Item 1 - Letter to Philip Smith

George Washington Walker (1800-1859), Quaker, shopkeeper and humanitarian, was born on 19 March 1800 in London, the twenty-first child of John Walker (1726-1821) by his second wife, Elizabeth, née Ridley. Because of the death of his mother and the absence of his aged father engaged in the saddle trade in Paris, he was brought up by his grandmother in Newcastle. He was educated by a Wesleyan schoolmaster near Barnard Castle, and apprenticed in 1814 to a linen draper. Impressed by the probity and wisdom of his Quaker employers and James Backhouse of York, a leading Quaker minister, he left the Unitarian persuasion of his family in 1827 and became a member of the Society of Friends. The next year he formed the first Temperance Society in Newcastle.
For more information see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/walker-george-washington-2764

Philip Thomas Smith (1800-1880), lawyer and landowner, was born in August 1800 at Faversham, Kent, England, the son of a landowner. After education at Rochester Mathematical School, he joined the navy as a midshipman and served in the Channel Fleet. He soon left the sea and became articled to Dawes & Son of Angel Court, Fleet Street, and in due course was admitted to the Bar as a solicitor. Deciding to emigrate, he sent £5000 to Van Diemen's Land, sailed in the Royal Admiral with a letter of introduction to Lieutenant-Governor (Sir) George Arthur, some valuable horses (lost in stormy weather) and unassembled parts of a steam-boat, and arrived in Hobart Town in April 1832.
For more information see: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/smith-philip-thomas-2672