William Walton

William "Binx" Walton, (1836-1919), singer and morris dancer from Adderbury, North Oxfordshire. He was the chief source of songs, providing both secular and religious materials, and information on the Adderbury morris tradition, for the collector Janet Blunt.

William was one of a family of at least six children. His father - also William Walton (1806-1848) - died in prison, having been convicted on two counts of theft (two bushels of wheat taken whilst threshing, and a sixteen pound cheese stolen at night from a shop in Adderbury High Street). Following his father's death, William entered the workhouse, until apprenticed to a bricklayer and builder. Married in his early twenties to a yong woman from Coventry, William also fathered over six children. He and his family lived in one of a group of five small cottages in Back Lane, an area which was considered the slum part of the village (the street name has since been changed, because of its less than savoury reputation). Both in childhood and adulthood he is thus likely to have been all too familiar with hardship and want.

Walton supplemented his income as a mason by working as a newsagent, and later as shopkeeper and landlord of The Wheatsheaf public house.

His father, William Walton Senior, had been leader of the Adderbury Morris Dancers, and Binx also fulfilled this role; in fact he was the last leader of the side, prior to the late twentieth century revival of the tradition.

Both he and his brother John also took part in bell-ringing in the village church.