ONE hundred and fifty years ago, in December 1859, it could be argued that my 22-year-old great uncle, Dr David Walker, was a more widely known explorer and naturalist than Charles Darwin. At present, there are worldwide commemorations for Darwin, but David Walker has been forgotten.
At the very end of November 1859, Charles Darwin’s book on the origins of species was published in an edition of just 1,000 copies. It would be at least six months before this volume made a major public impact and Darwin’s name became famous.
In September 1859, however, David Walker had returned from a two-year-long polar expedition, the story of which turned into one of the great epic tales of Victorian exploration. The account of that journey written by its leader, Dundalk-born, Capt FL McClintock, appeared a few months later, to become at Christmas 1859 a bestseller which would run into many editions.
As the naturalist on board, David Walker had been responsible for collecting flora, fauna and geological specimens and for all scientific observations and experiments; he later presented papers of his findings to both academic and public meetings.
Within a short time, he was elected to a number of learned societies, although he was still only in his early 20s.
Subsequently, however, Charles Darwin became very famous and, when he died in 1882, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. In contrast, my great uncle had “disappeared” by 1865 and his death in 1917 was not recorded in any Irish or British newspaper.
David Walker was born in Belfast in 1837. He attended Inst and, when only 14, went to Queen’s College, Belfast, to study medicine. At the age of 19, he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin.
In 1857, he volunteered to serve without pay on the ship, the Fox, under Capt FL McClintock, on an expedition to search for Sir John Franklin who had left England 12 years earlier with more than 100 men to try to discover the North West Passage. None of the party returned and various expeditions tried unsuccessfully to find out what had happened to them.
David Walker was appointed surgeon, naturalist and photographer on the ship. He was only 20 years of age when the Fox left Aberdeen on July 1st, 1857. The expedition lasted more than two years, including 250 days trapped in the ice. His duties included making sure no crew members suffered from scurvy and getting up during the night to read scientific instruments, provided by the Royal Society.
The expedition was successful and discovered the remains of Franklin and his crew. The Fox docked at London on September 23rd, 1859. Their news was widely reported in newspapers and illustrated journals. An exhibition of their findings opened in London in October 1859.
McClintock’s account of the journey of the Fox, including a scientific appendix by David Walker, appeared within a couple of months and became an instant bestseller (this was not true of Darwin’s new book). The Westminster parliament awarded £5,000 to the crew of the Fox, and McClintock and the navigating officer, Allen Young, received knighthoods.
On October 20th, 1859, The Irish Times reported that David Walker had arrived in Dublin on his way back to Belfast, and also that he dined with the lord lieutenant to talk of his adventures. On November 25th he spoke to the Royal Dublin Society.
Over the next few years, he continued to give papers about the expedition and to receive various honours. On March 7th, 1860, a report of his was published by the Royal Society. He was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a fellow of the Linnean Society. He received the Arctic medal.
By the mid 1860s, however, David Walker had disappeared from the limelight and from any mention in the Irish or British press. His future actions meant that there could be no possibility of a knighthood, which two other officers on the Fox received. The reason for this change of fortune was that in 1865 he became a citizen of a land where “every man is king”.
After an expedition to British Columbia to collect flora specimens, he crossed the Canadian-American border. On March 4th, 1865, he reported to Gen Ben Alford at Fort Vancouver, Washington State, for duty as a surgeon with the US cavalry. He served with the American army for the next 14 years on the northwest frontier, during the Indian wars, which took him to all sorts of wilderness and desert in Oregon, Arizona and Montana.
After leaving the army, he became, first, the resident doctor, and then, from 1883 to 1887, the US government land registrar, in the infamous Californian gold mining town, Bodie. With a population of 6,000-8,000 in the 1880s, Bodie was notorious for its violence, as well as its many bars, gambling dens and brothels. In June 1879, a San Francisco newspaper complained that “there are at least 60 saloons in the place and not a single church”.
In April 1889, he moved to Portland, Oregon, where he served as a medical practitioner. The New York Times recorded his death on May 11th, 1917.
When Charles Darwin died in 1882, his funeral was held in Westminster Abbey and attended by hundreds of people, including many dignitaries. The funeral of David Walker was conducted privately, because, as the Portland Telegraph noted, “he often asked that no display of any sort be made after the sunset call came and his soul passed out to sea”. There was no mention of his death in either the Irish or British press.