Fate was a cruel and deadly curse for this 19^th century church minister who is remembered today by memorials in two Australian cities 1,600 kilometres apart. I told a version of this story on West Bremer Radio.

The Reverend Joseph Walker was a Congregational church minister who probably should have complained about the weather more than most.

He preached in Ballarat in Victoria from 1873 and became president of the colony’s Congregational Union. The foundation stone of Ballarat’s eclectic gothic Congregational church that was built in 1881 – and still stands today (pictured top of page) – bears the name of Reverend Walker.

The cold weather in Ballarat got the better of Reverend Walker, and in 1884 he and his family moved 1,600 kilometres north to Ipswich, Queensland. He preached at the Ipswich Central Congregational Church and was twice elected president of that colony’s Congregational Union.

Reverend Walker’s name was included on a bronze plaque commemorating the jubilee of the Sunday school at the Ipswich church. The Ipswich and Ballarat memorials are irrevocable connections between the two cities that are literally etched in stone and cast in bronze in two separate colonies.

Two of Reverend Walker’s sons founded the prominent Ipswich firm of solicitors Walker & Walker.

One of them Samuel Walker married the granddaughter of William Crush Daldy who was a well-known early 19th century sea captain and New Zealand politician.

The other lawyer son James Walker represented Ipswich in the Queensland Legislative Assembly and was a co-founder of the Ipswich Woollen Company. His partner there was Ipswich’s Doctor Edward Brown whose son set a world record for flying between England and Australia and was killed by a poisoned banana in Pakistan.

Even though Reverend Walker left Ballarat to get away from the cold, it was the weather – albeit the warmer variety in Ipswich – that actually got him and his family in the end.

His oldest son Edwin Walker went to Scotland to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. But Edwin was well used to Queensland’s warmer weather, and so the frigid conditions in Scotland so effected him that he continually caught bad colds and had to come home.

Once back in Ipswich Edwin was treated by Ipswich’s Doctor Harry Lightoller whose daughter today is the ghost of the historic home Dovercourt at Toowong in Brisbane. In any case, Edwin had caught so many colds that he died from acute pleurisy.

As for The Reverend Walker himself, in 1905 he and Mrs Walker were driving their horse and buggy at Annerley in Brisbane. They collided with a tram and were thrown onto the road. But that didn’t kill him.

It was weeks later when he was still not fully recovered that Reverend Walker suffered a serious bout of the tropical disease dengue fever. The fever killed him and today he’s buried in the Ipswich cemetery.

Reverend Walker escaped the cold in Ballarat only to die of a tropical disease in Ipswich. And his son did it in reverse, he went from Ipswich to the cold of Scotland and died of a bad cold. It was their fate.

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Photo credits:
Congregational Church, Dawson Street, Ballarat 2023 – Harold Peacock.
The Rev. Joseph Walker, Congregational minister – Week, Brisbane, 7th April 1905, page 20.
Foundation stone at the Congregational Church, Dawson Street, Ballarat, 2023 – Harold Peacock.
Congregational Sunday School silver jubilee plaque, Ipswich c1902 – Whitehead Collection, Picture Ipswich, Ipswich City Council.
James Ernest Walker – Telegraph, Brisbane, 9th November 1939, page 7.