[O'Byrne's Nav. Biogr. Dict.; Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. i. 639; Gent. Mag. 1848, pt. i. p. 305; Service Book in the Public Record Office.]
PARKER, Sir GEORGE (d. 1857), major in the East India Company's service, cantonment magistrate at Cawnpore, was second son of Vice-admiral Sir William George Parker, second baronet of Harburn, Warwickshire, who died in 1848, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of James Charles Still of East Knoyle, Wiltshire. Vice-admiral Sir William Parker, first baronet (1743–1802) [q. v.], was his grandfather. He was educated at Addiscombe, and proceeded to India as an infantry cadet in 1833, but was not posted until 30 Jan. 1837. He was then appointed lieutenant in the late 74th Bengal native infantry, in which he became captain on 3 Oct. 1845. After serving as second in command of the Bundelkund military police battalion, of the Joudpore legion, he was appointed superintendent of Akbárí and joint magistrate at Meerut on 10 June 1847. In June 1852 he went home sick, and succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his elder brother, Sir William James Parker, the third baronet, in the same year. Returning to India in December 1854, he, on 5 May 1856, was reappointed superintendent of Akbara and made magistrate at Cawnpore. During the siege, Parker, Wiggins, the judge advocate-general, and Brigadier Alexander Jack [q. v.] were the only residents who courageously remained in their houses (Malleson, Hist. Indian Mutiny, 6th edit. ii. 228). He died of sunstroke during the sortie of 6 July 1857, ten days before the massacre. He had obtained a majority a few days earlier.
Parker married, first, Miss Marshall, by whom he had a son, George Law Marshall (1838–1866) (who succeeded to the baronetcy), and two daughters. He married, secondly, in 1847, the youngest daughter of Lieutenant-colonel Elderton; she also died, leaving daughters only.
[Foster's Baronetage; East India Registers; Malleson's Hist. of the Indian Mutiny, 6th edit. vol. ii.; Trevelyan's Story of Cawnpore; Gent. Mag. 1857, pt. ii. p. 467.]
PARKER, HENRY (d. 1470), Carmelite, was brought up at the Carmelite House at Doncaster, whence he proceeded to Cambridge and graduated D.D. He then returned to Doncaster, where apparently he spent the rest of his life. Villiers de Saint-Etienne calls him the Aristarchus of his time, and says he was a staunch advocate of clerical poverty. On one occasion, preaching at Paul's Cross in 1464, he vehemently attacked the secular clergy and bishops for their arrogance, pride, and self-seeking (Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, p. 180; Gregory's Chronicle, p. 288). According to Pits, he wrote out this discourse and showed it to any one who wished to read it. For this offence he was imprisoned by the Bishop of London. He died in 1470 (Villiers de Saint-Etienne, Bibl. Carmel. i. 628, quoting Lezana, Annales Sacri, ad annum 1470, a work of which the first three volumes only are in the British Museum Library).
Villiers de Saint-Etienne and others attribute to Parker the following works: 1. De Christi Paupertate, liber i.; incipit ‘Simul in unum Dives et Pauper.’ 2. Dialogus Divitis et Pauperis, liber alter; incipit ‘Dives et Pauper obviaverunt.’ 3. In Aristotelis Meteora, libri iv.; incipit ‘Intentio Philosophi in hoc primo.’ Pits says he wrote many other works, but does not specify them. Of those mentioned by Villiers, the last is not known to be extant; the second is no doubt substantially the same as the well-known treatise ‘Dives and Pauper,’ which is always attributed to Parker; and the first may be identical with the chapter ‘Of Holy Pouerte’ prefixed to the ‘Dives and Pauper.’ This work, written in English, is extant in Harleian MS. 149, and has been several times printed; another manuscript was extant in the library of Lichfield Cathedral. Cornelius à Beughem, in his ‘Incunabula Typographiæ,’ mentions an edition of 1488, but this is a mistake. The first edition was that of Richard Pynson [q. v.], 1493, folio, and it was the first of Pynson's books with a date that Ames had met with. The title-page is missing in the extant copies, and the work begins ‘RIche and pore have lyke comynge into the worlde.’ The colophon is: ‘Here endith a compendiouse Tretise dyalogue of Diues and Pauper, that is to say, the riche and the pore fructuously tretying upon the commandementes | fynisshed the v day of Juyl the yere of oure lord god mcccclxxxxiii. Emprentyd by me, Richard Pynson, at the Temple barre of London, Deo gracias.’ Copies of this edition are in the British Museum, Lambeth, Spencer, Chatsworth, and Huth libraries. Besides the dialogue on the ten commandments, in which Pauper convinces Dives of his duty with respect to each of them, the book contains a chapter ‘Of Holy Pouerte;’ it is in double columns, without pagination. Another edition, published by Wynkyn de Worde, Westmonstre, 1496, folio, is identical with the first, except in orthography; a third was published by T. Berthelet in 1536, 8vo, single columns, with pagination. The title-page bears the date 1534, but the colophon says it
