In University College, under Obadiah Walker, were focussed all the propagandist influences of the time. Dr. John Massey, Dean of Christchurch, 1686, referred to in Pelham’s letter, was originally a member of University College, and was converted by Obadiah Walker. There was also a printing press kept going in University to publish books of a Romanist tendency, which the University would not authorize to be printed by its Press.
The official College record (in the Register of Election) of the deposition of Mr. Obadiah Walker from the headship of the College is as follows (MSS. of Will. Smith, vol. vii. p. 113)—
“About the middle of Dec., A.D. 1688, Mr. Obadiah Walker attempted to flee abroad, but was taken at Sittingbourne in Kent, and carried to London, and there lodged in the Tower on a charge of high treason.
“On Jan. 7, 1689, the Fellows of University deputed Master Babman to go to him and ask him if he would resign his post, to whom, after deliberation lasting many days, Walker answered that he would not.
“On Jan. 22, after this answer had been brought to Oxford and conveyed to the Vice-Chancellor, the latter summoned the Fellows to appear before the Visitors on Jan. 26, in the Apodyterium of the Venerable House of Convocation.
“Where on Jan. 26, between 9 and 10 a.m., there appeared in person and as representing the College the following Fellows—Mr. Will. Smith, Tho. Babman, Tho. Bennet, Francis Forster, and besought the Vice-Chancellor, Proctors, and Doctors of Divinity representing Convocation to remedy certain grievances in the College, specially concerning the Master and two Fellows. To them a citation was then issued by the Vice-Chancellor, Proctors, Doctors of Divinity, and others, as the ordinary and legitimate patrons and visitors of the College, to appear before them in the College Chapel on Monday, Feb. 4 following between 8-9 a.m.
“On the appointed day there met in the chapel between 8-9 a.m. the Vice-Chancellor, Gilbert Ironsyde, S.T.P., Rob. Say, Byron Eaton, Master of Oriel, W. Lovett, Tho. Hyde, Chief Librarian, Tho. Turner, President of C.C.C., Jonath. Edwards, S.T.P., Thom. Dunstan, Pres. of Magdalen College, Will. Christmas, Jun. Proctor, and others. After the Litany had been repeated, the Vice-Chancellor prorogued the meeting to the common-room, where were present the afore-mentioned Fellows, and in addition Edw. Farrar, Jo. Gilve, Jo. Nailor, Jo. Hudson. The Fellows preferred a complaint that the statutes of the Realm, of the University, and of the College had been violated by Obadiah Walker, Master or Senior Fellow of the College. They objected in particular that he had left the religion of the Anglican Church, established and confirmed by the statutes of this Realm, and betaken himself to the Roman or papistical religion; that he had held, fostered, and frequented illegal conventicles within the aforesaid College; that he had procured to be sequestred unto wrong uses and against the statutes the income and emoluments of the Society; also that he had had printed books against the Reformed religion, and that within the College, and had published the same unto the grave scandal as well of the University as of the College. All these charges were amply proved by trustworthy witnesses, whereupon the visitors decreed that the post of Mr. Obadiah Walker was void and vacant. At the same time, at the instance of the said Fellows, Masters Boyse and Deane, Fellows of the College, who had left the religion of the reformed Anglican Church, were ordered to be proceeded against so soon as a new Master or Senior Fellow was chosen.”
Mr. Obadiah Walker lived for many years after the accession of William and Mary. He was a man of great piety and vast and varied learning, as is shown by his books upon Religion, Logic, History, and Geography. He wrote a book upon Greenland, and made experiments in physics. A near friend of the great benefactor of the College, Dr. John Radcliffe, he sought to convert that famous physician to the Roman faith, but found him as little inclined to believe in transubstantiation as “that the phial in his hand was a wheelbarrow.” In spite of their want of religious sympathy, however, the two men liked each other’s society, and the great physician, who respected Walker’s learning, gave him a competency during the latter years of his life. In the College archives is an elegant letter addressed by O. Walker, then Master, to Radcliffe, thanking him for his gift of the east window of the College chapel. It runs thus: