, Mr. Walker was also a trustee of the Walker Convalescent Hospital, near Sydney, ex-vice-president of the Pastoralists' Union of New South Wales, and a member of the general council of that body, member of the councils of several colonial sheepbreeders' and kindred associations, and a director of the Brisbane Newspaper Company Limited, &c.

In 1872 Mr. Walker married Georgina, daughter of the late Mr. Palmer, of Highfields, Toowoomba, Q., who, with a family of eight sons and six daughters, survives him. The eldest daughter is married to Mr. Cameron, of Welltown Station, Q.

Mr. Walker was the seventh son of the late John William Walker, and it may be noted that he is the third of the family to meet his death by accident, one being killed by a horse accident, and another losing his life by drowning. The only surviving brother is Mr. J. T. Walker, of Sydney, who is president of the Bank of New South Wales, a director of the Australasian Mutual Provident Society and other leading institutions.

The deceased gentleman was a man of great energy, industry, and enterprise. In everything he undertook he was a great worker. Especially enthusiastic was he in all that tended to the development of industrial enterprise, and at Tenterfield Station many acres of experimental farming testify to his indomitable perseverance. The cultivation of native and artificial grasses and the introduction of beet culture especially claimed his attention, whilst as a breeder, importer, and exhibitor of stock, Mr. Walker was well known on all the show grounds of the continent. Locally, that is to say, in the neighbourhood of his own home at Tenterfield, Mr. Walker was at the head of every movement for the advancement of the town and district, and for the improvement of the community. He was the "squire" of Tenterfield, and was beloved by all for his kindliness of heart, his unostentatious charity, and for his consideration of those associated with him in the development of the particular interests over which he presided, and among the employees on the estates were many whose progenitors were also at one time in the employment of the family. In the death of Mr. W. H. Walker pastoral Australia has lost one of its best representatives.