Charles Walker

Charles Walker is one of Western Australia's significant 20th Century photographers, who captured many aspects of life. He lived in Innaloo.

Maud Thomas writes in the book Along the Plank Road 1989

"Mr C. Walker was probably the most renowned photographer in Western Australia early this century. He was commissioned by the Western Mail to tour the North West for several months, photographing and reporting on early pastoral development. At that time photography was not the press button, fool proof method used today. Great skill was required to record the pictures on glass plates. I have an old school atlas in which is published an early photograph of Perth showing no cars and only low buildings. The caption reads 'Photograph by Charles Walker.' 

Charles, a bachelor, liked to live alone and do his own cooking. My earliest memory of him was giving my parents a fruit pie he had baked, encouraging them to try his cooking - no doubt in return for the meals he shared in our home. Charles had a notion to bury things for safe keeping. When my father went to him for some discarded glass plates to shelter my tomato plants, he stepped the distance and told my father to dig at that spot. In a short while the plates were unearthed.

Later, Charles was ill and a doctor told him that he would have to have his appendix removed. Christmas was approaching and he vowed that he wasn't going to spend it in hospital and that he would have the operation later. When he failed to arrive at our place for Sunday lunch my father, accompanied by a neighbour, went to investigate. They found Charlie in his pyjamas lying dead outside his home. He had apparently felt ill during the night and tried to call his neighbour before collapsing and dying.

Months later when finalising his estate his sister wondered at the small amount of money he had left. He had earned a considerable amount of money and shortly before his death had sold a block of land for 200 pounds, a large sum of money in those days. It was known that he didn't trust banks as he had lost money when an Australian bank collapsed at the end of the last century, and my father always believed that Charlie had buried his money. When new people moved into his house, my father warned them to look out for it. Sometime later when the new tenants were doing repairs to the kitchen wall lining a large rusty tin fell out. They pounced on it, but it revealed only old rusty fish hooks. Years later Italian gardeners bought his property, and all the land was cultivated many times. I wonder if they ever found Charlie's money. Perhaps they never dug deep enough."