Amy Catherine Walton, born Amy Catherine Deck and better known as Mrs O. F. Walton, was an English author of Christian children's books, mainly but not exclusively fictional. She was the daughter of an Anglican priest and married another, with whom she spent four years living in Jerusalem.
Life
Amy was the daughter of John Deck, Vicar of St Stephen's Church, Spring Street, Hull, and Mary Ann Sanderson Gibson, a hymnist. Her career as an author began with My Mates And I, written in 1870 but not published until 1873. Her first published work was My Little Corner in 1872. In 1874 came one of her most famous books, Christie's Old Organ, which has been regularly reprinted up to the present day. It is the story of orphaned Christie and his friend, the aged organ-grinder Treffy. It was introduced into Japan in 1882 and published there in 1885 in a translation by Tajima Kashi. It was one of the earliest books in the history of Christian and of children's literature in Japan, and was re-translated in 1903 and 1994. In 1875 Amy married Octavius Frank Walton, who was her father's curate at the time. It was under her husband's name, as Mrs O. F. Walton, that she would become better known. In the year of their marriage they moved to Jerusalem, where Octavius took up a ministry in a church on Mount Zion until 1879. Meanwhile her book A Peep Behind The Scenes was published there in 1877. It tells the story of Rosalie, a child who works in a travelling theatre. The Waltons lived at Cally, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, for a time, while he worked in the chaplaincy for English textile workers there. From 1883 Octavius was in the ministry at the church of St Thomas's, York, moving to St Jude's, Wolverhampton, in 1893 and Leigh, Tonbridge, Kent, in 1906. There his wife became heavily involved in parish work, to the detriment of her writing. They retired in 1918, but soon returned to live in Leigh. Amy Catherine Walton died in Tonbridge on 5 July 1939, of heart failure caused by a fall in the home.
Still available
Although Amy Catherine Walton wrote many books, it is A Peep Behind the Scenes and Christie's Old Organ that have remained well known. They continue to be available from the Lutterworth Press, successor to their original publisher, the Religious Tract Society.
