Published 21st Mar 2026, 07:00 BST
He worked to improve education access for working-class children and was a stalwart of the UK’s education reforms of the 1960s, which abolished the eleven-plus exam and introduced comprehensive secondary schools.
He taught art and art history at comprehensive schools and teacher training colleges across Yorkshire and Derbyshire, heading the large art departments at Colne Valley High School in Huddersfield and later at Bingley College, from 1971 until its closure in 1979.
He was also chief regional art moderator for the Certificate of Secondary Education examination.
A child of the depression years, he was born in Otley in 1929.
His father Arthur ‘Alfie’ Walker, a toolmaker, was a committed communist and the Amalgamated Engineering Union convener at Parkinson’s factory in Shipley.
After a wartime education at Prince Henry’s Grammar in Otley, David studied at Leeds and Bradford schools of art and got his teaching certificate from Westminster College in London, before doing his national service with the RAF.
Like many northern socialists of his generation, in his youth he was a “muscular Christian”.
Both a Methodist Sunday School teacher and a keen rugby player, he was hooker for the Old Otliensians, where he sacrificed several of his front teeth.
He was also an avid motorcyclist and outdoor pursuits enthusiast, ranging widely over the fells of northern England and Scotland with his wife Sheila (also from Otley ), his sister Margaret and his brother, Kenneth.
After he retired from full-time teaching, he taught art history at the Open University and dedicated himself to making Yorkshire-themed artwork in mixed media, including landscapes of Wharfedale and studies of the Neolithic rock carvings on Ilkley Moor.
He produced hand-made ceramic trophies for fell races, including the Jack Bloor race on Ilkley Moor and the Three Peaks race.
In middle age, he lost his Methodist faith and became a prolific producer of artisan wines. But he retained a strong commitment to the Christian virtue of charity.
He supported a multiplicity of community organizations in Otley and then Ilkley, where he lived for the last 35 years of his life, singing on the tenor line of the Choral Society and acting for many years as secretary of Ilkley Art Club, which made him an honorary Life Member.
Sheila died in 2021 and he is survived by four children, six grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
