Walker, JOHN

Walker, JOHN (1674-1747), author of the Sufferings of the Clergy, was a native of Exeter, of which his father was mayor, and had his education at Exeter College, Oxford, where he became fellow, graduating M.A. in 1699. He became rector of St Mary-the-More, Exeter. His famous work is entitled An Account of the Sufferings of the Clergy who were Sequestered in the Grand Rebellion (folio, 1714). The work itself was called forth by Calamy's Abridgment of the Life of Mr Baxter, nearly half of which is the famous Particular Account of the Ministers who were ejected by the Act of Uniformity, and Calamy himself replied to it in The Church and Dissenters compared as to Persecution (1719). Withers, a dissenting minister of Exeter, also made a reply, and still more Neal in his History of the Puritans. Walker estimates at from seven to eight thousand the number of clergy 'imprisoned, banished, and sent a-starving.'