Sir William Gaston Walkley CBE[1][2] (1 November 1896 – 12 April 1976) was a New Zealand oil company executive.
[3] He was first married at a registry office in Andover, Hampshire, England in July 1919 to Marjory Ponting; this marriage soon ended in divorce.
In 1945 he married Theresa May Stevens, a divorcee who had been his secretary, at St Stephens Presbyterian Church in Sydney.
[3] In 1931, with Hawera car dealer William Arthur O'Callaghan and a series of North Island businessman including the Todd Family, Walkley was a co-founder of the Associated Motorists' Petrol Co. Ltd with the aim of providing customers a cheaper local alternative to the foreign oil companies.
[3][6] In 1953 after striking oil at Rough Range near Exmouth, Walkley walked down Pitt Street, Sydney in a red ten gallon hat, stopping traffic.
At the spudding of Rough Range he had promised to wear the hat, which had been given to him by journalists in Carnarvon, once oil had been struck.
[12] In 1960 Walkley joined the board of the Royal New South Wales Institution for Deaf & Blind Children, becoming president in 1965.
During the late 1960s Walkley heavily lobbied state governments across Australia in an attempt to fund a school for deaf-blind children.
[3] Walkley, with Sir Frank Packer, Richard Dickson, Bill Northam and Noel Foley, was a member of the ownership syndicate of the 1962 America's Cup challenger Gretel.