# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Walker, Frederick William

​WALKER, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1830–1910), schoolmaster, was born in Bermondsey on 7 July 1830. He was the only son of Thomas Walker of Tullamore in Ireland, hat manufacturer, who claimed to be descended from George Walker [q. v.], the defender of Londonderry in 1689. His mother was Elizabeth Ellangton, of a Warwickshire family. He was sent in 1841 to St. Saviour's grammar school, Southwark, but during his early boyhood his parents went to live at Rugby, and he was entered as a day boy at Rugby school under Tait. Among his contemporaries was George Joachim Goschen [q. v. Suppl. II]. The two boys are said to have been coerced to fight for the amusement of their schoolfellows and to have displayed 'cumbrous ineptitude' (Elliot, Life of O. J. Goschen, 1911, i. 10). His father had suffered financial loss, and while at Rugby worked for some years in a hatter's shop, a fact which gave rise to a legend identifying him with Nixon, the school hatter mentioned in 'Tom Brown's School Days.'
In 1849 Walker won an open scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, after declining a Bible clerkship at Wadham. He took a first class in moderations in classics and a second in mathematics; in 1853 he won a first class in the final classical school, followed by a second in the final mathematical school; in 1854 he gained the Boden (Sanskrit) and the Vinerian (law) and Tancred (law) scholar- ships. He graduated B.A. in 1853, and proceeded M.A. in 1856. In 1854 he was entitled in due course to a fellowship at Corpus, but there was no vacancy for him to fill until 1859; he was appointed philosophical tutor, and in that capacity earned from Mark Pattison [q. v.] the title of 'malleus philosophorum.' About this time he spent six months in Dresden learning German with a special view to grammatical and philological study. He did miscellaneous educational work in England, acting as examiner of Grantham school for his college, as assistant master for a short time at Brighton College, and as private tutor in the family of the Bullers of Crediton, where Red vers Bvdler [q. v. Suppl. II] was his pupil. As a young man he was attracted by the high church doctrine, and his former headmaster. Dr. Tait, when bishop of London, urged him to take holy orders with a view to becoming his examining chaplain. On 26 Jan. 1858 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, and joined the western circuit; but in 1859 the high mastership of Manchester grammar school, which was in the gift of the president of Corpus (see Oldham, Hugh), fell vacant; the post was offered to Walker, who reluctantly accepted it, mainly owing to the persuasions of Prof. John Matthias Wilson [q. v.].
Manchester grammar school was in 1859 a free school, with no power to charge fees, and with a decaying revenue derived partly from fishing rights in the Irk and partly from a monopoly in grinding corn, attached to a soke mill belonging to the school. The governing body was confined to members of the Church of England; the buildings were old and unsuitable; the scholars numbered barely 200; the educational system was obsolete. During Walker's tenure of office the school was completely reorganised in every direction; a change in the constitution of the governing body enlisted the help of the wealthy and able nonconformists of Manchester; the admission of fee-paying scholars, vehemently opposed by those who clung to the idea of a free school, put the finances of the school upon a secure basis; bequests and gifts to the amount of about 150,000l provided new buildings and scholarships. By the time that Walker left, the numbers of the school were second only to those of Eton; in intellectual distinction it was scarcely surpassed.
In 1876 Walker was elected high master of St. Paul's school, which at that time was situated at the east end of St. Paid's Churchyard; and he continued in that post until his retirement from active work in July 1905. St. Paul's in 1876— the only other school in England whose head bears the title of high master — was in some respects not unlike what Manchester grammar school had been in 1859; but its constitution had just been remodelled by the charity commissioners, and it possessed ample and increasing revenues. One hundred and fifty-three foundation scholars [see Colet, John] and a few paying pupils were educated at the school; the foundationers were generally chosen by patronage, and the traditions were not favourable to educational efficiency. The removal of the school from the City was contemplated, but its destination was uncertain. Walker at once set himself to organise the teaching and to revive the discipline; and in the eight years during ​which the school still remained in St. Paul's Churchyard he greatly increased its reputation. In 1884 the school was removed to Hammersmith; a real expansion became possible, and the effect of Walker's organisation was seen in the rapid increase of numbers, and still more in the long series of notable successes gained by his pupils. The numbers rose from 211 in 1884 to 573 in 1888 and eventually to 650; in 1886 the first classical scholarship at Balliol was won by Richard Johnson Walker, the high master's only son, and for twenty years the success of his pupils at the universities and in every kind of open examination was one of the conspicuous facts in educational history. At Oxford the Ireland scholarship was won six times, the Craven eleven times, the Hertford eight times, the Derby five times; at Cambridge four Paulines were senior wranglers, six were Smith's prizemen; at the two universities twenty-one were elected to fellowships. From 1890 until the beginning of 1899 the high master and the governors of St. Paul's were engaged in a tedious struggle with the charity commissioners, whose proposals threatened to cripple the resources and to alter the character of the school chiefly by lowering the standard of the foundation scholarships. Walker's persistence and ingenuity were largely responsible for the issue, which was only reached after an appeal to the judicial committee of the privy council. The appeal came on for hearing in June 1896, but the judicial committee was spared the need of giving judgment. The commissioners gave way and on 25 Feb. 1899 they consented to frame a scheme in accordance with the wishes of the governors.
Walker took little or no part in general educational movements either in Manchester or in London; but in 1868 and 1869 he was public examiner at Oxford for the honours school of literæ humaniores, and in 1900 he sat with Dr. Warre of Eton on the commission for the education of officers in the army. In 1894 he was made an honorary fellow of Corpus; in 1899 he received the degree of Litt.D. from Victoria University. Walker, who had in 1869 declined the Corpus professorship of Latin at Oxford in succession to John Conington [q. v.], had a high reputation for accurate scholarship, and though he published nothing except occasional papers in the 'Classical Review,' he gave both direction and impulse to the philological work of Dr. W. G. Rutherford, J. E. King, C. Cookson, and other scholars of eminence, and also to the literary activities of Paul Blouet (’Max O'Rell'), another member of his staff at St. Paul's.
He became a freeman and liveryman of the Fishmongers' Company in April 1878, and was elected a member of the court in 1897; he was consequently appointed on the Gresham school committee and later became a governor of that school, in the reorganisation of which he took a prominent part.
He resigned the high mastership of St. Paul's in July 1905, and for the rest of his life resided at 7 Holland Villas Road, Kensington, within a mile of the school, which he never revisited. He died at his residence on 13 Dec. 1910, and was buried in the Kensington cemetery at Hanwell after a service in St. Paul's Cathedral.
By his devotion to accurate and vigorous teaching (though for many years he never himself taught a class) and by the remarkable success of his methods Walker did much to raise the standard of public-school education throughout the country. He was a man of great force of character, formidable in opposition alike by his determination and his judgment, but generous and sympathetic as a friend and adviser. From his Oxford days he was on terms of friendship with the leaders of the positivist movement — Congreve, E. S. Beesly, Cotter Morison, and Mr. Frederic Harrison; for Congreve in particular he had an unbounded admiration. He was the lifelong friend of Jowett, to whose influence he believed himself to owe much.
He married in 1867 Maria, daughter of Richard Johnson, of Fallowfield, near Manchester, who brought him a considerable fortune; she died in 1869. His only son, the Rev. Richard Johnson Walker, entered Balliol College, Oxford, in October 1887, and won the Hertford, Ireland, and Craven scholarships; he was for a time an assistant master at St. Paul's under his father, but resigned with him in 1905. He has since been mayor of Hammersmith.
A marble bust of Walker was executed by Mr. H. R. Hope Pinker in 1889 and exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1890; it stands in the library of St. Paul's School. On his retirement his portrait was painted by Mr. Will Rothenstein and hangs in the board room. A characteristic sketch of him by Leslie Ward ('Spy') appeared in 'Vanity Fair' on 27 June 1901
R. F. C.