FL14369499

land originally granted to her brother, James Hassall.

William and Eliza Walker had the following children: Henrietta Elizabeth Walker, (1824-
1875), Sarah Matilda Ann Walker, (1826-1866), Rowland Thomas Brisbane Walker, (1827-1874),
Donald McLeod Walker, (1828-1829), James Dunlop Walker, (1830-1891) and Eliza Cordelia
Walker (1833-1902). The five children who survived their father jointly inherited Brisbane Grove.

After his wife, Eliza's death, Walker married Eleanor Maria Ann Grant, his housekeeper,
in 1846, much to the disapproval of his family. She was the daughter of the Reverend Robert Elliot,
and Anglican minister at Wheldrake, Yorkshire, and his wife Mary nee Garforth. Her first marriage
was to surgeon, James Grant whom she married in 1825 in Jedburgh, Roxburghshire, Scotland. He
came to the colony as surgeon on the Mary in 1839. After William Walker's death she lived with
the children of her first marriage until her death at the age of 76 in 1872. She was buried at St.
Jude's, Randwich.421 Her surviving children from her first marriage were Alexander Ogilvie Grant
who was born in 1827; Edward Henry Grant who was born in 1831; and William James Grant who
was born in 1833.

William Walker died on 23 November 1855 at Brisbane Grove, O'Connell Plains, after a
''...long and severe illness. Which he bore with true Christian resignation - enjoying to the
last moment, a sure acceptance of the throne of that Being whose word he so faithfully
preached for a number of years. His end was in peace.''422

A letter to the editor of the Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal in December 1855
described some of Walker's qualities. In particular it noted his zeal in the pursuit of knowledge and
in his application to his calling. It commented that the
''storm of his eloquence seemed to burn with the lightning of heaven. - It was no gentle
steamlet gliding through beautiful and flowery valleys; but a mountain torrent, breaking
over rocks and precipices, and foaming onwards with increasing majesty and strength... His
reasoning was close consecutive and powerful, his illustrations clear, and his dedications
weighty and irresistable. His strength... lay in rich massiveness and not in tinsel splendour.
It was gold, but gold as from a mountain, weighty, rugged, and ill-shapen, though
sometimes smooth and brilliant enough''.

A plaque in St. Thomas's Church at O'Connell Plains commemorates his life.423 Brisbane
Grove was divided equally amongst his children and his brothers moved to Sydney. His daughters
went to Sydney and his sons, Rowland Walker and James Walker worked the farm for a while.

421 Procter, Peter, The Annotated Hassall Children Research and References, p.53.
422 Obituary in Bathurst Free Press, 24 November 1855.
423 Most of the material on the Walkers comes from Claughton, S.G., ''Walker, William (1800-1855)'',
Australian Dictionary of Biography 1788-1859, Vol.2, p.566.

173