Walker, Abraham

Dublin, Ireland; cabinet maker and joiner (fl.1727-d.1763)

Freeman of the City of Dublin as a Joiner by Service, Midsummer 1727. Walker was elected Warden for the Joiners’ Guild from 1733 to 1734. In 1744 and 1747 he was elected onto the Dublin Common Council for the Joiners’ Guild.

Recorded in William Street, 1746-60.

He supplied to William Conolly of Castletown between May 1743 and May 1744 ‘…an oak desk and book case £5 / a mahogany cover for a table £4 10s. / mats and cord 6s / a set of locks and brass work 10s. / a tea box 10s. / a mahogany dining table £2 15s. / a looking glass 6s. 6d. / two tea boards 7s.’ [Castletown MSS, J/ 4/9].

In 1744 he supplied furniture for the rooms of Ralph Howard, the future Viscount Wicklow, when he was an undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin [National Library of Ireland, PC 223 (6)].

Walker had a number of apprentices including John Reily, joiner, Easter 1746 and John Byrne, joiner, Easter 1757.

Dublin Courant, 28 August-1 September 1750: ‘Saturday morning a fire broke out in the work house of Mr. Abraham Walker, a noted Cabinet-maker in William-street but being timely discovered by a gentleman passing by, was extinguished without any considerable damage’.

Source: Glin & Peill, Irish Furniture (2007), p. 290.