30 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Walker, the eminent civil engineer, who was horn at Falkirk on 
the 14th of September 1781. He was educated at the parish school 
of Falkirk, and thereafter removed to Grlasgow, where he studied 
at the University. He went to London in the year 1800, and com- 
menced the study of engineering under his uncle the late Kalph 
Walker, who was then engaged in constructing the West India 
Docks. Mr Walker devoted himself almost exclusively to marine 
engineering, in which important branch of the profession, though 
his rise was gradual, he ultimately attained the position of the first 
authority of his day. He had not a very inventive cast of mind, but 
he had great caution and sound judgment, and above all the faculty 
of profiting by his large and varied experience. His works were, 
in consequence, eminently successful. It would be out of place in 
this brief notice to attempt even an outline of his works, so varied 
were they in character, and so many in number. It may be suffi- 
cient to say that at the time of his death he was conducting, as 
Government engineer, the national harbours of refuge at Dover, 
Alderney, and Jersey, and the refuge harbour at the mouth of the 
Tyne. As engineer to the Trinity House of London, he constructed 
various lighthouses, including that on the Bishop’s Kock, a very 
exposed situation. He was largely consulted in navigation and 
canal works ; and the Stockwell Street Bridge at Glasgow may he 
adduced as a favourable specimen of his bridge architecture. 
Mr Walker received the degree of Doctor of Laws from the Uni- 
versity of Glasgow. He was appointed president of the Institution 
of Civil Engineers on the death of Mr Telford in 1834. He was 
a fellow of the Eoyal Society of London ; and in 1824 he was 
elected into the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh. He had been for 
some time before his death in declining health, but to a robust 
constitution he added an abundant flow of cheerfulness and spirit ; 
and even on the day before he died he was writing a report to the 
Admiralty on the subject of Alderney Harbour of Eefuge. He 
was suddenly seized with a stroke of apoplexy, and expired on the 
8th October 1862, in his eighty-first year. At his own request, 
his remains were interred in his family burial-place, at St John’s 
Chapel, Edinburgh. 
Dr ThOxUas Stewart Traill was born on the 29th October 1781 
