John Walker (1769–1833)

[2] In 1791 Walker was asked by the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion to act as tutor to William Henry, originally from Sligo.

[6][7] Two previous chaplains, Edward Smyth who was brother to the founder and William Mann, had moved on, to Manchester and London respectively; Walker had as colleague Henry Maturin.

Robert Fowler, the Church of Ireland Archbishop, objected, and took steps affecting three of the trustees, the third being Thomas Kelly.

In 1798 Maturin took the living of Clondavaddog, after the murder there the previous year of the incumbent William Hamilton, and Walker became the sole chaplain.

[13][14][15] During the 1790s Walker also took part in revivalist activity in the County Armagh townlands, where Thomas Campbell was minister at Aghory, preaching at Richhill, as did Rowland Hill and James Haldane[16] Walker began to study the principles of Christian fellowship of the earliest Christians.

On 8 October 1804 Walker, convinced that he could no longer exercise the functions of a clergyman of the Church of Ireland, informed the provost of Trinity College, and offered to resign his fellowship.

[3] At the Bethesda Chapel, the trustee Benjamin Williams Mathias became Walker's successor as chaplain, holding the post to 1835.

[13][17] With a congregation of fellow-believers in Stafford Street, Dublin, Walker supported himself by lecturing on subjects of university study.

A report of a conference with the Kellyites, founded by his friend Thomas Kelly, avers that it broke up on Walker's contention that "John Wesley is in hell".