St Paul’s Church was built and endowed by one man, John Walter. As it stands today, the church looks very much as it did when he had completed it. He bore the same name as his father and grandfather before him, and all three of them have their place in the history of this country through their respective parts in creating and developing The Times newspaper, but it is John Walter III who left his mark on Wokingham and its neighborhood by the buildings he erected, notably St Paul's Church and his own estate at Bearwood.

John Walter (III) was born in 1818, and after his father retired from Parliament in 1837, the family lived chiefly at Bearwood. In 1846 his father built St Catherine's Church at Bearwood but by this time he was a sick man, stricken with cancer and in 1847 he died. Thus John Walter became the sole proprietor of The Times on the death of his father. At this time he was 29 years old. He had studied Classics at Oxford and in the year of his father's death he was called to the Bar, at Lincoln 's inn. His time at Oxford had been during the heyday of the Oxford Movement and this had led to some temporary differences of opinion between himself and his father. Like most laymen of his age, his father distrusted the Oxford Movement and never brought himself to understand it. In contrast, like many young men of open minds at the University, John I1I fell under its influence and as a result a change carne over the attitude of The Times towards the Tractarian movement and its leaders.

In practice, John Walter committed most of the active management of The Times to others. His most important contribution was made in 1866 when he perfected a rotary press, which printed rapidly and simultaneously on both sides of a roll of paper. It was about this time that he was giving rein to his very strong inclination for building. He reconstructed The Times offices, and built the large mansion and estate at Bearwood, all to his own design. Though he was a Member of Parliament for many years, and owned the most influential newspaper of the day, his influence on public affairs was exercised unobtrusively. He was a man of a retiring disposition and, unlike the 'press barons' of later years he claimed no authority for his own opinions higher than they were worth. Though he had access to the organs of power, he chose not to use them and hiss personality has remained relatively obscure. His first wife died in 1858, and he remarried in 1861.There was a family tragedy on Christmas Eve 1870,when his eldest son was drowned in the lake at Bearwood. He himself died in 1894, aged 76, and was succeeded by his second son, Arthur Fraser Walter.