Early Life
Born in Canongate, Edinburgh to a schoolmaster father, he matriculated at the University of Edinburgh in 1746. Like many aspiring men in Scotland at this time, he took a divinity degree in 1749. He was soon ordained into the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) and spent the next thirty years as a parish minister. However, his duties did not stop him from pursuing scientific subjects in his spare time. Whilst at university he had taken natural philosophy courses and had collected natural history specimens in and around the Lothians. During the 1750s he continued to pursue scientific subjects by studying chemistry under Prof. William Cullen and by joining Edinburgh's Philosophical Society. He distinguished himself not only by winning awards from the society but also by publishing an article in the 1757 edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Under Cullen's patronage, Walker further distinguished himself as a chemist and a mineralogist and this led him to function as a scientific advisor for Lord Bute, Lord Hopetoun, Lord Cathcart, and Judge Advocate Lord Kames.
Read more about this topic: John Walker (natural Historian)
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