THIS SERIES CONTAINS RESTRICTED MATERIAL.

Dr Walker, a medical practitioner, observed and treated a variety of people for an array of illinesses, ranging from dental problems to infectious diseases during his travels and professional life, some of which may be documented in Mrs Walker's diaries. Doctor and Mrs Walker also observed and described some Australian Aboriginal ceremonial activity and associated materials.

A significant number of photographs have been noted for restricted access, either as being culturally sensitive or because of the graphic nature of some medical conditions. During his service in the Australian Imperial Forces during 1918-1919 Walker was employed in medical facilities for the treatment of venereal diseases and documented some cases in his diary and photographs. Items which have access RESTRICTIONS have been filed in volumes AA357/2/73A and AA357/2/73B.

Walker had some correspondence with TD Campbell (AA52) and 69 prints of what are presumed to be Walker photographs are contained in AA52/6/6 (Album 6).
The Walkers visited Bon Bon Station (SAMA1053) in 1927 and a number of photographs of the homestead and persons are incorporated in the collection.

Where inventory items are blank a photograph has been reprocessed into a numbered sequence.

The series also contains a number of envelopes which were used to hold prints and negatives as well as some ephemera such as press cuttings, pages from diaries and correspondence. These items can be "accessed" by means of the format entry.

Where photographs were received into archives in tins and boxes a representative sample of each type or style of tin or box has been retained as archival ephemera.

While most prints have not been annotated with personal name, date or location an indication of the context can be gained by reference to annotations on the envelopes in which they were retained by the Walkers. Other annotations (eg instructions for making prints for panoramas) may also be useful in placing prints into their context. An attempt has been made to order prints in a logical sequence. As noted above and below the diaries of Dr and Mrs Walker note photographs taken and these entries will assist to place unannotated photographs within their context. AA 357/4/26 (summary of Christmas greetings 1924-34) may also provide a useful means of identifying people and places in photographs which do not have an annotation.

The Walkers gave a very large number of photographs to their friends and relatives. Those items annotated "TGA" (to give away) are prints made for the purpose of providing duplicate copies to be given as Christmas or greetings presents. A significant number of these duplicate prints have been offered for sale in Australia, and a number of them may be contained in other archival collections (eg PRG 908 State Library of South Australia). A large number of prints have also been published by the Walkers in various newspapers and journals. These pamphlets and reprints are described and indexed in an as yet to be described series.

Indexing.
An index entry in the "Finding Aid" should provide access to all relevant references. While the 'Details' column for each "Inventory Item" is entered in 'natural language,' constraints in the indexing system may distort the text with additional punctuation or searchable index strings. All personal names and locations contained in annotations have been indexed, however, names may be misspelt and index system anomolies may provide some unexpected results.

A representative variety of prints have been selected and these images are incorporated as part of the item inventory in the finding aid.

Many prints are duplicated through the album volumes. The principal reason for this seems to be that the Walkers made a variety of uses of their photograph: including subject arrangements for lectures; publication illustration and exhibitions; the provision of prints for gifts (some times annotated "TGA" (to give away)); the creation of panoramas and attempts at commercialisation for post cards. Most panorama sets have been arranged seperately, but some are to be found in the 'loose prints' volumes. They can be accessed via the 'formats' filter.Some of these sets were numbered (including photographs from the Western Front 1919 numbered 1-320 and red sequence "Life of the Kangaroo"), and others (including "Images of the Interior" are un-numbered but were maintained together. These sets are arranged and described in a discrete set of volumes.

The series comprises many contact prints of photographs taken by the Walkers to illustrate their travels intermixed with a few post card size prints. Photographs are, as far as possible, displayed in the order in which they were deposited. Each group is preceeded by any identifying data provided by the donor. Some effort has been taken to link diary entries to date and geographical area the subject of groups of photographs. There is a good deal of duplication of individual photographs.

Some of the prints have been damaged or deteriorated because of storage conditions prior to deposit. Where a damaged print is annotated an endeavour has been made to stabalise it and retain it as a record even if it is incomplete. Most such photographs will be fully accessible via a duplicate print, lantern slide or nitrate negative.

The nitrate negatives from which these prints were made are stored seperately and identified as AA 357/6. Where possible nitrate negatives have been associated with the print group from which they came by means of an alpha/numeric (eg CZ12) identifier.

A further series of records associated with the prints and their negatives is AA 357/7 mounted lantern slides prepared for the illustration of lectures.

A series of commercial postcards (AA 357/5) compliments the travel photographs.

Photographs of family and friends (both those taken by the Walkers and those received) are included in this series.

Both the photographs from Australian travels and the various factories visited in the UK document include what I describe as "Industrial artifacts", engineering technology and employee working conditions encountered. These encompass many aspects of occupational health and safety as well as work flows and processes.

The series includes material received in separate accessions including 'Native from Ooldea East, West Line, formerly AP5083', 'Native showing gashes made with a stone knife in sorrow during mourning for a deceased relative, Powell Creek, Northern Territory, formerly AP5375', 'Eight photographs of Australian Aboriginal men taken in 1926 at Parkside Mental Hospital accessioned as AA 221 Dr Mocatta as follows: 3975 Frank, 3976 Frank, 3977 Illtie, 3978 Illtie, 3979 Tommy Dodd, 3980 Tommy Dodd "Yuthu-doodminna' from Cordillo, 3981 Illtie, Tommy Dodd and Frank, and 6822 Magunya Fowlers Bay.' In addition there is a green 'Leltona' post card envelope annotated "Walker, Dr WD Natives in Parkside Asylum." Photographs by W Walker 1926'. A further processing note is annotated 'Acc No 52 Walker, DR WD (no negs).' which have been redocumented. Dr Mocatta's material also contains additional descriptive material on the indivudual patients.