Biography
Matthew Biggar Walker (b. Dudley 1873 -d. 1950) was the son of a travelling draper. He started his career as a school teacher and moved to Wolverhampton by 1900, when he married Ada Frances Boulton (1870-1953), a daughter of a local butcher and established himself there as a tailor and draper, but returned to teaching and eventually became a superintendent of night classes at Queen Street Chapel and a Sunday school teacher at Red Cross-Street School. From 1910 and until their death, Matthew and Ada Walker lived permanently in 1, Park Crescent, Wolverhampton.
Walker developed a strong interest in art and established close relations with many living artists of the Black Country, such as Frank Short, Sidney Causer, William Strang and Albert Goodwin. By the 1920s he had become known as an art collector and art dealer. His name was first recorded in the Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s acquisition book in 1919, when he donated two works on paper by Frank Short and in 1925 he organised the exhibition of Albert Goodwin (1845-1932). Walker was also a lifelong friend of Frank Brangwyn whom he first visited in London in 1922.
