George Walker was for 20 years editor of The Industrial Pioneer, an independent and campaigning workers’ paper which aims to hold a ‘constructive shop floor view of British industry’. An electrical and mechanical engineer by background, Walker succeeded The Industrial Pioneer’s founder and first editor, Joe Hancock, in 1963, becoming its joint Publisher and Editor until his retirement in 1983.
Ill health kept him from active war service, so he volunteered for a government training scheme in tool making. This was followed by eight years at the Philips Electrical’s Mitcham plant in Surrey, where he began writing for a local paper on trade union issues. After the war he spent two years in Canada as the editor of a new industrial journal there. Returning to Britain, he became an engineering craftsman and convenor of shop stewards at the Lucas Group in west London. With his industrial, trade union and editorial background he was invited to take on the editorship of The Industrial Pioneer in 1963.
