W

1465

WALKER, SAMUEL LEON (1802–1874)
Samuel L Walker was one of the earliest daguerreotype
photographers in the United States and was widely
regarded as one of the best photographers during the
1840s and 1850s. He lived and worked in Poughkeepsie,
New York.
Walker was born in 1802 at New Salem, Massa-
chusetts, and enjoyed careers as a daguerreotypist and
photographer, writer and spiritualist. There is some
evidence to suggest Walker was an assistant to Samuel
F. B. Morse in New York; he then had a studio in Albany
before moving to Poughkeepsie by 1847. He seems
to have stopped photographing between 1854 and the
early 1860s when wet collodion photography began to
supersede the daguerreotype and poor health limited
his activities. By May 1864 Walker had returned to
photography and was practicing the collodion process
in his Photographic Institute.
The only known collection of Walker’s work is held
by George Eastman House in Rochester, New York,
and the twenty daguerreotypes there consist of portraits
including studies of his own children which Sobieszek
claims are ‘some of the most exciting images created
by the daguerrean artist.’ His daguerreotypes of his
daughters are reminiscent of the work of Lewis Carroll
in their directness and latent sexuality.
He died on 25 April 1874 aged 72 years when he was
described as a man of great artistic taste with a love for
his profession.
Michael Pritchard

WALKER, WILLIAM HALL (1846–1917)
William H. Walker began making a wooden pocket
amateur camera in Rochester from 1880 and by 1883
he was successfully manufacturing dry plates. He gave

up camera making, allowing his former partners to form

the Rochester Optical Company which continued with

the camera making side of the business.

George Eastman recognising Walker’s skills as a

chemist and experience with plate manufacturing of-

fered him a job which he accepted from the beginning

of 1884. He began work on developing what became the

Eastman-Walker roll fi lm holder which allowed a roll of

fi lm to be used with any plate camera. The roll holder

was patented in Britain on 25 November 1884 and in

the United States on 5 May 1885. Through its use of

standardized parts it could be mass-produced and was

made in Frank Brownell’s works, being placed on the

market in 1885. It was produced in eleven different sizes.

The roll holder proved popular with the photographic

press and with amateur photographers so that by 1888

35 percent of negatives at the London Camera Club’s

summer outings were made using it. Rival companies

introduced their designs.

Walker, with Eastman, also designed a paper and fi lm

coating machine and this, with the roll-holder and the

development of a fi lm, was intended to give Eastman’s

company a complete system of fi lm photography.

In 1884 Walker became Secretary to the Eastman

Dry Plate and Film Company and in 1885 he was sent

to London to supervise the company’s European activi-

ties, leading to the establishment of the Eastman Photo-

graphic Materials Company Ltd which was incorporated

in November 1889.

Walker’s relationship with Eastman, which had al-

ways been testy, deteriorated and Eastman himself was

forced to fi nd a factory site rather than rely on Walker.

The Harrow site was purchased, the fi rst for the company

outside of Rochester. Walker was not a businessman and

Eastman found Walker’s negative attitude and repeated

threats to retire tiresome. He fi nally accepted such a

threat and George Dickman was appointed to take over