Eric A. Walker (historian)

Eric Anderson Walker (6 September 1886 – 23 February 1976) was King George V Professor of History at the University of Cape Town and Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at the University of Cambridge. He was a pioneer in writing the history of South Africa and later an important historian of the British Empire, though by the end of his life his work was seen as dated and "Eurocentric".

Walker was born in Streatham, London on 6 September 1886 to a father of Scottish origin. He was educated at Mill Hill School, followed by a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, from where he graduated in 1908.

He was employed as a lecturer at the University of Bristol, but in 1911 took up a lectureship at the South African College in Cape Town, subsequently the University of Cape Town, where he was soon appointed Professor of History at age only 24.

He was a prolific author, writing school text books through to Cambridge histories, and his years in Cape Town were among his most productive. He wrote the first historical atlas of South Africa in 1922, the first one-volume history of South Africa for use in schools in 1926, and in 1928, the first important general history of South Africa written before World War II. He was an accomplished biographer, writing the lives of Lord Henry de Villiers, the former chief justice of the Cape (1925), and W.P. Schreiner (1937). He felt his most readable and long-lasting work was his history of The Great Trek (1934) which he told as a romantic adventure story and which went through many editions.

In 1930 Walker gave an influential lecture in Oxford, printed as The frontier tradition in South African history (Oxford University Press, London, 1930), in which Walker outlined his theory that the origins of the apartheid system in South Africa lay in conflict between blacks and whites on the frontier regions in the nineteenth century which was then imported into the interior where it was institutionalised in the constitutions of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic. Walker's theory owed much to Frederick Jackson Turner and the The Oxford History of Historical Writing described him as "in some respects the George Stanley of South Africa". His ideas in this area have since been largely rebutted.

In 1936, Walker became Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at Cambridge University. He continued to write, but with a wider focus than previously now that his chair enjoyed the title of "Imperial". Walker suffered a heart problem while serving in the Cape garrison artillery, but remained as Captain during the First World War. He was too old to be called up for the Second. Instead he acted as an air-raid warden in Cambridge. By 1942, he was the only history professor still teaching at the University; most of the students had left for the war.

In 1944, Walker had a mental breakdown. He was in a mental hospital for over a year, and in July 1946 underwent a leucotomy (lobotomy), which involved the removal of part of his brain. He subsequently was able to resume teaching.

On the whole, says Ronald Hyam, the war and his mental breakdown meant he had little impact at Cambridge.

Walker retired in 1951, but continued to write. He produced a third edition of his history of South Africa in 1957 (retitled A history of Southern Africa) and edited the second edition of the South African volume of The Cambridge history of the British Empire, published in 1963. This last, however, was criticised for not following the latest historical methods. In 1968, Walker, and wife Lucy, returned to South Africa where he died in Durban in 1976.

Walker was the son of William Walker (1851–?), a shipping company clerk, and Jessie née Goodman (1859–?); he had two sisters and two brothers one of whom was Graham William Walker.

Walker married Lucy Stapleton (1883–1977) - daughter of Edward Stapleton (1883–1977) and Susanna Margaretha née de Smidt (1861–1939) - in 1913 in Cape Town; they had two daughters: Jean (1914–1985) and Hilary (1919–2006).

• Historical atlas of South Africa. Oxford University Press, Cape Town, 1922.
• Lord de Villiers and his times: South Africa 1842—1914. Constable, London, 1925.
• A history of South Africa. Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1928. (From 1957 titled A history of Southern Africa.)
• The SA College and the University of Cape Town: 1829–1929. Cape Times for the Council of the University of Cape Town, 1929.
• The frontier tradition in South African history. Oxford University Press, London, 1930.
• The great trek. A. & C. Black, London, 1934. (Many later editions.)
• Cambridge history of the British Empire. Volume 8. 1st edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1936.
• The British Empire: Its structure and spirit. Royal Institute of International Affairs & Oxford University Press, London, 1943.
• Colonies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1944.
• The Cambridge History of the British Empire. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1963. (Editor)