Rev. Oliver Rowland Walkey

(I Could use a decent portrait of O.R. Walkey to head this page)

In putting these words together I am very much aware that if I ever met my grandfather, I would have no memory of him as he died before my memories really started.

I can just about remember seeing his desk, with some brass postal scales on it and a tin of extra strong mints on a shelf beside it, which probably shows the interests of a four year old but nothing of the man himself.

So I will try and relate the stories my Mother told me and supplement those tales with whatever facts I have retrieved from elsewhere.

As family tradition would have it Grandpa Walkey was born into a family with a long line of west-country Vicars and country gentlemen, including County Sheriffs and other celebrated officials, with the family joke being that there was a long line of West Country Vicars capable of drinking anyone else under the table … though I suspect that in reality, they were a little more sober than that and also more wary of the effects of alcohol on their judgement.

There seems to have been quite a tradition of missionary work in his family and the Christian tradition was important to them, possibly influenced by the great Victorian missionaries such as such as David Livingstone, anyway Grandpa Walkey grew up with deep religious convictions dedicated to the Christian faith and a wish to express that in a practical manner.
His father however insisted that before he gave his life over to Christian service, he must learn a trade first, to give him a means of supporting himself.

To this end he did a degree in engineering, which was then followed by another in theology, though family tradition has it that the latter was honed down from a three year course to a single year, by sheer hard work, something he was not afraid of.

It would be easy to imagine that his love of Astronomy was nurtured by his first degree, but his life was not without its problems as sometime in his relatively young years he suffered a medical incurrence that partially paralysed his face, leaving him with a crooked smile.`

( looking at the press cuttings … see menu left … Grandpa Walkey was quite a keen athlete in his youth, though possibly not a match for his father)

Grandpa Walkey married Ethel Potts in Latrobe Tasmania in 1910, I think her father was a Governor of Tasmania or similar, though I can find no record of how he ended up meeting her or how he got to Tasmania. They then returned to the Uk as the following year 1912, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS) while serving as a lecturer at University College London (UCL), as such he was accepted as a prominent amateur astronomer who from time to time submitted papers to the society, which were duly published, while at the same time enlisting the famous astrophysicist Arthur Eddington among his friends and correspondents.

1913 saw him make his first voyage to the Amazon, with the Evangelical Union of South America and sometime in this decade he was contracted by a Railway company to survey and map potential railway routes through South America, which probably kicked off his career in Cartography,

(He mapped a very large are of the Amazon Basin and his cartographer's errors ( marks to identify the author of the map) could be found in the Times Atlas until the 1970's, copies of the maps were also requested by the US air force during WW2, so his work was well respected )

I am not sure of the timeline for these events, but the evidence in terms of maps, sample boards of wood and animal skins, whole snake skins and other articles remained in the family at least within my childhood memories.

Samuel, his eldest, was born in 1914, followed by Benjamin in 1916 and Elisabeth in 1918, Josephine was born in 1922 in Penzance and Barbara in 1925 to be followed by Dick & Jack born in Scilly in 1927.

( can someone help me with the dates etc for the Scilly Isle period)

1923 to 1930 he was granted the Perpetual Charge of the Parish through a license from the Diocesan Registry at Christ Church, Lanner , now in the Parish of Redruth and it is possibly here Mother told a tale of him cutting down the altar screen and erecting it in his garden to grow roses up, as he wanted the congregation to be able to see the altar. An action bound to have caused a bit of comment, but as ever he stood firm to his beliefs.

Photo from Canopus … a less grainy copy would be good

About this time Grandpa bought a piece of land to develop into a project designed to support disadvantaged young men in a property which he named Canopus .

Perhaps a reference to Canopus as considered to be the centre of our galaxy, or the star Grandpa navigated by when mapping the Amazon.

Unfortunately the project proved over ambitious resulting in bankruptcy with the property left in the hands of creditors.

Description of Canopus Project composed by Ben & Elisabeth (Lucy) Walkey

( While some sort of financial crisis did happen that might have been described as “Bankruptcy”, it is possible that an arrangement was made with the creditors to resolve matters without legal proceedings and the restrictions that might imply )

The crisis was resolved after the war by his son Ben coming to the family’s rescue, by selling Peace & Plenty in Sennen Cove, which had been left to him by Mrs Maud Heaton (1876-1945) who apparently decided to leave the house to Ben rather than another boy as Ben made better use of his Sundays.
She died 14^th June 1945 and I suppose probate etc would have normally taken a year to sort, but post war the solicitors and probate offices would have been very busy, so it looks as though the family were able to make use of the place until that was complete, after which I gather it was sold to resolve financial issues.
This was not a happy option as far as Ben was concerned, who lost a house to his father's debts just as he himself was getting set up in life.

It was and is a beautiful little house overlooking Sennen Cove that is now actually available as a holiday home, as a member of the family recently discovered.

(Notes supplies by Michael Raines give Peace and Plenty as an address for various members of the family in 1946, so it looks as though the place was not sold until after WW2, which makes sense)

Having hit the rocks of financial disaster Grandpa Walkey and the family were up for a new adventure, the crisis was not so much a problem, as another interesting challenge.
Australia was now in their sights.

Circa 1935  his eldest son Sam would have been 21, so probably either in higher education or training to become a surveyor and Ben  his second would have been 19 and starting medical training, so at a guess they would have stayed in the UK, while the rest of the family, in dire financial straights worked their passages to Australia, the boys working as engineers and Granny and the girls taking roles as paid companions and and child carers, I am not sure what role Grandpa Walkey took, but any captain taking him on was getting not only a ship’s chaplain to help manage the passengers but also someone who could navigate by star and map as well as service the engines which would at least have helped with conversation at the captain’s table.

So I suspect the family arrived in Australia with Grandpa Walkey, Granny, Jack 8 yrs, Dick 8 yrs , Elisabeth 17yrs, Barbara 10yrs , Josephine 13yrs, if my head count is right ( if not tell me ) They arrived in Daintree Queensland, with Jack being quoted in the local paper as saying:

“ We have come to convert the Abos”

Life was a little primitive and very much in the pioneering spirit, which left Grandpa Walkey virtually preaching on the streets until family and local volunteers had built a church, which in this case was a large grass thatched hut.

The children were educated via correspondence courses and radio, with the jingle:

“Good morning to you, good morning to you, we're all in our places with clean hands and faces”

Apparently introducing the radio classes.

There are happy memories and wonderful stories of those years that there is no room for here, though times were also tough and money was in short supply. Children’s shoes for instance were expensive and in short supply, which led Josephine at least to have problems in later life.
Life was hand to mouth and each day brought new challenges and new solutions, probably backed by the tune of a foot pumped mission organ

Elisabeth ( Lucy ) apparently returned to the UK from Australia independently at some stage, working her passage as a child carer, to take up training as a nurse on arrival, so presumably she spent the war years in the U.K.

(The impression from family memories is that Oliver would often be trotting around in Dog Collar and shorts, while Ethel his wife had to suffer in corseted dresses, on one occasion it is noted that he even asked on of his sisters to tighten Ethel's corsets as he thought she was looking less than trim! )

The Family left for India on the day WW2 broke out (3/9/1939) for Grandpa Walkey to take up a chaplaincy or similar in “Snooty Ooty” in the Nilgeri hills and tea estates of Southern India.
Ooty had developed into a favoured resort for British Officers taking a break from the War and other military duties, complete with polo fields and everything else a gentleman could desire, with the altitude helping to modify temperatures to something near a British summer.

(Mother related a tale of a journey with her father by train in which a met a young soldier who was knocking back the bottles.
Grandpa advised the young man that if he did not ease up a bit, he would start seeing snakes.
He then quietly released the pet python that was travelling with them)

Barbara, Dick, Jack and Josephine would have had an interesting life here.
On one occasion for instance the boys went hunting for pigs with a low powered rifle and climbed a tree to await their quarry, unfortunately the tiger turned up and they were stuck up the tree for 4 hours, while it snoozed at the base of the trunk.

During this time Gabriel Merriman was billeted with the family, to recover from the ill-effects of a malaria drug, which is how Josephine and Gabriel met.

While here Josephine Trained as a midwife in Madras and there are other tales that must be told elsewhere.

The family stayed in India until the end of the War in 1945 and then returned piecemeal to the UK as and when the opportunities of passage became available.

( Notes supplied by Michael Raines give Revd O. R. Walkey as the Vicar of Wateringbury Vicarage, nr. Maidstone, Kent in 1941, so it looks as though he left India earlier than the rest of the family to take up this position, possibly because civilian travel would have been difficult to arrange in the war years and soon after, as everyone tried to get back to the UK when it ended. Ethel his wife did not make it back until 1946 . So it looks as if Grandpa went back to war torn Britain, leaving Ethel and the children , strapped for cash , but in the safety of an Officer's resort in Southern India)

Circa 1949 At the age of 71/2 when others would have been settling into retirement Grandpa Walkey returned to the Amazon with his eldest son Sam, who had been working as a surveyor in Southampton.

(An article in the archives of an Australian paper give Bath as the home of Revd. O.R. Walkey circa 1949, but I can find no address)

Taking he cheapest available passage they travelled to the Amazon to review prospects for new missions and complete some mapping, with the West Amazon mission being founded a year or so later.

After a full and very adventurous life Grandpa Walkey met his maker 30th January 1962.

In his last weeks he had had a stroke leaving him partially paralysed and unable to talk but still his good humour and courage was evident, when his sister Violet visited for a final goodbye he cocked a snook at her as if to say “ beat you there” in a fashion typical of sibling rivalry.

With typical courage he made a joke of his own death and passed on to his next adventure.