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Annie Louisa Walker

Anglo-Canadian poet

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ3428844 ↗
Source-derived summary

Anna Louisa Walker (23 June 1836 – 7 July 1907) was an English and Canadian teacher and author. She wrote five novels and two collections of poetry and edited an autobiography. Her poem "The Night Cometh" provides the text of the popular hymn "Work, for the night is coming".

Early life and teaching

Anna Louisa was born to Robert and Anna Walker on 23 June 1836 in Brewood, Staffordshire, England. She was the youngest of her father's nine children, although only her two brothers Thomas Andrew Walker and Charles were full siblings, the older ones being from her father's two previous marriages. Her father was a civil engineer, who took the family to Pointe-Lévy, Lower Canada, about 1853, where he was employed on the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1858, the family relocated again, to Sarnia, Canada West. Soon after their arrival, Anna Louisa and her sisters Frances and Isabella founded a private girls' school. The school was only open a few years before the deaths of Frances and Isabella forced its closure.

Poetry

Annie Louisa began publishing poems in newspapers and periodicals when she was a teenager.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Annie Louisa Walker” is anglo-Canadian poet. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Annie, Louisa and Walker, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1836, 1907, 1853, 1858—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1836-06-23. For this dossier, Annie, Louisa and Walker is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “anglo-Canadian poet” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3428844. VIAF identifies the subject as 105861832. The Library of Congress control number is n87928926. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1836, 1907, 1853 and 1858.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Annie Louisa Walker”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Annie Louisa Walker primary sources, Annie Louisa Walker archive and Annie research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Annie Louisa Walker”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Annie Louisa Walker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.