John Barnhill Walker (30 October 1883 — 21 November 1953) was a Scottish first-class

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

er and businessman. His brother,

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, was also a first-class cricketer.

Biography

Walker was born at Greenock in October 1883 and was educated at the Glasgow Collegiate. He played

club cricket Club cricket is a mainly amateur, but still formal, form of the sport of cricket, usually involving teams playing in competitions at weekends or in the evening. There is a great deal of variation in game format although the Laws of Cricket are obs ...

with success for Greenock, scoring 169 runs against the West of Scotland in 1912, in addition to captaining the club. Walker played two

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

matches for Scotland in 1912, against the touring

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Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

, and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

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. He scored 45 runs in his two matches, with a highest score of 34. Walker served in the Renfrewshire Volunteer Regiment during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, being commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in April 1918. Walker later became a senior director at John Walker and Co. (Sugar Refiners) and was a direct descendant of its founder,

Johnnie Walker Johnnie Walker is a brand of Scotch whisky now owned by Diageo that originated in the Scottish burgh of Kilmarnock in East Ayrshire. The brand was first established by grocer John Walker. It is the most widely distributed brand of blended Sc ...

. Besides his cricketing and business interests, he also played

rugby football Rugby football is the collective name for the team sports of rugby union and rugby league. Canadian football and, to a lesser extent, American football were once considered forms of rugby football, but are seldom now referred to as such. The ...

for

Greenock Wanderers RFC Greenock Wanderers R.F.C. is a rugby union club based in Greenock, Scotland. The men's 1st XV side currently compete in the ; the women's side currently compete in the . History Greenock Wanderers Rugby Football Club is one of the oldest clubs ...

. He died in November 1953 at Bearsden, Dunbartonshire.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, John 1883 births 1953 deaths Cricketers from Greenock Scottish cricketers Scottish rugby union players Greenock Wanderers RFC players Volunteer Force officers British Army personnel of World War I Scottish businesspeople Whisky distillers