ABSTRACT
Rev. Dr. John Walker was the University of Edinburgh’s Regius Professor of Natural History from 1779 until his death in 1803. During his tenure he taught hundreds of students, many of whom went on become notable scientists, both in Britain and its colonies.2 Over the past two hundred years the importance of his career has been emphasised by historians, sociologists, economists, geographers and scientists, but, to date, a book-length study has not been devoted to his life and work. Although I will draw upon many of these authors, it is the goal of this study to address Walker as an eighteenth-century thinker and as a member of Edinburgh’s culture of natural history. It should perhaps be noted, therefore, that Walker considered himself to be a ‘naturalist’, that is, a person who was knowledgeable of the texts, methods and spaces of natural history. As he once stated, ‘But neither here, nor in the closet, nor in the best furnished Museum, can any one ever expect to become a thorough naturalist. The objects of nature themselves must be sedulously examined in their native state. The Fields of the Mountains must be harvested, the woods and waters must be explored.’3
