We publish on Page 1 the portrait of Mr. Russell D. Walker, who, as we mentioned last month, was known to an older generation of cricketers as one of the celebrated trio—R. D., I. D., and V. E. Walker— who played for the Middlesex C.C. in the 'sixties and 'seventies. Apart from his fame in this direction, however, Mr. R. D. Walker was one of our best-known billiard amateurs in his early days, and even now, although in his eightieth year, he is keenly interested in the game. At one time he was a member of the Billiards Control Council, and he retired from that body only just before the war.
Mr. Walker was born at Southgate on February 13, 1842, and was educated at Harrow and Brasenose. Called to the Bar, he entered Lincoln's Inn in 1871, but did not practise. Cricket and billiards filled a large part of his time, and at Oxford he was known also as a racquet player. He figured in both the singles and doubles from 1861 to 1864.
In the Harrow cricket eleven in 1859-60, Mr. Walker played for his University from 1861 to 1865, and during the last three years of that period he also played in the Middlesex County team, continuing as a member of that distinguished club until 1877, when he played his last game with them. The same year he resigned from the M.C.C. Committee, of which he was a member 1869-71 and 1874-77. In 1876 and 1877 he won the silver tennis prize.
Mr. Walker can recall the occasion, somewhere in the 'seventies, when, at a club formed by John Roberts in the West-central district of London, he (Mr. Walker) defeated all comers in a match on the old championship table.
Mr. Walker is a staunch supporter of the old style championship table as opposed to the present-day standard model, and The Billiard Player hopes, in its next number, to give his views concerning this matter.
Mr. Walker's most treasured cricket reminiscence is that of the match between Gentlemen and Players in 1865. It was the Gentlemen's first victory since the 'fifties, and also the occasion of the first entry into cricket of "W. G." at the early age of sixteen.