In order to create prejudice, Ring had much to say of Walker’s religious and political principles. He was a Quaker of the Thomas Paine pattern, and like Paine had associated with the French revolutionists; but whilst dressing as a Friend, and associating with Friends, he was too unconformable a personality for their Society, and was never received into membership. Ring’s imputations of rapacity and avarice were grossly absurd as applied to Walker. He cared for nothing beyond support in his work as vaccinator. It was said he would take a £5 note, fold it, stick a pin through it, write an address on the back, and post it. He would rarely vaccinate the well-to-do. If they came to his office, he would ask, “Who is thy medical attendant?” and wrapping up some fresh matter on glasses would say, “Take this with my compliments to thy medical attendant, and he will do what is requisite quite as well as myself.” When he did call at a house to vaccinate, he never asked for a fee, and his biographer, Dr. Epps,[187] observes that he was only known on one occasion to express a wish for remuneration. Meeting a merchant in St. Paul’s Churchyard, whose household he had vaccinated at some inconvenience, he observed, “Friend, if thou has sent by thy servant a draft for my services to thy family, he has either robbed me or deceived thee.” When money was brought to him, he usually called his wife to receive it, she having the undivided care of all that pertained to him apart from vaccination. Of this good woman, Annie, he was in the habit of speaking with an admiration and unreserve that constituted one of his numerous oddities. For example, when Dr. Moore in his History of Vaccination observed somewhat maliciously—
John Walker, it is said, procured a medical diploma from the indulgent University of Leyden; and more excellent work than Walker’s has rarely been performed by a humbler instrument—
Walker good-humouredly replied, that Moore as a Glasgow man naturally preferred his own University to that of Leyden, but he too had cause to love Glasgow—
“Glasgow is a bonnie town, and there are bonnie lasses in it.”
There is not any other spot on the surface of the globe where I have experienced a happiness so complete as I obtained in it in 1799. Let any bachelor who cannot divine what this assertion may mean, be informed, that it was then and there I entered into marriage; and the covenant was ratified in the office of the Clerk of the Peace for the county of Lanarkshire.[188]
Walker was obstinate, but not vindictive. Dr. James Sims offered him £1000 in 1806 to prosecute his adversaries for conspiracy, but he left them to their devices, and proved his quality by outworking and superseding them. He replied to Moore’s flippant version of the causes that led to the division and destruction of the Royal Jennerian Society with perfect self-control and manifest truthfulness, but at the same time with a simplicity not of this world.[189] Jenner’s spite, Ring’s abuse, and the sneers of the superfine did him little harm; and, if vaccination were beneficial, I should have nothing but praise for the good people, who, recognising the sincerity of his work, disregarded trivialities of manner, and supported him loyally as a faithful servant.
Walker was nothing but a vaccinator. Day after day, in rain or sunshine, his lank figure, and self-complacent visage under a white broad-brimmed hat were to be seen making the round of the vaccine stations. When he entered a room, he first glanced at the table on which he expected to find his books. If any mothers had placed their children’s bonnets or garments thereon, they were at once swept off. He then ranged the company in order against the wall like a schoolmaster, and delivered a short address on the protection he was about to confer. The children’s names were taken down with a preliminary caution to speak distinctly. When women muttered or gabbled, the Doctor grew irritable, and would sometimes make a troublesome woman spell her infant’s name half-a-dozen times, adding, “Now thou wilt know how to speak plainly.” Having got the names, he had next to look out for virus. The few mothers who had ventured to return with their vaccinated babes for examination, would perhaps lose courage and attempt to escape, when Walker would dart to the door and arrest the fugitive, saying, “Thou foolish woman! If thou wilt not do good to others, I will bless thy little one,” and would proceed to gather what he called his “Vaccine Roses.” He pursued his operations calmly indifferent to the screams of the children and the complaints of the mothers, and as he disposed of each case pronounced the illusory benediction, “Thy child is safe: fear not: fare thee well.”
Walker died in 1830, aged seventy-one, after a short illness, in which “he refused to take any medicine though himself a physician.” In the Report of the London Vaccine Institution for 1831 we read—
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.