As the cataloguing of the Hall’s archives progresses, some interesting ‘discoveries’ are being made. Some of the archives have been listed in some form
already but many have not and it’s exciting to find items which may not have been looked at for many years. One such item, found only a couple of weeks ago in a filing cabinet, was a very battered and dirty folder.
I was surprised and delighted to find that the folder was in fact a portfolio of artwork, containing watercolour paintings, drawings and cartoons by Leslie Walker SJ, former Bursar of the Hall.
I knew Fr Walker was a talented amateur artist from reading about him on the website of the British Jesuit Archives, the repository holding most of his personal papers. Those papers include a number of his sketchbooks, such as those he kept whilst a military chaplain on the Western Front in the First World War. What I didn’t know was that we held some of his paintings and drawings here in Campion Hall. Fortunately, despite the folder being rather the worse for wear, the watercolours and drawings inside it were in excellent condition. They were done by Fr Walker in the 1920s and 1930s and depict picturesque scenes from towns and countryside in the UK and overseas. If drawn from life, he appears to have travelled extensively in western Europe, visiting Austria, France, and Switzerland amongst many other countries.
These paintings and drawings form part of a small collection of personal papers of Fr Walker in the Hall archives, many of which are, unfortunately, just as dirty as the folder of watercolours. The reason for this, I discovered, was a deadly combination of the coal fireplace in Fr Walker’s room in the Hall, followed by many years of storage in the Hall attic. Both have given his papers an unfortunate coating of grime.
As Bursar during the 1930s, Fr Walker played a key role in the history of the Hall. As well as being Lecturer in Philosophy, publishing articles and essays on philosophy and theology, he was also the man responsible for the successful construction of the new Hall building here on Brewer Street. Master Martin D’Arcy had the vision and the contacts to enable the Hall to move from St Giles in 1935 to the handsome new building designed by his friend Edwin Lutyens. But the day-to-day work of getting the building built, and liaison with Lutyens and the contractors during its construction, was done by Fr Walker. Fr D’Arcy was away in the United States for long periods, leaving this work entirely in Fr Walker’s hands. D’Arcy himself acknowledged in 1958 that Fr Walker had never received full credit for this role.
