Hilda Annetta Walker

Walker and her Family Walker was born in 1877 in Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire, one of eleven siblings, Her brother James (b.) was chairman of the Yorkshire Liberal Party and of the National Liberal Party. was awarded the Military Cross in the First World War. Her brother Eric Walker (1896 – 11 April 1983) was an RAF flying officer, who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in the First World War, and was mentioned in dispatches for his contribution to administration for Bomber Command in the Second World War. Previously he had been president of Spenborough Chamber of Commerce. Her brother Cyril Gordon (1885 – 27 March 1918) was killed in the First World War. Her sister Mrs Ethel M.E. "Mary" Atkinson (b.1875) was a councillor for West Riding County Council. Her sister Dora Muriel Walker (2 July 1890 – 1980) was the first woman to run a fishing trawler out of Whitby and was a VAD in Belgium and France in the First World War. In the Second World War Dora continued to fish, but also assisted in London air raid shelters. Walker's sister Kathleen Marguerite (9 January 1883 – 1976) was secretary to Ramsay Macdonald, a journalist and an author. Walker had two other siblings: Lieutenant-Colonel Hubert Walker (b.1886) father of artist Marie Walker Last, and Vera Evaline Walker (24 November 1887 – 1979). Four of Walker's nieces and nephews including Marie Walker Last served in the military during the Second World War. She was the great great aunt of James Northcote (actor).

Walker attended Leeds College of Art, studying painting under William Gilbert Foster, and sculpture under William Charles Holland King, sculptor of Dover Marine War Memorial. until the 1930s. Other early addresses were The Outpost, Mirfield, and an address in Leeds. Between the wars, Walker performed public duties; for example in March 1925 she opened a sale of work at Cleckheaton, for the Liberal Club there.

Second World War During the Second World War, Walker produced war paintings, and undertook some public engagements. In Mirfield War Weapons Week, May 1941, she opened the Yorkshire Observer's War Photographs Exhibition at Trinity School, Easthorpe, North Yorkshire. While there, she took time to praise the artwork of the school pupils. In January 1942 she presented the Mirfield Hospital Supply Services Depot with pieces of blanket from her father's factory. They were sewn together to make blankets. One of these was presented to the Princess Royal (later to become Elizabeth II) who "was pleased to accept one for use as a pattern for her own depot". In May 1943, Walker presented art prizes of savings stamps at the RAF Equipment and Photographic Exhibition at Mirfield, where children had entered a competition for Wings for Victory Week. This was part of a wartime campaign by Mirfield to raise £70,000 for the war effort, and the children's competition was the opening feature of that week.

Post-war Walker and her brother Hubert donated several artworks to public art galleries. When John Ely Walker died in 1943, they donated the paintings Fruit Girl by James Northcote and The Golden Bough after J. M. W. Turner to Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery. At an unknown date, Walker donated Runswick Fish Wife by her teacher William Gilbert Foster to Kirklees Museums and Galleries.

Death Walker died aged 82 on 3 June 1960 at Greystones nursing home in Heaton, Bradford. She left over £29,000 to her sister Dora. Walker's niece Marie Walker Last had the use of her house at Hebden after her death. also for her oil paintings and watercolours, especially views of Wharfedale, and portraits of horses, Her many bronze and marble sculptures were portraits and figures, however some existing versions are reproductions of her work.

Works Walker's sculptural works include Pixie, The Water Baby, Dian, Katharine Marie Walker, Across the Sands O' Dee (1923), Sleep (1924) and Sleep-mask (1925). and in Paris, besides the following venues. 1901 October, Leeds Art Gallery: Break, break, break, at the foot of the crags O sea!, described as a "free effect". 1902–1955, Cartwright Hall, Bradford: Joe (1902); The gate of summer, Early autumn, Norfolk, Shere Khan, pictures (1903); Peter Pan, sculpture (1920); Trebarwith Strand, picture (undated); Eve bronze statuette (1938); Col. James Walker, DSO, DL bronze head, The Seer bronze head (1940); Marie marble head (1941); Blue Shadows, Wharfedale, watercolour (1945); The Wave plaster, Sleep bronze mask (1947); Melisande in the Wood bronze statuette, Michael Ward, actor bronzed plaster head (1948); The Tenderfoot statuette, Skipper Dora plaster head (1949); Eve bronze statuette (1950); Diana marble bust (1952); The Seer bronze (1955); 1909 July, London Salon of the Allied Artists Association at the Royal Albert Hall: The Sands O' Dee, Trebarwith Strand and Shere Khan. Shere Khan was sold at this show for £10,108 . 1910 October, former Walker Galleries, London: a trio exhibition with Lester Sutcliffe RCA and his wife. Walker showed monotypes. One of the coloured ones was Moorland, and one of the black and white ones, Chillon, "arrest[ed] special attention". The Queen magazine said: "They are undeniably clever and attractive, and are meeting with much praise from experts". 1920 Leeds Art Gallery, Annual Exhibition of Works by Artists of the Northern Counties: various works. 1923 Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Spring Exhibition, Sculpture Across the Sands O' Dee. 1926 January, Suffolk Street Galleries, London: two sculptures, of bronze and of plaster, each titled Peter Pan. 1927 October, Forum Club, London. 1928 April, Mirfield Society Exhibition, Ings Grove House, Mirfield: "A collection of paintings and sculpture ... A figure in bronze of her father, Mr John Ely Walker, was specially admired". 1928 Leeds Art Gallery various works. 1939, Wakefield City Art Gallery: Bronze head of Miss Estelle Stead. 1941 June, United Artists' Society exhibition, London: The Bradford Observer said, "Young England guarding the cliffs in khaki strikes an imaginative note, since he wears his respirator at the "alert," but no tin hat. She also gives us Skipper Dora, a young woman in oil-skins at the rudder, unperturbed by bombers over a convoy at uncomfortably close range. Here is a pleasant escapist show". 1949 March, Forum Club, London: "sculpture, water colours, and a number of paintings on wooden panels where the artist uses the grain of the wood as part of the composition". One work, Lovely Cottage, shows her own Hebden-in-Craven cottage with roses around the door, named after the 1946 Grand National winner. 1950–1958, Society of Women Artists: various works, including the bronzes The Late Viscount Simon, KCVO, KCSI, MC, Sleep, The Seer and Peter Pan, as well as Ophelia in marble. Sculpture Miss Estelle Stead (1939) at The Hepworth Wakefield.