For a further seven years I remained in Canada, constructing railways for the Government of the Lower Provinces, and Lower Provinces, and I returned home after an absence of nine years, in 1861. In 1863, I made some extensive surveys for railways in Russia. In 1864 and 1865, further surveys and explorations in Egypt and the Sudan, passing as far south as Metamneh, 100 miles north of Khartoum. On my return to England, in the spring of 1865, I was offered and accepted the management of the construction of the Metropolitan and District Railway for the three firms who had jointly undertaken the contract, namely Messrs Peto & Betto, John Kelk, and Waring Brothers. The construction of these lines from Edgeware Road to the Mansion House I carried out successfully, and they were completed on the 1st of July, 1871. Shortly after this, I, in partnership with my brother, the late Mr Charles Walker, undertook the contract for the extension of the East London Railway from the end of Brunel's Thames Tunnel, under the London Docks, through Wapping, Shadwell, and Whitechapel. Sir John Hawkshaw was the engineer-in-chief of this work, and I was fortunate in gaining his good opinion, and carried out the works, I believe, to his complete satisfaction ; and it was owing to the confidence he reposed in me that he afterwards entrusted to me the still more difficult work of constructing the Severn Tunnel. Sub-aqueous tunnels have recently become quite the fashion. One such experience as the Severn Tunnel, with its ever-varying and strangely contorted strata, and the dangers of floods above and floods below, has been quite sufficient for me. One sub-aqueous tunnel is quite enough for a life time. Since these pages were commenced. I have had a great pressure of work upon me. Not only have I had to carry on such large works as the Barry Dock and Railways, and the Preston Dock, but I have also been called upon to visit South America to start the work of the Government Docks at Buenos Aryes, and at home to begin the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal. Any oversight or clerical error which may have escaped notice during the revision of the proofs will, under these circumstances, I trust, receive the indulgence of the reader."

The funeral of the deceased gentleman will leave Sudbrook to-day at noon for Caerwent. Work in connection with the late Mr Walker's employees at Barry Dock will be stopped during the day, and flags will fly at half-mast at the Dock. On Sunday afternoon next, at 3, there will be a special funeral service at the Public Hall, East Barry. - Barry Dock News - [140] [361]  29th November 1889.