 In 1885 he resigned from the Bank of New South Wales to become the first manager of the Royal Bank of Queensland, but in 1887 he returned to New South Wales to manage the estate of Eadith Walker, the daughter of his late cousin Thomas.Walker had a strong interest in Federation and was a member of the Australasian Federation League of New South Wales.In 1896 he attended the People's Federal Convention in Bathurst, where he proposed a financial scheme that would provide savings for a federal government based on income from state taxes and federal spending.