Author: WALKER, William
Biography:
WALKER, William (1802-1867: ancestry.com)
“One of the largest worsted manufacturers in the world,” the employer of 3,000, William Walker of Bollinghall, near Huddersfield, was born on 14 Sep. 1802 at Almondbury, West Yorkshire. He was the third child of a Wesleyan Methodist, a cloth dresser, William Walker (1767-1845), and his wife, Lydia (Duplicy Savile) Walker (1767-1854). On 15 July 1829 at St Oswald church, Guiseley, he married Kezia Wesley Stamp (1809-1874) of Keighley, Yorkshire, the daughter of a popular Wesleyan Methodist minister, John Stamp (1761-1831) and his wife, Ann Wood (1766-1811). Kezia’s mother was a relative of Walker’s business partner from 1835, John Wood (1793-1871). Between 1834 and 1856, Kezia gave birth to seven sons and three daughters, seven of whom reached adulthood. In politics he was an Eldonite Tory, in religion a Methodist. With other Bradford men, notably John Wood, the Rev. George Stringer Bull, William Rand, William Forster, Squire Auty, and Matthew Balme, he was an indefatigable member of the “ten hours” factory reform movement. At a national level, the movement was represented by his “venerable friend” and regular correspondent the “Tory Radical” Richard Ostler, who addressed to him Factory Legislation (1855) and Convocation: The Church, and the People (1860). In 1841, he co-authored, with Rand, A Letter to the Right Honourable Sir James Graham … on the Factory Question. He was one of the “master manufactures” who in May 1849 presented the Home Secretary a factory reform petition signed by 605 firms and individuals. In 1858, he published Free Trade, its Principles and Results and in 1861, The Church and Church Property. He died on 31 May 1867 at his second residence, Clayton Grange, near Huddersfield. His effects at probate were valued under £100; following his death, his estate was declared bankrupt. (ancestry.com 16 Oct. 2023; J. Clark, History and Annals of Bradford [1840], 183-91; P. Grant, The Ten Hours’ Bill. The History of Factory Legislation [1866], passim; Bradford Observer, 6 June 1867; Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration [1870], 102; E. Walford, County Families of the United Kingdom [1871], n.p.; J. T. Ward, “Two pioneers in Industrial Reform,” Journal of the Bradford Textile Society [1963-64], 33-41) JC