Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/241

Parker in the House of Peers, 18 March 1751, on the second reading of the 'Bill for regulating the Commencement of the Year,' was by general request separately printed. Lord Chesterfield wrote of him as the virtual author of the bill, and as 'one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers in Europe,' adding that he 'spoke with infinite knowledge and all the clearness that so intricate a matter could admit of; but as his words, his periods, and his utterance, were not near so good as mine, the preference was most unanimously, though most unjustly, given to me' (Letters to his Son, ii. 76, ed. Carey). Macclesfield's action in the matter was highly unpopular (cf., i. 268; , Hist. lii. 340; , Chesterfield, p. 320; Parl. Hist. xv. 136). When his eldest son, Lord Parker, contested Oxfordshire in 1754, one of the cries of the mob was, 'Give us back the eleven days we have been robbed of;' and a ballad of the day commences: In seventeen hundred and fifty-three The style it was changed to Popery. (, Political Ballads, ii. 211).

Macclesfield was elected president of the Royal Society in 1762, and discharged the duties of the office with great assiduity during twelve years. An account of his observations while at Shirburn of the earthquake in 1755 appears in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' xlix. 370. An honorary degree of D.C.L. was conferred upon him by the university of Oxford on 8 July 1759. He was a member of the French Academy, a vice-president of the Foundling Hospital, and high steward of Henley-upon-Thames. At the funeral of Frederick, prince of Wales, on 13 April 1751, he was one of the pall-bearers. He died at Shirburn Castle on 17 March 1764. By his first wife, who died on 4 June 1753, he had two sons: Thomas, lord Parker, M.P. for Rochester, and his successor as third earl of Macclesfield (d. 1795); and George Lane Parker (see below). He married, secondly, in November 1757, Miss Dorothy Nesbit, by whom he had no children. A portrait of him by Hogarth is at Shirburn Castle, as well as one of his first wife by Kneller. A second portrait, painted by T. Hudson in 1753, hangs in the meeting-room of the Royal Society. It was engraved by Faber in 1754.

(1724–1791), the second son, served many years in the 1st foot guards (lieutenant and captain 1749, captain and lieutenant-colonel in 1755, and second major in 1770); attained the rank of major-general; was appointed in 1773 colonel of the 20th foot, became a lieutenant-general in 1777, and was transferred to the colonelcy of the 12th dragoons in 1782. He was many years M.P. for Tregony, and died in 1791 (, Hist. Rec. 12th Lancers, p. 79; cf. Parker to George Selwyn in Selwyn, i. 277).

 PARKER, GEORGE (1732–1800), soldier, actor, and lecturer, born in 1732 at Green Street, near Canterbury, was son of a tradesman. After attending the King's School at Canterbury he was 'early admitted,' he says, 'to walk the quarter-deck as a midshipman on board the Falmouth and the Guernsey.' A series of youthful indiscretions in London obliged him to leave the navy, and in or about 1754 to enlist as a common soldier in the 20th regiment of foot, the second battalion of which became in 1758 the 67th regiment, under the command of Wolfe. In his regiment he continued a private, corporal, and sergeant for seven years, was present at the siege of Belleisle, and saw service in Portugal, Gibraltar, and Minorca. At the end of the war he returned home as a supernumerary exciseman. About 1761 his friends placed him in the King's Head inn at Canterbury, where he soon failed. Parker incorrectly asserts that his failure was the result of practising extortion in 1763 on the Due de Nivernois, the French ambassador. But that affair happened at another Canterbury inn, the Red Lion. After a subsequent failure in London, Parker went upon the stage in Ireland, and, in company with Brownlow Ford, a clergyman of convivial habits, strolled over the greater part of the island. On his return to London he played several times at the Haymarket, and was later introduced by Goldsmith to Colman. But on account of his corpulence Colman declined his services. Parker then joined the provincial strolling companies, and was engaged for one season with Digges,then manager of the Edinburgh Theatre. At Edinburgh he married an actress named Heydon, from whom, however, he was soon obliged to part on account of her dissolute life. Returning again to London, he set up as wandering lecturer on elocution, and in this character travelled