Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/60

 :: in the House of one Thomas Bates, in Bishop's Court in the Old Bailey, concerning the Ecclesiastical Function.' In the last, which was directed against [q. v.], he revived his coarse imputations against Wotton, who found a vindicator in Thomas Gataker, in his 'Mr. Anthony Wotton's Defence against Mr. George Walker's Charge,' Cambridge. 1641, 12mo. In the following year Walker replied in 'A True Relation of the Chiefe Passages between Mr. Anthony Wotton and Mr. George Walker.' Goodwin in his 'Treatise on Justification,' 1642, deals with the various doctrinal points raised by Walker.
 * 1) 'The Key of Saving Knowledge.'
 * 2) 'Socinianisme in the Fundamentall Point of Justification discovered and confuted.'

Walker joined the Westminster assembly of divines in 1643, in the records of which body his name often appears as that of an active and influential member. On 29 Jan. 1644-5 he preached a fast-day sermon before the House of Commons, which was shortly afterwards published, with an 'Epistle' giving some particulars of his imprisonment. In the same year (1646) he printed 'A Brotherly and Friendly Censure of the Errour of a Dead Friend and Brother in Christian Affection.' This refers to some utterance of W. Prynne. On 26 Sept. 1645 parliament appointed him a 'trier' of elders in the London classis. There is an interesting undated tract by him entitled 'An Exhortation to Dearely beloved countrimen, all the Natives of the Countie of Lancaster, inhabiting in and about the Citie of London, tending to persuade and stirre them up to a yearely contribution for the erection of Lectures, and maintaining of some Godly and Painfull Preachers in such places of that Country as have most neede.' He himself did his share in the direction indicated, for, in addition to spending other sums in Lancashire, he allowed the minister of Hawkshead 20l. a year, and the parsonage-house and glebe there were long called 'Walker Ground,' from their being his gift. He was also a benefactor to Sion College library and a liberal supporter of the assembly of divines.

Wood justly styles Walker a 'severe partisan,' but he was also. as Fuller said, 'a man of an holy life, humble heart, and bountiful hand.'

He died in his seventieth year in 1651, and was buried in his church in Watling Street, which was destroyed in the fire of 1666.



WALKER, GEORGE (1618–1690), governor of Londonderry, was the son of George Walker, a native of Yorkshire, who became chancellor of Armagh, by his wife, Ursula Stanhope. George Walker the younger was a native of Tyrone, according to Harris, but others say he was born at Stratford-on-Avon (, Irish Writers, ed. Harris;, Life, ed. Clark, iii. 327). He was educated at Glasgow University, but his name does not occur in the ‘Munimenta Universitatis,’ and little is known of him until his appointment in 1669 to the parishes of Lissan and Desertlyn in co. Londonderry and Armagh diocese. He was already married to Isabella Maxwell of Finnebrogue. In 1674 he was presented to Donaghmore parish, near Dungannon, and went to live and do duty in that town, but without resigning Lissan. Donaghmore church and parsonage were in ruins after the civil war, but the former was restored in 1681, and in 1683 Walker built a substantial thatched house for himself. In the following year he built a corn-mill in the village of Donaghmore. Walker appears to have visited England in 1686.

At the close of 1688 Londonderry stood on its defence, and Walker was advised by some man of rank, not named, to raise a regiment at Dungannon, and this he considered ‘not only excusable but necessary.’ The famous [q. v.], bishop of Clogher, in the same county, had had no scruple on account of his cloth. Early in 1688–9 Walker rode to Londonderry to see the acting governor, [q. v.], who sent drill-instructors and two troops of horse to Dungannon, but ordered its evacuation on 14 March. Walker went in command of five companies to Strabane, whence he moved to Omagh by Lundy's orders. A fortnight later he was sent to Saint Johnstown, on the left bank of the Foyle. Coleraine being abandoned, the Jacobites were masters of the open country, and on 13 April Walker went to Londonderry, but could not persuade Lundy that he was in danger. On