Banker and politician in Australia.
From Wikipedia
He migrated to Australia as a child in 1844 before returning to Scotland to be educated at the Edinburgh Institution and then
King's College, London.
In 1861, he joined the
Bank of New South Wales as a ledger clerk in Sydney, but after a month he was transferred to
Rockhampton in
Queensland. He was tranferred to
Townsville in early 1866, and in December 1866 was promoted to
Toowoomba as manager. Following failure to get a further promotion, he resigned from the Bank of New South Wales in 1882 to join the Royal Bank of Queensland as its first general manager.
When his cousin
Thomas Walker died in 1886, Walker was persuaded to rejoin the Bank of New South Wales so he could look after Thomas' affairs. Thomas had been the President of the Bank from 1868 until his death in 1886. The younger Walker was himself elected to the Board of the Bank in 1888 and remained one until his death in 1923. He was appointed President of the Bank in 1898 but resigned that position to contest the elections for the first
Australian Parliament.
Walker contested the first Australian elections in 1901. He was elected to the
Australian Senate for New South Wales as a
Free Trader and as the first of the six senators. He remained in the Senate until 1913. In 1909, along with the rest of his party, he became a member of the
Commonwealth Liberal Party when the Free Trade Party merged with the
Protectionists.
On 16 April 1868 at Toowoomba, he married Janette Isabella Palmer, the daughter of the late Thomas Palmer, formely of Summerhill,
Killala Bay,
County Mayo,
Ireland and high sheriff of the County in 1809. His wife's mother was Elizabeth, the daughter of John Ormsby of Gortner Abbey, County Mayo.