But Walter himself was the soul of The Times.

It was he who gave the tone to its articles, directed its influence, and superintended its entire conduct with unremitting vigilance.
Even in conducting the mechanical arrangements of the paper--a business of no small difficulty--he had often occasion to exercise promptness and boldness of decision in cases of emergency.

Printers in those days were a rather refractory class of work men, and not unfrequently took advantage of their position to impose hard terms on their employers, especially in the daily press, where everything must be promptly done within a very limited time.

Thus on one occasion, in 1810, the pressmen made a sudden demand upon the proprietor for an increase of wages, and insisted upon a uniform rate being paid to all hands, whether good or bad.

Walter was at first disposed to make concessions to the men; but having been privately informed that a combination was already entered into by the compositors, as well as by the pressmen, to leave his employment suddenly, under circumstances that would have stopped the publication of the paper, and inflicted on him the most serious injury, he determined to run all risks, rather than submit to what now appeared to him in the light of an extortion.
The strike took place on a Saturday morning, when suddenly, and without notice, all the hands turned out.