Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/240

Parker wife and children. In 1698 he was keeping a tavern. His undoubted mathematical abilities gained him some friends; it is said that Halley occasionally employed him. He afterwards established himself as an astrologer and quack doctor at the 'Ball and Star' in Salisbury Court, Strand, greatly to the disgust of Partridge, who carried on a similar trade at the 'Blue Ball' in Salisbury Street. In June 1723 he visited Hearne at Oxford, on his return from Worcestershire, and was then accompanied by his wife (Reliquiæ Hearnianæ, pp. 498–9). He died on 16 July 1743, aged 92.

In 1690 Parker commenced the publication of an almanac, with the title 'Mercurius Anglicanus; or the English Mercury,' 12mo, London, which was continued under his name until 1781. In 1703 it was called 'A Double Ephemeris,' and in 1707 'Parker's Ephemeris.' The number for 1720 was entitled 'Parker's Mercurius Anglicanus,' but the title of 'Parker's Ephemeris' was resumed in the following year. Having included in one of his almanacs the Chevalier de St. George, otherwise the Old Pretender, among the sovereigns of Europe, he was fined 50l. and forbidden to publish any more almanacs; upon which he printed for some time a bare calendar, with the saints' days only. He attacked Partridge in his almanac for 1697. Partridge replied with extraordinary bitterness in his 'Defectio Geniturarum' (1697–8, p. 331), the appendix of which, called 'Flagitiosus Mercurius Flagellatus; or the Whipper whipp'd,' is wholly devoted to abuse of Parker. He returned to the attack in a pamphlet entitled 'The Character of a broken Cutler,' and in his 'Merlinus Liberatus' for 1699.

Parker revised the tenth edition of W. Eland's 'Tutor to Astrology,' 12mo, London, 1704, and edited John Gadbury's 'Ephemerides of the Celestial Motions for XX years' (1709-28), 12mo, London, 1709. In 1719 he issued the first number of a 'West India Almanack,' 16mo, London, but did not continue it.

His portrait has been engraved by J. Coignard, W. Elder (prefixed to his 'Ephemeris' for 1694), and J. Nutting respectively. Another portrait, by an anonymous engraver, represents him in extreme old age.

 PARKER, GEORGE, second (1697–1764), astronomer, was the only son of Thomas Parker, first earl of Macclesfield [q. v.], and was born in 1697. He was instructed in mathematics by Abraham De Moivre [q. v.], and William Jones (1675–1749) [q. v.] His father procured for him in 1719 an appointment for life as one of the tellers of the exchequer, and he bore the title of Lord Parker from 1721 until 1732, when he succeeded his father in the earldom. In March 1720 he set out for Italy in company with Edward Wright, who published in 1730, in two quarto volumes, an account of their travels; and on their return Lord Parker married, 18 Sept. 1722, Mary, eldest daughter of Ralph Lane, an eminent Turkey merchant. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 23 Oct. 1722, and sat in parliament as member for Wallingford from 1722 to 1727. His residence at this time was in Soho Square, London; but he spent much time also at Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire, where he pursued his studies under Jones's guidance, and added largely to the library. There, too, aided by James Bradley, with whom he had early formed a friendship, he erected about 1739 an astronomical observatory. Its instrumental equipment, perhaps the finest then existing, consisted of a 5-ft. transit and a quadrant (both by Sisson), clocks by Tompion and Graham, a 14-ft. refractor fitted with a micrometer, besides, as a later addition, a 3½-ft. achromatic by Dollond. The series of Lord Macclesfield's personal observations, begun on 4 June 1740, was continued nearly to his death. Among the subjects of them was the great comet of December 1743. In 1742 he succeeded by untiring exertions in procuring for Bradley, his frequent guest and occasional assistant, the post of astronomer-royal; and he then trained a stable-boy and a shepherd, named Thomas Phelps [q. v.] and Bartlett respectively, to work under him. A curious engraving of the pair in the act of taking an observation is preserved by the Royal Astronomical Society; it is dated 1776, when Phelps was in his eighty-third year. The Shirburn Castle observing books are now in the Savilian Library, Oxford. Their records extend, for the transit, from 1740 to 1787; for the quadrant,from 1743 to 1793. Macclesfield obtained from the Royal Society in 1748 the loan of two object-glasses by Huygens, of 120 and 210 feet focus, and had one, or both, mounted at Shirburn Castle. Hard by he built a large chemical laboratory, supplied with furnaces and other apparatus.

Macclesfield was mainly instrumental in procuring the change of style in 1752. He communicated to the Royal Society on 10 May 1750 a preparatory paper entitled 'Remarks upon the Solar and the Lunar Years' (Phil. Trans. xlvi. 417); made most of the necessary calculations; and his speech