Robert Walker (priest)

Robert Walker (1709–1802), called Wonderful Walker, was an unassuming Church of England priest in Borrowdale, now in Cumbria. William and Dorothy Wordsworth became interested in the local stories about him, around 1804; William mentioned Walker in The Excursion, and later in one of his sonnets.

Walker was born at Undercrag in Seathwaite, Borrowdale, Furness, then in Lancashire, in 1709, the son of Nicholas Walker, a yeoman farmer, and his wife Elizabeth, the youngest of 12 children; his eldest brother was born about 1684. He was taught at an elementary level in Seathwaite Chapel. Regarded as frail by his parents, he sought more education and ordination, in Eskdale and the Vale of Lorton, with support from clerical patrons.

Walker was schoolmaster in Loweswater in 1735, when he became curate of Seathwaite. In 1755–6, he proposed to the bishop of Chester that the curacy of Ulpha should be joined to that of Seathwaite, but was turned down. A few years later the curacy was slightly enlarged.

Walker farmed his glebe land, and laboured for other farmers. He earned small sums as scrivener to the surrounding villages. He also acted as schoolmaster, for gifts rather than charging fees.

Walker died on 25 June 1802, and was buried in Seathwaite churchyard. His tombstone later had a new inscription cut, and a brass was erected to his memory in Seathwaite chapel. He left £1500 or £2000 in savings.

Walker dressed and lived simply. His life was sketched by William Wordsworth, who alluded to his grave in The Excursion (bk. vii. ll. 351 sq.), and in the eighteenth sonnet of The River Duddon, A Series of Sonnets (1820) ("Seathwaite Chapel") referred to Walker as the "Gospel Teacher

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