Road, London, established in Applegarth's old premises by Clowes. He was afterwards allowed to set up a small office of his own. In February 1829 Parker was engaged, on Clowes's recommendation, as superintendent of the Cambridge University press, and his practical suggestions converted the press from a source of loss to a source of profit to the university. In 1832 he left Clowes, and established himself at 445 Strand, where he was appointed publisher to the Christian Knowledge Society, and issued the ‘Saturday Magazine.’ A large variety of bibles, testaments, &c., were also on sale at the Cambridge Repository, which was the style of his house (Bent's Lit. Advertiser, July 1832). On the retirement of John Smith, he was formally made printer to the university of Cambridge, on 15 Nov. 1836, and thenceforth spent two days in Cambridge every fortnight. After a great deal of opposition he introduced steam-power, but the Bible Society long declined to purchase books thus printed. A handsome volume of specimens of bibles, testaments, and books of common prayer, was circulated by him in 1839. In the same year he was appointed publisher to the committee of council on education. He retired from the management of the Cambridge press in 1854. He devoted much attention to education, and was a warm friend and supporter of John Pyke Hullah [q. v.] He started a printing-office at the back of the Mews, Charing Cross, and afterwards removed to St. Martin's Lane, where he took Mr. Harrison into partnership, and ultimately relinquished the business to him. ‘Fraser's Magazine’ was published by him, as well as the writings of John Stuart Mill, Buckle, Lewes, Whewell, Whately, Hare, Maurice, Kingsley, Froude, and others.
After the death in 1860 of his eldest son, John William Parker (1820–1860), who had been in the business since 1843, Parker took into partnership William Butler Bourn, who had been his principal assistant for nearly thirty years. The business, including stocks and copyrights, was, however, sold in 1863 to Messrs. Longman. Parker died at Warren Corner House, near Farnham, Surrey, 18 May 1870, aged 78. He was twice married. By his first wife he left two daughters. His second wife, who survived him, was a daughter of Dr. Gideon Algernon Mantell [q. v.], the geologist; by her he left one son and two daughters.
[Robert Bowes's Biographical Notes on the University Printers … in Cambridge, a reprint from the Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications, 1886, pp. 329 sq.; Bookseller, 1 June 1870, pp. 491–2, and 16 Jan. 1861, p. 2; Athenæum, 17 Nov. 1860, p. 673; Curwen's History of Booksellers, pp. 317–24; Smiles's Men of Invention and Industry, 1884, pp. 216–217.]
PARKER, MARTIN (d. 1656?), ballad-monger, seems to have been a native of London and a royalist. In ‘Vox Borealis’ (1641) he is described as ‘the Prelats Poet who made many base ballads against the Scots, for which he was like to have a taste of Justice Long's liberality [Justice Long = the Long Parliament], and hardly escaped the powdering tubb, which the vulgar call a prison; but now he swears that he will never put pen to paper for the prelats again, but betake himself to his pitcht Kanne and Tobacco and Pipe, and learne to sell his frothie Pots againe and give over Poetrie.’
Whether Parker had ever been a tavern-keeper (as seems here implied) there is no evidence to show; but he was not converted into a roundhead, as in 1643 he produced the words of the celebrated song, ‘When the king enjoyes his owne again,’ the authorship being settled by the remark of Gammer Gowty-legs in ‘The Gossips' Feast’ (1647): ‘By my faith Martin Parker never got a fairer brat; no, not when he penned that sweet ballad, “When the king enjoyes his owne again.”’ The original refrain, however, was ‘When the king comes home in peace again’ (Roxburghe Collection of Ballads, iii. 256; Loyal Garland, 1671 and 1686; Ritson, Ancient Songs). Ritson calls it the most famous and popular air ever heard in this country. Invented to support the declining interest of Charles I, the song served with more success to keep up the spirits of the cavaliers and promote the succession of his son. It was naturally used to celebrate the Restoration, while after the revolution it became a loyal adherent of the Pretender. Parker perhaps died in 1656, when he is commemorated in ‘A Sportive Funeral Elegy,’ written by ‘S. F.’ upon the ballad-writer, along with ‘Robbin the Annyseed Seller,’ and ‘Archee’ the king's jester [see Armstrong, Archibald]. Parker's familiar signature, ‘M.P.,’ was attached to numerous ballads after this date, but the popular initials may well have been borrowed by Lambert, Cotes, and other printers whom Parker had been in the habit of supplying. On the other hand, the assumption of Parker's death while he was still alive may have given point to a depreciatory ‘elegy’ such as that by ‘S. F.,’ who was probably one of Parker's rivals. Yet the fact that no retaliatory ode by Parker is discoverable must be considered as strong evidence that he was not alive after 1656.
Equally at home in the sentimental and the
