 Walter Grindlay Simpson From The Robert Louis Stevenson Originals by E. Blantyre Simpson (London: T.N. Foulis, 1912), p.80 "Athelred [Simpson], on the other hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew to shine in conversation. You may see him sometimes wrestle with a refractory jest for a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to throw it in the end. And there is something singularly engaging, often instructive, in the simplicity with which he thus exposes the process as well as the result, the works as well as the dial of the clock"
(RLS, "Talk and Talkers: I", in Memories and Portraits, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Swanston edn, vol ix [London: Chatto and Windus, 1911] pp. 81-93, p. 90)
Walter Grindlay Simpson (1843-1898) was one of RLS’s closest friends from his student days at Edinburgh University. Simpson’s sister, Eve Blantyre Simpson, wrote about their meeting in The Robert Louis Stevenson Originals (1912):
“My father decided during this time, when facing his end, that Walter had better adopt that Bar as his profession, so it came about that the near neighbours and Academy boys, the future fellow-travellers, the 'Cigarette' and the 'Arethusa', at last met at the Speculative Society. R.L.S., speaking of this time, says: 'I had six friends: Bob, I had by nature, then came good James Walter [Ferrier], next I found Baxter, fourth came Simpson, somewhere about the same time I began to get intimate with Jenkin, and last came Colvin'” (E. Blantyre Simpson, The Robert Louis Stevenson Originals [London: T.N.Foulis, 1912] p. 70).
Walter Simpson was RLS’s travel companion, the “Cigarette”, in An Inland Voyage (1878) and also “Athelred” in “Talk and Talkers: I” (1882).
Although Simpson and he spent much of their student days carousing in the pubs in Edinburgh, Simpson should not be dismissed as simply someone RLS turned to for a good night on the town. Aside from their “inland voyage”, RLS and Simpson were regular travel companions. They took canoe trips along the Firth of Forth, travelled to Germany in 1872, cruised the Inner Hebrides on the Heron in 1874, visited Barbizon in 1875, took a walking tour of the valley of the Loing shortly after and visited Grez in 1876.
Simpson had a long-term relationship with Anne (Etta) Fitzgerald Mackay from 1874 and they were formally married in 1881 to the opposition of his sister and brother. In a Letter of 1888, RLS says "Two of [my olf friends] have married wives who love me not" and the editor supposes that this refers to Bob abd Simpson (The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, ed. by Bradford A. Booth and Ernest Mehew, vol 6 [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995], p. 135 and n).
Walter Simpson was the son of Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870), a pioneer in the history of medicine. He introduced chloroform for medical use. He was made a baronet in 1866, and Walter succeeded to the baronetcy in 1870. Walter studied at Caius College, Cambridge University and in 1873 he became a member of the Scottish Bar.
Simpson was Captain of the Honourable Company of Golfers in 1886 and 1887. Indeed, his love for the sport led him to publish frequently on the topic. His The Art of Golf (1887) is still a popular golfing book – a new edition of the work was brought out in 2008 (The Art of Golf [Cambridge: Oleander Press, 2008]).
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