ROBERT
WALKERTHE General Superintendent of the Markets Department of Glasgow Corporation has ten separate establishments under his charge - the cattle market, the dead meat market, the fish market, the fruit market, the cheese market, the clothes market, the bird and dog market, and the three slaughterhouses of the city. The department takes the place of the old Market Trust, and dates only from 1895, when an Act of Parliament unified the several institutions. The markets themselves, however, are much older. Of these, the cattle market dates from before 1818, and is the largest in the kingdom outside London. In the year ending 31st May, 1907, there were exposed for sale in this market, 63,988 cattle, 378 calves, 337,485 sheep and lambs, 15 goats, 3,746 swine, and 18,930 horses.
Mr. Walker was born at Stewarton, Ayrshire, in 1848, was educated at the parish school, and when fifteen years of age began the serious business of life as an apprentice carpenter in Glasgow. Seven years later he migrated to the United States to "try his fortune," but a couple of years' experience there convinced him that he could succeed as well in the old country, and he returned to Scotland. In 1872 he entered the service of the Market Trust, and in the years that followed he, by successive stages, reached the head of the department. At present the staff under his charge numbers over one hundred.