Sir Samuel Walker, 1st Baronet

Sir Samuel Walker, 1st Baronet PC, QC (19 June 1832 – 13 August 1911) was an Irish Liberal politician, lawyer and judge.

He was born at Gore Port, Finea, County Westmeath, a younger son of Captain Alexander Walker and his wife Elizabeth Elliott. He was educated at Portarlington School and Trinity College, Dublin. He entered Gray's Inn before being called to the bar in 1855. He quickly became one of the leaders of the Irish Chancery bar: in 1872 he was made a Queen's Counsel, and eleven years later he became Ireland's Solicitor General. The following year, he was elected Liberal Member of Parliament for Londonderry, a seat he held for little more than a year before the constituency was divided, and in 1885 he was also for a period the island's Attorney-General. His celebrated remark that on entering the House of Commons "he was amazed to hear Members making factual statements without sworn affidavits to support them" was probably a joke.

An advocate for Home Rule, Walker remained within the Liberal Party after its split, and was eventually appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland when Gladstone returned to power in 1892. When Lord Rosebery's ministry fell three years later, he was made a Lord Justice of Appeal, and remained in this capacity until his reappointment as Lord Chancellor by the Liberal government in 1905. He was created a baronet the following year, and died in office in Dublin in 1911.

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