Ralph Walker

Slave-owner in Jamaica.

1. Ralph Walker is shown as a Scottish engineer and slave planter who designed the East and West India Docks, and as the partner of Elizabeth Sarah Darlington, in the ODNB entry for John Carr, the colonial judge and man of colour who married the couple's daughter Margaret Edwina Walker (1820/1-1876) in 1845. The entry gives Ralph Walker's life-dates as 1749-1824. This is not entirely consistent with the evidence of the Slave Registers, in which Ralph Walker is certainly linked Elizabeth Sarah Darlington but appears to have been alive until c. 1828. Ralph Walker the engineer is reported to have been in Jamaica until c. 1793 but then to have returned to England: he is known to have been working in England between 1800 and 1816 and again in 1822. Other secondary material on him on the Royal Museums Greenwich website shows Ralph Walker the engineer as having an inside family in Jamaica with his wife Jane, and makes no mention of him returning Jamaica after 1793. The children of Ralph Walker and Elizabeth Sarah Darlington were LBS has concluded that the Ralph Walker who was both the partner of Elizabeth Sarah Darlington and the father of Margaret Edwina Walker might not have been the same man as the engineer.

1. Browne-Davies, Nigel. "Carr, John (1810–1880), colonial judge." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 6 Oct. 2016; Accessed 9 Apr. 2020. https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-110215; A. W. Skempton et al (eds.), A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 1 1500-1830 (2002) pp. 757-8; Hannah Salisbury, 'Guest post: An alternative longitude solution - Ralph Walker and magnetic variation', https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/behind-the-scenes/blog/guest-post-alternative-longitude-solution-ralph-walker-and-magnetic [accessed 09/04/2020].