Richard Walker (philosopher)

In 1717 Richard Bentley, who had a difference with the junior bursar, John Myers, removed him, and recalled Walker to Cambridge to fill his place.

On 25 June 1735, at the instance of John Colbatch, a senior fellow, the court of king's bench granted a mandamus addressed to Walker, requiring him to execute the sentence or to show cause for not doing so.

Walker, in reply, questioned the title of the bishop to the office of general visitor, and the affair dragged on until 1736, when Green's death put an end to the attempts of Bentley's opponents.

In 1744 Walker was appointed professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge, and in 1745 he was nominated rector of Thorpland in Norfolk, a living which he exchanged in 1757 for that of Upwell.

He was devoted to horticulture, and had a small garden within the precincts of Trinity College which was famous for exotic plants, including the pineapple, banana, coffee shrub, logwood tree, and torch thistle, which, with the aid of a hothouse, he was able to raise.