John Walker (clerical historian)

John Walker (1674–1747) was an English clergyman and ecclesiastical historian, known for his biographical work on the Church of England priests during the English Civil War and Interregnum.

The son of Endymion Walker, he was baptised at St Kerrian's, Exeter, 21 January 1674. His father was mayor of Exeter in 1682. On 19 November 1691 he matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, he was admitted Fellow on 3 July 1695, and became full Fellow on 4 July 1696 (vacated 1700).

On 16 January 1698 he was ordained deacon by Sir Jonathan Trelawny, then bishop of Exeter; he graduated B.A. on 4 July, and was instituted to the rectory of St Mary Major, Exeter, on 22 August 1698. On 13 October 1699 he graduated M.A. (incorporated at Cambridge, 1702).

By diploma of 7 December 1714 Walker was made D.D. at Oxford, and on 20 December he was appointed to a prebend at Exeter. On 17 October 1720 he was instituted to the rectory of Upton Pyne, Devon, on the presentation of Hugh Stafford, and here he ended his days. He died in June 1747, and was buried (20 June) in his churchyard, near the east end of the north aisle of the church. He had married at Exeter Cathedral, on 17 November 1704, Martha Brooking, who died on 12 September 1748, aged 67.

The publication of Edmund Calamy's Account (1702–1713), on the nonconformist ministers silenced and ejected after the 1660 English Restoration, suggested to Charles Goodall and to Walker a similar work on the deprived and sequestered clergy. Goodall advertised for information in the London Gazette; finding that Walker was engaged on a similar task, he passed on the materials he had collected.

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