Author: Walker, Edward
Biography:
WALKER, Edward (fl 1805)
Then, as now, the most remarkable feature of Edward Walker of Homerton’s Raphel, or The Pupil of Nature is the lengthy list of subscribers; thus, the critic in the Monthly Mirror: “were it not for his numerous subscribers, we doubt not that his verses would have left his purse as vacant as the head that composed them.” A CR reviewer was as harsh: “the author rhymes ‘am,’ and ‘Man,’ and talks of ‘meandrous streams.’ &c. &c. Grub-street is run mad.” One third of the author’s 350 subscribers were associated with the London financial community: bankers, army agents, and diamond, bullion, stock, and insurance brokers. Half of that number were members the City of London Spanish-Portuguese Jewish community; some attended Bevis Marks, others London’s Great Synagogue. Walker pays special regard to one of his wealthiest subscribers, the financier Abraham Goldsmid (died by suicide, 1810). Seventeen Goldsmid family members altogether subscribed thirty-five copies. Many of Goldsmid’s relatives and business partners subscribed, members of the Clay, Cohen, Eliason, Friedberg, Friedman, Frith, Galindo, Lindo, Mocatta, Moxon, and Salmon families. Despite his apparently close connection to Goldsmid—he refers to him as “my Goldsmid”—Walker is not one of the several friends and business associates mentioned in his will. Nor does his name appear in other subscribers’ wills. The famous naval officers and the artists who subscribed—Lord Nelson, Sir William Sidney Smith, Benjamin West, Sawrey Gilpin—probably owe their presence to a financial or philanthropical connection with the Goldsmids. There is no evidence that the author was related to one of several Walker families resident in Homerton, Hackney, in 1805. Confirming his anonymity, the editors of A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britian (1816) identify him only by his name and address. (ancestry.com 24 Oct. 2023; Morning Post, 6 July 1801; Oracle and Daily Advertiser, 5 Nov. 1801; Monthly Mirror 20 [1805], 257; CR 6 [1806], 102; Boyle’s Court Guide [1825]; F. G. Hilton Price, Handbook of British Bankers [1876], passim) JC