Hester Walkin I

**Hester Walkin I** (née **Cole**) (2 October, 1770 - 30 April, 1824) was an English half-blood witch. She was the wife of Curtus Walkin I, an English pure-blood wizard and landowner. The couple were former residents of the village of Tinworth, Cornwall, England. She was born into the Cole family: her father, Jonathan Cole, was a Muggle, and her mother, Sara Cole (née Chittock), was a pure-blood witch.

Hester was the mother to Curtus Walkin's eleven children, including Louisa Walkin, who worked for Blackmere House, an estate in Castle Gate, Cornwall, an estate owned by the Black family. She was the maternal grandmother of Alexia Walkin Black, the illegitimate daughter of Corvus Black.

## Biography

### Early life (1770-1800)

Hester Cole was born on 2 October, 1770, into the Cole family in the little seaside village of Tinworth, Cornwall, England. Her father was Jonathan Cole, a Muggle, and her mother, Sara Cole (née Chittock), was a pure-blood witch. Tinworth, the village in which she was born, was home to a half-magical, half-muggle community, with its residents intermingling often between each other. Even still, the wizarding community had to live in secret.

Hester Cole did not attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: her family was impoverished and could not afford to send her or her siblings to learn magic. She remained in Tinworth throughout her childhood and early youth, presumably home-tutored by her mother.

#### Marriage (1790)

At the age of nineteen, Hester married Curtus Walkin, a pure-blood wizard, on 14 March, 1790. Their first child, Sara, named after her mother, was born later that December. The following year, in 1791, a second daughter, Cora Walkin, was born. Two more children followed Sara and Cora. They were Curtus and Elisabeth, and both did not survive childhood.

Their fifth child, Amelia Walkin, was born in May 1796. The next year, their sixth child, Crispin Walkin, was born, followed by a daughter, Hester, who did not survive infancy.

### Later life (1800-1824)

Hester had another son, Henricus Walkin, in 1800, the Walkin's eighth child. Then they had a ninth child, Louisa Walkin, in 1801. In 1805, Hester's tenth child, a son, Frederick, was born. Then their eleventh and final was born, Alice Walkin, two years later.

In 1810, Hester was widowed when her husband, Curtus Walkin, succumbed to an unknown illness. In the same year, her second eldest daughter, Cora Wolpert (née Walkin), died as well.

## Issue

M. Curtus Walkin I in 1790, had the following issue:

* Sara Battin (née Walkin) (11 Dec 1790 - 22 Jul 1845), m. Mortimer Battin, had issue
* Cora Wolpert (née Walkin) (30 Nov 1791 - 4 Aug 1810), first wife of James Wolpert, had issue
* Elisabeth Walkin (21 Mar 1793 - 13 Jul 1802), died young
* Curtus Walkin II (28 Sep 1794 - 14 Jul 1802), died young
* Amelia Pettiwhisker (née Walkin) (3 May 1796 - 11 Nov 1842), m. Ernst Pettiwhisker, had issue
* Crispin Walkin (2 Sep 1797 - 10 Mar 1825), m. Corine Harper
* Hester Walkin (11 Jul 1798 - 15 Jul 1799), died young
* Henricus Walkin (20 Jun 1800 - 4 Jul 1867), m. Beatrix Crowther, had issue
* Louisa Walkin (7 Sep 1801 - 14 Aug 1843), had illegitimate issue with Corvus Black
* Frederick Walkin (25 Mar 1805 - 10 Aug 1810), died young
* Alice Walkin (11 May 1807 - 28 Dec 1867), never married

## Etymology

The name Hester is the Latin form of the name ESTHER. Like *Esther*, it has been used in England since the Protestant Reformation. Nathaniel Hawthorne used it for the heroine of his novel *The Scarlet Letter* (1850), Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman forced to wear a red letter *A* on her chest after giving birth to a child out of wedlock. The name coukd possibly mean "star" in Persian.

Cole is most likely a reference to Cornwall's past in the mining industry.