Bernard Fleetwood-Walker

Who was Bernard Fleetwood-Walker?

Bernard Fleetwood-Walker was an English artist and teacher of painting.

Bernard Fleetwood-Walker was born on 22 March 1893 in Birmingham, United Kingdom, a twin and one of five children. His father, William Walker was an electrical engineer and co-inventor of the Walker-Wilkins battery, while his mother, Electra Amelia Varley was granddaughter of the 19th century watercolourist Cornelius Varley who, together with his brother John Varley, had been amongst the founder members of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1804.

He was educated at Barford Street School and at King Edward’s Grammar School, Five Ways and went on to train in the arts as a silver and goldsmith. Through working as a modeller and on low relief he developed an interest in painting and furthered his studies at the Birmingham School of Art and Crafts, as well as in London and under Fleury in Paris.

During the First World War he served in France as a sniper in the Artists' Rifles and was wounded and gassed. Various studies exist showing he continued to draw while in the army and a fellow soldier, years later in a letter to the artist’s widow, described mural decorations he painted for Christmas 1918 on the wall of a warehouse being used as a mess-hall in the deserted village of Auberchicourt, near Douai, using dry colours found in a builder’s yard mixed with ‘the glutinous substance you get from oatmeal porridge’. These materials were ‘food and drink to him’ and he regarded the war years as wasted time.