His father, Charles Truscott, a photographer, and his mother Susanna were from Cornwall, but Walter was born while they were living in London for a short while. He trained at the Lambeth School of Art and was good friends with another Cornish artist, William Christian SYMONS.

While living and working as a photographer and painter in Falmouth, Walter Trustcott is assumed to have exhibited a portrait at the 48th annual exhibition of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society in 1880.

During the 1880s he became a war correspondent during the Sudan War for the Pictorial World.

Truscott remained single and died of smallpox while visiting Venice in 1890.