[1] He was born in Bath, Somerset and died at Lucknam Park, near Colerne, Wiltshire.
The son of John Walmesley (d. 1860) of Ince, Preston and his second wife Ellen Long (daughter of Wiltshire landowner Richard Godolphin Long), Walmesley was educated at Winchester College and from 1835 at St John's College, Cambridge.
[2] He was in the cricket eleven at Winchester as a middle-order batsman, but in the 1836 Cambridge trial match, he batted at No 11, though he still managed to be the team's top-scorer in the second innings, with 13 not out.
[2] His tomb-chest inside Colerne parish church has his effigy in marble, wearing a nightshirt and holding a bible, and is described by Pevsner as "very realistic".
[5] He is further commemorated by a tall stone column in the centre of the village's market place.