Samuel Walkey (10 July 1871 – 29 March 1953) was an English bank inspector, who used his spare time when travelling to write, and became a prolific author of boy's adventure fiction.
[3] The 1891 census found Walkey boarding with the White family at 26 Fore Street, in Torpoint, across the river from Plymouth.
[5] The couple had three children: Walkey was appointed branch manager of the Devon and Cornwall Bank in Penzance in 1901.
He was still at Newton Abbott as he was crediting to help resolve a dispute between Lloyds and the Urban District Council over highway encroachment by the bank.
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, a fellow Cornishman, saw his writing and introduced him to Max Pemberton, until recently the editor of Chums in 1895.
[3] Adcock states that his wife encouraged him to start writing,[16] but Walkey had his first serial in Chums two years before he got married.
[3] The story was almost immediately published as a book by Cassell & Co., London in 1897 with sixteen full-page illustrations (courtesy of the British Library,[22] as shown below: The following list shows Walkey's publications in Magazines from November 1907, some twelve years after his first known serial in 1895.
Walkey's promotions at Lloyds had taken him from the West Country, but he returned there when he retired,[3] settling at Westcliffe Road in Dawlish, Devonshire, England.
[2] Thomas told how on a visit to a boarding school, he had asked the boys if they had ever heard of Walkey; A shout went up – "Rather!".
for the Spanish Main, Herbert advised boys not to buy the book as it would take away their appetite for cube root and the least common denominator and the pluperfect tense.