BARKER, Walter Samuel
Walter Samuel Barker, was born at East Bergholt, Suffolk on 24 September 1893, eldest of the two sons of Walter Barker, a jobbing gardener and later an innkeeper, and his wife Ellen née James, who married at Tendring, Essex in 1891. In 1911, Walter was a 17-year-old jobbing gardener, living at Rutland Place, Great Bardfield, Braintree, Essex with his parents, 54-year-old Walter and 52-year-old Ellen, with his younger brother 15-year-old Charles James. A sign writer who married at Willesden, London in 1927, Annie Constance Wood and in 1939 they were living at 'Monet', Wakering Road, Rochford, Essex. An associate member of the Ipswich Art Club 1945-1966 and exhibited from Askomel, Elm Road, East Bergholt, Suffolk in 1945, two oil paintings 'Flower Piece' and 'The Cornfield' and a watercolour 'Spring Morning', three watercolours in 1946, 'Marigolds', 'Early Autumn' and 'Corner of the Garden, in 1947 two oils 'Spring' and 'Suffolk Landscape' and in 1948 an oil 'Barking Creek' and a watercolour 'Blossom Time' and exhibited one or two paintings in most years including an oil in 1952 'Morning by the Water Meadow', his last exhibit was in 1963 when he exhibited an oil 'By the River'. Walter Samuel Barker lived at 'Askomel', Elm Road, East Bergholt and died at St Helen's Hospital, Ipswich on 4 September 1965, aged 71.