OBITUARY NOTICES. 1 73 



THE LATE HENRY WALKER, F.G.S. 

 Honorary Member of the Essex Field Club. 



[With Portrait, Plate V.] 



In the honourable roll of those who have by their writings and example 

 popularised the study of geology and natural history in the field, the name of 

 Henry "Walker will always be prominently inscribed. We of the Essex Field 

 Club have special reasons for cherishing his memory — he aided our earliest 

 efforts by the delivery of several excellent addresses, and his genial presence 

 as a " Conductor" and Demonstrator at Field Meetings greatly enhanced the 

 popularity and interest of these gatherings in the first few years of the Club's 

 work. Perhaps one of his happiest efforts was almost the first publication of 

 the Club — " A Day's Elephant Hunting in Essex " served admirably to direct 

 the attention of amateurs to the fascinating history of the Thames Valley as 

 revealed by the discoveries of Sir Antonio Brady of Mammoths at Ilford, and 

 several graphic reports from his pen in his own newspaper (the Bayswater 

 Chioiiiclc), iheLcisureHouy and the City Press, made our Club widely known and 

 appreciated. At the close of the first year's work, Mr. Walker was 

 unanimously elected an Honorary Member in grateful recognition of the 

 services he had rendered to the infant society. In late years the pressing 

 claims upon his time as a journalist allowed him fewer opportunities of 

 attending the Saturday afternoon meetings, but he was always to the fore 

 with his pen and purse in any investigations or plans interesting to the Club, 

 and his death on February 13th, igoo, came as a great shock and grief to his 

 numerous friends both within and without our ranks. 



As a summary of Mr. Walker's public career we cannot do better than 

 reprint the appreciative notice from one who knew him well, which appeared 

 in the Bayswater Chronicle at the time of his death : — 



" It is above all things as a citizen and a believer in ' the religion of 

 humanity ' that Mr. Walker would wish to be remembered among his neigh- 

 bours and friends. Citizenship was to him apart of personal religion, and he 

 counted among his friends the ministers of the Jewish Church, members of 

 the Roman Catholic communion, Anglican clergy and missioners, and Noncon- 

 formists of every kind. He was the friend of all sincere enthusiasms which 

 made for social freedom and order and for a broad and many-sided life. He 

 was keenly interested in modern Biblical criticism, and was a pioneer of 

 liberal thought in the realm of science ; espousing the principle of evolution 

 at a time when its acceptance was regarded as heterodoxy of the most danger- 

 ous kind. The present writer well recalls public lectures and meetings at 

 which antagonism between modern science and evangelical doctrine was still 

 sharp and sore ; and it was on such occasions that Mr Walker would throw 

 himself into the breach and defend the former both from the Christain and 

 the human standpoint, with an earnestness which showed that he held the 

 new truth as passionately as he had once held the old. Sharing with his 

 brother (Mr. Thomas Walker, of the Daily News), the heritage of a Puritan 



