George Walker

George Walker 1618-90, Irish Anglican clergyman and commander. As joint governor of Londonderry (now Derry) during the siege (1689) of that city by the army of the deposed James II, Walker roused the people by his courage and inspiring sermons and was able to hold the city for 105 days until it was relieved. He received the thanks of Parliament, was given £5,000 by William III for the citizens of Londonderry, and was designated bishop of Derry. He published A True Account of the Siege of Londonderry (1689) and, in answer to charges of self-seeking, a Vindication (1690). Walker was killed in the battle of the Boyne .

Walker, George (1618–90). Walker, an elderly Church of Ireland clergyman, was the heart and soul of Londonderry's resistance to James II after the Glorious Revolution. He held a living at Donaghmore, near Dungannon, and began raising troops early in 1689. In April he went to Londonderry and acted as joint governor throughout the siege. After its relief he was sent to London with an address to William III, which he presented at Hampton Court, received the thanks of the House of Commons, was honoured by both universities, and was in line for promotion to the bishopric of Derry. He joined William at the start of his Irish campaign and was shot dead at the battle of the Boyne. Walker's True Account of the Siege of Londonderry appeared in 1689 and is an important source.

J. A. Cannon

Walker, George (c.1646–1691). The rector of Donoughmore, Co. Tyrone, Walker raised a Protestant force to secure Dungannon against Tyrconnell in 1688, was joint governor during the siege of Derry, and was killed at the battle of the Boyne. His True Account of the Siege of Londonderry (1689) was attacked by the Presbyterian minister John Mackenzie and others as an exercise in self‐glorification that ignored the Presbyterian contribution to the city's defence. The controversy partly explains the negative depiction of Walker as a self‐promoting meddler by writers otherwise sympathetic to the Williamite cause, most notably T. B. Macaulay in his History of England (1849). (The added incongruity implied in Macaulay's depiction of a septuagenarian warrior, however, arises from a confusion of Walker's birth‐date with that of his father.) In Protestant tradition Walker nevertheless remains the hero of the siege. A monument erected in 1828 by the Apprentice Boys of Derry was blown up in 1973.