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. 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. In 1796 he described himself to the Parliamentary Committee on the Port of London (107) as ‘bred a Sailor’, a former ship’s master (in the West India trade it seems) and ‘now a Jamaica planter’. 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. Ralph Walker died at home near the East India Docks on 19/02/1824 aged 75.

We are grateful to Jerry White for assistance in compiling this entry.

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].
   New Times, 20 Feb. 1824.