WALTER CHARLES CORIN (1873-1934), the eighth of Edwin Paul Corin's twelve children, was born in Devonshire Road, Sydenham, on 25 March 1873.

He was sent away to school in Cambridge. This would probably have been Champney's School, located in Bateman Street between 1886 and 1889. The headmaster was a devout member of the Plymouth Brethren. (The school, later known as Ebor School, moved later to Bexhill under the headmastership of Arthur John Henry Brown (1866-1934), and Walter's youngest brother, Jack (Herbert John), probably attended it.)

On leaving school, Walter's ambition was to sail before the mast. His mother arranged with a Captain, also a Plymouth Brother, for him to join the crew of his sailing ship, promising to keep an eye on him during the voyage to Australia.

Walter's brother, William, had arrived at Launceston, Tasmania, in November 1895, and Walter probably visited him. Later he tramped round Tasmania with his sketch book and paints, making sketches of farms and landscapes in exchange for a night's board and lodging.

The trip cured him of his desire for a seafaring life, and his mother paid his passage home. However, he always retained a strong love of the sea, and there was nothing he enjoyed more in his later years than messing about with his youngest brother, Jack, and his wife, Winnie, in their cabin cruiser, the Jolly Roger.

His first real job was with a firm of legal publishers, which he found exceedingly dull, and soon left.

The chronology of this period of Walter's life is unclear. It was about this time that he took up photography. For some unknown reason he gave up photography and went farming in Canada. Possibly it was his restless spirit and a desire to see more of the world.

On the night of 5 April 1891, the census records him as an 18-year-old visitor in the house of Robert Gosling, a 58-year-old baker and confectioner at Stow Park Terrace, 75 Stow Hill in the St Woolos district of Newport, in Monmouthshire. Robert had three daughters, aged 20, 18 and 14, and a William Smith, an 18-year-old corn merchant was also visiting on that night. Walter described himself as a seaman, in employment.

The South Wales Evening Telegraph of Saturday 4 April 1891 noted that At no time this year has the trade at the docks been so slack as it is now, and there are no vessels of any consequence in the river. The consequence is that a great number of seamen are in search of employment. Walter's job could explain how he paid his passages to Canada and to Australia.

He farmed in Manitoba for a while. Whilst he was there, he became engaged to the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. He returned to England for a holiday to see his mother, and then decided that Canada was not the life for him. (A W Corin, aged 21, is recorded as travelling from Southampton to New York in 1895, but it is not certain that this was Walter.)

According to his daughter Enid, he was apprenticed to Frederick and Richard Speaight and Company, who were at 178 Regent Street from 1897 until 1903, when they moved to 157 New Bond Street. The two brothers, Frederick William (1869-1942) and Richard Neville Speaight (1875-1938) were well-known West End society photographers. However, Richard Speight was younger than Walter and had himself begun an apprenticeship with Martin and Sallnow in 1893, while Frederick was still a printer's traveller at the time of the 1891 census.

Walter became a Member of the Royal Photographic Society in November 1897, having exhibited two prints in the Society's autumn exhibition (Christmastide and A Norfolk River) and one in 1898 (At Daybreak - On the Seine). He also worked with a photographer in St Moritz, Switzerland, for a short time.

His next job was in Cork. He was living at Thornhill Cottage, Blackrock, Cork in 1898 (when his brother, Fred also joined the RPS). In 1901, he was boarding at 7 Langford Place, Cork. Although the two young schoolchildren who also boarded there, and the two sisters who ran the house, declared themselves members of the Church of Ireland, Walter described himself as "undenominational." He was with Guy's, who were a big firm in St Patrick's Street with a stationery, luggage and fancy goods shop in front, and a photographic studio above, and a large printing works and wholesale business at the rear. (His daughter Enid remembered the pleasure of being shown over this as a child, and of being made a fuss of by the staff.) He was employed to go around the country taking views for postcards, which the firm printed and published, and also visiting hotels and taking pictures for their brochures.

His fiancée, realizing that he did not want to return, broke off their engagement.

A note in the 1901 proceedings of the Cork Naturalists' Field Club records that Walter exhibited "photographs and some models of Celtic crosses from Cornwall" at their November exhibition in the School of Art.

It was in Cork, while living at 7 Eldred Terrace, Douglas Road, that he met Clara Andrews, the eldest daughter of Thomas Andrews, Governor of Cork Prison, and of his wife Annie Sidwell Andrews, née Watts. In due course they were married at St Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork, on 2 September 1902.

The couple lived in Cork for a year or so, and then in 1905 or 1906 Walter obtained a job managing a studio in Sale, Cheshire. They moved to Lime Place, 30 Northenden Road, Sale (occupied in 1905 by John Berry, photographer). However, Clara hated this part of England, and they lived there only a couple of years. While they were there, their daughter, Enid, was born on 14 February 1906.

Walter was anxious to own his own studio, and eventually he bought the studio in Ewhurst Road, Cranleigh, Surrey. The studio had been purpose-built a few years earlier by Henry Upperton Knight, who had emigrated to British Columbia. Clara and Enid left Sale on 19 February 1907, and went to stay for a short time in Wellingborough, with Clara's sister, Emily Foster. After a month or so with the Spinks in Chislehurst, they moved to Cranleigh on 14 April 1907. The family lived in a spacious, semi-detached house, 'The Hut', facing the Common. (They only formally acquired the leasehold on 29 May 1918.) The family spent many happy years in the delightful village. 'W.C.'s chief pleasure was playing bowls ("the old man's game", he used to call it), and every summer evening one would find him on the bowling green. He was also a keen chess player, and in 1911 was chairman of the Cranleigh Chess Club.

Like his father-in-law, he was a freemason. He joined the lodge (71) in Cork in 1899. He was a founder of the Cranleigh Lodge (3445), which was warranted on 21 April 1910, and was installed as its Senior Warden on 8 October 1913. He was also a founder of the Hindhead Lodge (5183), warranted on 3 March 1930. At the time of his death, he was treasurer of the Cranleigh Lodge, and held the ranks of P.P.A.G.D.C. (Past Provincial Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies) and P.P.G. Pursuivant, and was P.Z. of the Royal Alfred Chapter, Guildford (777).

He had a keen interest in photography, and already in 1910 had experiemented with the new Autochrome process - some colour pictures of his are in the Surrey Record Office (JPG:1 2 3 4)(TIFF:1 2 3 4)

In addition to the studio in Ewhurst Road, Cranleigh, Walter also opened a studio in Haslemere some time before 1915. Here he formed a partnership with a talented young photographer, Alfred Keith Dannatt (1883-1961). The Dannatts and the Corins remained family friends.

On 28 June 1915, Walter enlisted as an Aircraft Mechanic, and was given the service number 206020.

The Cranleigh Corins always spent Christmas with Walter's mother, Eliza, until her death in 1916, and after that with Jenny and Charles Spink at Chislehurst, where most of the family gathered for dinner. When the Spinks moved to St Ives, this was dropped, and Walter, Clara and Enid visited them in spring instead. Here Walter loved to wander with his camera, taking pictures in the quaint streets and on the beautiful coastline.

He still enjoyed sketching, and whenever his eldest brother Edwin and his wife Annie visited them, he would take time off to go out sketching with them. Around 1920, Cranleigh was quite an artists' colony, and Walter knew them all. His particular friends were W Heath Robinson (1872-1944) and Lawson Wood (1878-1957), both well-known artists, and a less well-known but very clever artist called Joseph Longhurst (1872-1922), who was a near neighbour and spent much time in the Corin home. These men sometimes took their sketching materials and went out for the day together.

Walter served on Cranleigh Parish Council from April 1928 to March 1931. During his time as a councillor he was a member of the Commons and Footpaths, Sanitary and Village Hall Committees.

In October 1934 he quite suddenly fell ill at the studio, in spite of which he took one of his loveliest portraits. The appointment had been made, and he was determined not to disappoint the lady.

He took to his bed, and three weeks later, on 12 November 1934, he died in a London nursing home, of cancer of the liver. The Surrey Advertiser of Wednesday 14 November carried his obituary.