Walter Empson

Walter Empson (19 February 1856 – 14 June 1934) was a New Zealand teacher, headmaster and educationalist.

Early life and family Empson was born in Eydon, Northamptonshire, England, on 19 February 1856. He was the eldest of the eight children of Anna Delicia Hook and her husband, Arthur John Empson, an Anglican clergyman. They were to have a daughter and a son.

Retirement In 1903 a charge of immorality was brought against Empson by a school parent. He was exonerated by a judicial inquiry, but the incident precipitated a breakdown of his health. Former students subscribed several hundred pounds to enable Empson, his wife and daughter to take an overseas holiday at the end of that year. Subsequently he was troubled by recurring ill health, which hastened his retirement in 1909.

After visiting their son in India and Walter's brother in Mexico, the Empsons returned to England about 1914–15 to live in quiet retirement. During the First World War they helped care for New Zealand soldiers, work for which Agnes Empson was made an OBE. After the war Walter Empson devoted much of his leisure time to making Braille books for the blind.

Death Empson died on 14 June 1934 at Parkstone, in Poole, Dorset. Agnes Empson returned to New Zealand, where she died at Havelock North on 3 April 1945.