Walker - the name

From the Walker Archives, 2004

The drawing below illustrates how the surname Walker came about. Cloth was fulled, that is wetted and compressed to give it body. "Walkers" did this in the early days, literally "walking the cloth" as shown. Later water power was used to drive simple machines in which hammers pounded the cloth. Our earliest ancestors are recorded as clothiers or cloth makers, and some continued in this occupation until about 1820.

This record of our Walker family begins about the year 1468 with one William Walker of Littletown, a hamlet near Liversedge Manor, parish of Birstall, Yorkshire, England. Several generations lived hereabouts before a move to the neighbouring parish of Batley.

In about 1714 John Walker became a Quaker so he could marry his Quaker bride Sarah Chappell. This began a long line of "Quaker" Walkers some continuing in the Society of Friends to this day.

John and Sarah's grandson Robert Walker, born 1755 moved to Darley, Nidderdale to marry Rachel Spence where they had twelve children. Many, following a good education at Ackworth Quaker Boarding School in Yorkshire lived relatively comfortable lives as gentlemen, farmers, land owners and mill owners, some built their own and other properties, others lived on their "own means".

Within Darley and also Knaresborough Monthly Meeting they were the mainstays to the Quaker cause from 1779 to 1898.

By 1888 only one branch of the family remained in the dale, that of Thompson Walker whose remaining children and grandchildren were living in Birstwith until about 1952. Benjamin Walker moved in 1861 to Castle Farm, a 290 acre farm at Hay-a-Park, and later his cousin Joseph moved to Holly Farm near by. Later this Joseph and the rest of the men within the Walker families emigrated either to Canada, U.S.A. or Australia.