04/07/2026
𝐃𝐑 𝐉𝐎𝐇𝐍 𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐑 (𝟏𝟕𝟓𝟗-𝟏𝟖𝟑𝟎), 𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐏𝐎𝐗 𝐃𝐎𝐂𝐓𝐎𝐑
𝐛𝐲 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚 𝐄𝐝𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬
Following on William Woodville in the February 2026 edition of the 𝑾𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒓, I wanted to put the spotlight on another smallpox champion, also born in Cockermouth: Dr John Walker. His route into medicine and the fight against smallpox came at a much later stage in his life than did William Woodville’s.
John was born in 1759, a few years later than William Woodville. John’s father (another John) was a blacksmith with a smithy roughly where the former Conservative Club now stands on Cockermouth Main Street. He also worked as a whitesmith, decorating metal items, and carried out work for William Wordsworth’s father John, since his name appears in the Household Accounts for the Wordsworth household for work done from 1771 onwards.
The young John Walker had a strict upbringing, with a Baptist father and an Independent Congregationalist mother. He was baptised in the Independent Congregational Chapel. One great regret to him in later life was never to have been accepted into the Quaker faith, despite having followed the principles of Quakerism throughout his life. When young he showed musical ability (playing the flute and the violin), as well as artistic abilities, and received instruction from Joseph Faulder, founder of the Cockermouth School of Painting. That artistic talent later found an outlet in engraving, carried on in his father’s smithy, after leaving school.
His early education had been at the town’s Free Grammar School, which had also been attended by William Woodville. Indeed, when William Woodville went off to his medical apprenticeship locally, it had been agreed that John Walker would be apprenticed to the same medical man when William had served his time. At school John appears to have done no more work than was necessary, according to his biographer John Epps, who describes him as ‘the idlest of boys’ at his tasks, but ‘at his amusements the most active’. Epps tells how his school master was prone to fall asleep whilst listening to pupils’ readings in Latin from Virgil or Ovid, which they were required to learn by heart. John would take advantage of the tendency of his master to drop off to sleep after his lunch:
Young Walker had his eye fixed upon the sleeper, keeping up, at the same time, a humming sound, without articulating a syllable, till the master, giving a greater nod than usual, awoke, when the young rogue repeated the last line of his task and went to his seat.
Unsurprisingly, John was eventually found out.
When he left the Grammar School it was to work with his father, engraving plates of pewter and copper, attending to his father’s business in Cockermouth and Maryport for five years. During that time an Irish artist, by the name of Nicholas Primrose Henry Ash, came to the town and visited the Walker family to give artistic instruction to John and his siblings. This seems to have been a time of inspiration for John, encouraging him to think of other possibilities for a life outside of the forge. Much to the concern of his parents, John set off for Dublin in June 1779, determined not to return. According to his biographer, this was a time when press-gangs were active and a real threat. John took proactive measures to avoid this when he landed in port:
"Walker was fearful for himself, and wishing to deceive the press-gang, should they come, feigned to be sick, tying up his head, and filling his mouth with chewed biscuit ready to spatter on the cabin floor."
Fortunately, he made it safely into Dublin before any gangs turned up.
He must have been astonished and excited to be thrust into the clatter and bustle of Dublin life, but was also shocked by the levels of poverty that he witnessed, and the cruel treatment of the poor and infirm. For a while it was difficult for him to find suitable employment but then he became apprenticed to an artist/engraver called Esdale. John learnt much during that time, producing plates for Walker’s Hibernian Magazine in the 1780s. He excelled in landscapes, and the quality of his work improved significantly. He also had access to the use of a good library, which seems to have inspired him to broaden his knowledge in all kinds of subjects, including mathematics, Latin and Greek. He subsequently became a successful schoolteacher, much loved by his pupils, opening a mathematical and classical school on Usher’s Island, Dublin. His biographer notes that John had no corporal punishment in his school and treated the boys with respect.
At some point John was joined by members of his family from Cockermouth. In 1781 the Cumberland Pacquet carried a notice of sale of the premises and contents of the smithy on Main Street (See image above).
𝑨𝒏 𝒂𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒗𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏
Readers will be wondering where smallpox comes into John’s story. It is hard to understand why John would decide to abandon what many would consider a successful professional life, and yet this is exactly what he did. A key factor seems to be his contact with a navy surgeon, who returned from the war in America in needy circumstances. John welcomed him into his home in Dublin and learnt much about anatomy from him, incorporating drawings into the second edition of his Geography and Gazeteer that he had first published in 1788. John resolved to study medicine and, at the age of forty, he enrolled as a student at Guy’s Hospital in London, eventually gaining his degree in medicine at the University of Leyden in the Netherlands in 1799. This was the same year that he met his future wife Annie, and they were married in Glasgow.
Maybe he had been caught up in the excitement of medical developments at the time to counter the scourge of smallpox. Jenner was putting forward his theories on vaccination through the use of cowpox, but there was enormous controversy about the issue, as demonstrated in a satirical cartoon of the time, produced by James Gillray. John had clearly decided to devote his medical career to smallpox vaccination and, indeed, he would later become known as the ‘apostle of vaccination’.
On 1st July 1800 John boarded the ‘Endymion’ in Portsmouth with his friend Dr Marshall, undertaking a dramatic sea journey around Europe, involving sea battles, violent altercations and threats to life. The two had been sent by the Duke of York to vaccinate army and navy men involved in the build-up to the Napoleonic Wars, visiting Gibraltar, Minorca, Malta, Naples, and Egypt. On many occasions they feared for their lives but eventually returned home to England at the start of 1802.
In London John now set to with a public vaccination service in part of a house in Lombard Street owned by Mr Fox, a celebrated dentist of the time. In 1803 the Royal Jennerian Society had been established under Edward Jenner, and John Walker was appointed resident vaccinator, based in Salisbury Square. However, it seems that he upset various people by his attitude and decided he must leave the Society. Friends subsequently helped establish the London Vaccine Institution with John at its head. It is highly likely that John and William Woodville would have crossed paths in London, where William was physician to the Smallpox and Inoculation hospitals up until his death in 1805. John Walker was made a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1812. He worked six days a week vaccinating people, and there were claims that he had vaccinated more than 100,000 people by the time he died in 1830.
This was said about John in the Annual Report of the Vaccine Institution (1831) after his death:
"He was a man who, day after day, month after month, and year after year, watched with the care of a parent the cause of which he was so experienced an advocate; who was willing to know nothing but the object of his early love, vaccination; who for upwards of a quarter of a century, never omitted one lawful day going his rounds to the numerous stations of the Institution; and who it may be almost said ended his life with the lancet in his hand, for he went round to the stations two days before he died."
Below, Dr John Walker, 1789, Smallpox inoculations, a cartoon by Gillray.
Read this issue of the Wanderer on our website at http://www.derwentfells.com/pdfs/wanderer/wanderermay26
