His frantic espousal of the Protestant cause, supposed by the timid in the middle of last century to be in some danger in England, earned him a good deal of notoriety and a popular name. Hardly more eccentric was the warm support he gave to the cause of Arthur Orton in his claim to the title and estate of Sir Roger Tichborne. On one of the last visits he paid to Oswestry he called to see a friend. As he was leaving his friend's office he suddenly turned round and asked "Do you believe in the Claimant?" The reply was an emphatic negative. "Ah," exclaimed the departing visitor, "you will come to!" But if Mr. Whalley was a bad prophet in this respect, his instinct did not always mislead him. He believed in himself, which was not only a more substantial faith, but more to the point in this narrative, for it enabled him, by dint of self-assurance, largely to dominate, and occasionally to domineer, the railway world of Montgomeryshire and the adjacent counties and to contribute in no small measure to the successful accomplishment of several local schemes. Conspicuous among them was the Llanidloes and Newtown. Though an isolated link in itself, it was intended to form part of a chain that was to stretch from Manchester and the industrial north to Milford Haven, a famous Welsh seaport, and this dream was constantly in the mind of local promoters whenever and wherever such sectional schemes were discussed. On October 30th, 1852, a meeting was held at Llanidloes, with Mr. Whalley in the chair, at which the project was cordially adopted, a committee formed to further its achievement by raising the necessary subscriptions, and arrangements made for carrying the fiery cross of propaganda to Newtown and Rhayader, and as far afield as Aberystwyth. On this effective errand Mr. Whalley and his coadjutors stumped the countryside, and "inn bills" began to form no inconsiderable item in the promoters' balance sheets. But nothing can be accomplished in this world without effort and expenditure; and to the missionaries' warning words against "the evil of conceding to an overbearing leviathan neighbour any privileges calculated to endanger the independence of their little company," we are informed by a chronicler of the day, "the county nobly responded, and petitions were sent from every district, praying for the recognition by Parliament of the principles so ably enunciated by Mr. Whalley."