his assistant Roderick (Works, i. 75), he made himself ridiculous by sometimes riding through the streets in ‘high prelatical pomp’ on a black saddle, with a long ivory-headed rod, and sometimes ‘stalking through the town in a dirty striped morning gown.’
The school declined after the departure of the first set of boys. Parr was disappointed in expectations of preferment from William Legge, second earl Dartmouth [q. v.], whose sons he had educated. At the end of 1776 he applied successfully for the mastership of the Colchester grammar school. He obtained, through Bennet Langton, a recommendation from Dr. Johnson. Langton's letter implies that Johnson had some personal knowledge of Parr. Parr moved to Colchester in the spring of 1777. He was ordained priest while at Colchester, and acted as curate to Nathaniel Forster (1726?–1790) [q. v.], who became an intimate friend. Another friend was Thomas Twining, the country clergyman whose letters were published in 1882. A few pupils followed him from Stanmore, but the school did not prosper. He had some quarrel with the trustees, and was glad to move to Norwich early in 1779, having been elected headmaster of the grammar school on 1 Aug. 1778. Beloe was appointed his undermaster at his request, but ‘this worthless man’ soon quarrelled with him and resigned. He acted as curate at Norwich, and preached four sermons, which were his first published works. In 1781 he took the degree of LL.D., and defended two theses upon the occasion in the law schools. His exercises were highly praised by Hallifax, then professor of civil law, but never published.
In the spring of 1780 Parr was presented to the rectory of Asterby, Lincolnshire, worth only 36l. a year, by Lady Trafford, mother of one of his pupils. In 1783 Lady Trafford presented him to the perpetual curacy of Hatton in Warwickshire, on the road from Warwick to Birmingham, when he resigned Asterby in favour of his curate. He remained at Norwich until the autumn of 1785, when he resolved to settle at Hatton, and to take private pupils. He lived there for the rest of his life. He enlarged the parsonage and built a library, which first contained four thousand, and was afterwards increased to over ten thousand, volumes. The number of his pupils was limited to seven, and for some time it was difficult to obtain admission. His politics, however, gave offence after the French revolution; applications became less numerous, and he gave up the business about 1798, when his fortune had improved. His old patron Dartmouth had asked for a prebend at Norwich, which Thurlow refused with an oath; but in 1783 Bishop Lowth, his former diocesan at Colchester, consented, at Dartmouth's request, to give him the prebend of Wenlock Barnes in St. Paul's Cathedral. He was inducted on 23 March 1783. It was worth only 20l. a year at the time, but, upon the falling in of a lease in 1804, became valuable.
In 1789 Parr exchanged his perpetual curacy for the rectory of Wadenhoe, Northamptonshire, in order to enable the rector, Dr. Bridges, to accept preferment which was tenable with Hatton, but not with Wadenhoe. Parr stipulated that he should retain his parsonage, and serve the church of Hatton. Bridges, as the legal incumbent, was bound to preach sermons annually. As these sermons were strongly evangelical, Parr used to employ the following Sundays in pointing out their errors to his congregation (Field ii. 333). Parr also held from 1802 the rectory of Graffham, Huntingdonshire, worth from 200l. to 300l. a year. His friend Sir Francis Burdett heard that Horne Tooke intended to present Parr to a living, and, knowing that Parr hated Tooke, bought the advowson himself and made the presentation (Parr, Works, i. 563). Parr declined two other livings: Winterbourne in Wiltshire, offered to him in 1801 by Lord Chedworth, but at his request transferred to a poor neighbour, James Eyre [q. v.] (Field, i. 421); and Buckingham, offered to him in 1808 by Coke of Holkham (afterwards Lord Leicester).
Coke and Burdett were admirers of Parr's principles; but Parr had put himself out of the road to other preferment by his strong whiggism. He had hopes of a bishopric when the king's illness in 1788 was expected to bring the whigs into power. Soon after the first disappointment his friend Henry Kett [q. v.] suggested a subscription on his behalf, which was supported by Maltby, afterwards bishop of Durham, and Martin Routh. A sum was raised, in consideration of which the Dukes of Norfolk and Bedford paid him (from 1795) an annuity of 300l. Parr again had his hopes upon Fox's accession to office in 1806; but it does not appear that he ever had any definite promises. Parr had already shown his opinions at Harrow and Stanmore. His sermons at Norwich were in the whig tone, and his intimacy there with Samuel Bourn (1714–1796) [q. v.], successor of the well-known John Taylor, whom Parr greatly admired, showed that he had no prejudice against dissenters. Parr, indeed, was timid in action, though sometimes rash in speech, and refused to join in the agitation for a relaxation of the terms of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, begun in 1772, as he afterwards considered the agitation for repeal
