John Walter has been given a bad press in local history articles and websites.
The most serious piece of work about him that I know of is the article by Adrian Henstock in the Thoroton Society Transactions vol. LXXXV (85) for 1981 entitled: "A Parish Divided: Bingham and the Rev. John Walter 1764-1810"
Other, more recent writers, by and large anonymous, appear rather to have enjoyed slightly exaggerating the problems that undoubtedly occurred between Mr Walter and at least some of his parishioners.
He came to Bingham in 1764 after the death of the previous Rector who had been ill for many years and whose parish duties had been fulfilled, I think, by his son-in-law and curate Richard Kirkby. Mr Kirkby was also the Rector of Gedling, and I suspect that he and his wife had hoped to succeed her father and remain at Bingham, which was a wealthier living than Gedling.
Mr Kirkby had a curate at Gedling, George Beaumont, who lived there with his wife, children and unmarried sister. The Kirkbys for whatever reason did not get the living of Bingham, so they now moved to Gedling. George Beaumont, it would appear, was sent to do duty at Bingham. This I hasten to say is not proved, but is the story that seems to me to emerge from the facts I know at present. It is an aspect that Adrian Henstock does not dwell on, or at least does not explain, but nothing that he does say is inconsistent with this.
George's wife had a child in 1765, and this child was christened at Bingham, one of the indications that they were living there. And so I think it was that John Walter became a friend of the Beaumonts. George's unmarried sister Susannah married him in 1767.
John Walter was from the West Midlands where, according to Adrian Henstock, his father had been "a well-off Birmingham sadler's ironmonger." John had been to Magdalen College, Oxford. I believe he was brother of Richard Walter who died aged 50 in 1788 to whom there was a monument in Handsworth church (near Birmingham).
I suspect that Walter contacts in the West Midlands and indeed in business were useful to some of Susannah's many nephews and nieces. When Richard Walter's widow Anna Maria died at Handsworth some years later, Richard Beaumont (1761-1828, then a resident of Birmingham) was in attendance and indeed Anna Maria had been a Burnaby - a member of a wealthy largely clerical family related quite closely to the Beaumonts.
Read Adrian Henstock's article and decide for yourself about John Walter's character and the characters of some of his parishioners.
Later I am sure John Walter was a frequent visitor at George's son Rev Thomas Beaumont's new house at East Bridgford, as well as at the house at Gedling that W.E. Elliott (a Beaumont in-law) had bought from Thomas Smith.
There's no doubt that these people ate well. A scrap of verse (Box 18/314) speaks of having "Nunky" over to dine, and I think that means John Walter:-
Dear Nunky, Richard gives us hope
That you and he and Mr Cope
Tomorrow, if the day be fine,
Will come to Bridgford Hill and dine.
They promise too to catch some fish,
By way of making a top dish;
But say they do not care a button,
So they can have a Joint of Mutton.
A saddle now is in the larder.
And of cold lamb a nice fore quarter.
But we have neither Beef nor Veal,
So hope on these you'll make a meal.
What shall I say? This Muse turns pale,
Whenever she thinks of Bingham Ale,
Oh, no comparisons we'll make!
But what we have we hope you'll take,
And make allowance for the Muse,
Who promises when next she brews, /
She will produce some glorious liquor.
Fit e'en for Rector or for Vicar.
In short, for want of better cheer,
Deficiencies of Beef or Beer,
You'll have a hearty welcome here. T.B
Richard may mean Richard Beaumont of Birmingham, who I suspect was John Walter's godson. When John Walter died, in 1810, generous legacies came to our family and Rev Thomas Beaumont was one of the executors. Perhaps he found that verse invitation in the late Rector's desk.
Can anyone identify Mr Cope for me?
A few other random things have been handed down. One is a small brass token (Box 1/233):
Was this for authenticating access to a deed box at a bank or lawyer's office?
Another thing from his desk, perhaps, is a letter to him in 1797 concerning the death of his sister-in-law Anna Maria Walter in Handsworth, near Birmingham (Box 18/309). There is a great deal of information in this document and I hope to make it available.
And there is this receipt for the legacy duty, issued in 1813 to Thomas Beaumont by George Smith the local Distributor of Stamps as "Collector of the Legacy Duty." He was the son of the builder of Gedling House, and Rev Thomas Beaumont's (not too distant) cousin. This is Box 18/322; the name was wrongly catalogued as "Richard John Walter" when the document was in Nottinghamshire Archives (it was DD 2184/3/22 there).
I do wonder whether George Smith wrote out all such receipts in his own hand, as appears to be the case here.
