Lieutenant Colonel W.K. Walker, D.S.O., M.C.
1st Motor Machine Gun Brigade

I am not opposed to the Vimy Ridge Memorial and plan to be present at the unveiling in July … I am, however, opposed to extravagant war memorials. Particularly when so many of our fine men, who gave their all in the war, are still in need. Anyway, these war memorials will probably only be destroyed in the next war.

(Lt. Col. W.K. Walker, Ottawa Citizen, 11 April 1936, 16)

Born in Cleator Moor, England on 12 July 1888, William Keating Walker was a Church of England missionary living in British Columbia. On the outbreak of the war, despite having no  active military service, he first joined Elliott’s Horse, a small privately raised unit of veteran soldiers. Although many volunteers intended to join their old British regiments on arrival to England, Walker vowed, “I was a Canadian by adoption; a Canadian I would remain, and as a Canadian I would fight.” He was commissioned with the Royal Canadian Dragoons in November 1914. 

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