Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/252

 plates in the line manner are ‘The Revolution of 1688,’ 1790, and ‘The Landing of the Prince of Orange,’ 1801, both after Northcote; and illustrations to ‘Boydell's Shakespeare,’ Sharpe's ‘British Classics,’ Goldsmith's ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ after Stothard, and Le Sage's ‘Gil Blas,’ after Smirke. Parker was a governor of the Society of Engravers established in 1803. He died on 26 May 1805, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes, London.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists, Dodd's manuscript Hist. of Engravers in Brit. Mus. (Addit. MS. 33403); Gilchrist's Life of W. Blake, i. 55; Gent. Mag., 1805, pt. i. p. 586.]  PARKER, JAMES (1803–1852), vice-chancellor, son of Charles Steuart Parker of Blockairn, near Glasgow, was born at Glasgow in 1803, and educated at the grammar school and the college of Glasgow. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he became seventh wrangler, graduating B.A. 1825 and M.A. 1828. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 6 Feb. 1829, practised as an equity draftsman and conveyancer, and went the northern circuit. He was made a queen's counsel in July 1844, and was named on the chancery commission of 11 Dec. 1850, in the investigation of which he took a very prominent part (Parl. Papers, 1852, Nos. 1437 and 1454).

As a conservative he contested Leicester on 30 July 1847 against two radicals, Sir James Walmsley and Richard Gardner, when, although well supported, he was defeated. Walmsley and Gardner were both unseated for bribery, but Parker did not again come forward. Notwithstanding his political opinions, his character as a lawyer was so well established, and the necessity of a reform in chancery, of which he was a zealous advocate, was so urgent, that when Lord Cranworth was appointed one of the first lord justices of appeal the whig ministry selected him to fill the vacant office of vice-chancellor (8 Oct. 1851). He was knighted at Windsor Castle on 23 Oct. following. He at once proved himself an excellent judge. Patient in hearing, careful in deciding, courteous to all, his judgments gave general satisfaction. In the most important issue which he tried, that of Lumley v. Johanna Wagner, a motion for an injunction, on 10 May 1852, to prevent the defendant from singing for Frederick Gye the younger [q. v.], his judgment was able and strictly impartial, and it set forth with the utmost clearness the state of the law as well as the facts. But his career as a judge was cut short by his death, from angina pectoris, at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, on 13 Aug. 1852. He was buried in the adjoining chapel on 20 Aug. On 2 June 1829 he married Mary, third daughter of Thomas Babington of Rothley Temple, M.P. for Leicester. She died at Ashley Place, Westminster, on 20 July 1858, leaving several children, among others Mr. Henry Rainy Parker, born 27 June 1837, and Mr. Charles Parker.

[Foss's Judges, 1864, ix. 233–5; Biographia Juridica, 1870, p. 498; Law Mag. 1852, xlviii. 321–2; Illustr. London News, 1852, xxi. 130, 222; Morning Chronicle, 16 Aug. 1852, p. 5; Gent Mag. October 1852, p. 426.]  PARKER, JOHN (1534–1592), divine, born in 1534, was originally a member of Peterhouse, Cambridge, but migrated in 1552 to Christ Church, Oxford, whence he graduated B.A. on 26 Jan. 1554–5, and proceeded M.A. on 20 Oct. 1558, incepting on 19 Feb. 1559–60 (Reg. Univ. Oxon. Oxf. Hist. Soc. vol. i.) In 1564 he rejoined his former university, being incorporated M.A., and receiving the degree of D.D. on 12 March 1582–1583.

In 1557 he was collated to the rectory of Shipdham, Norfolk (, Norfolk, ed. 1775, v. 1214). In 1560 his friend Richard Cox [q. v.], bishop of Ely, transferred him to the rectory of Fen Ditton, Cambridgeshire; in 1565, through the same friendly influence, he was appointed prebendary and, on 21 Oct. 1568, archdeacon of Ely. On 24 Sept. 1570 he was collated to the rectory of Stretham in the Isle of Ely, which, after resigning the living of Fen Ditton (January 1571), he held till his death. He was, in addition, rector of Bluntisham, Huntingdonshire, from 1573.

Bishop Cox, who died on 22 July 1581, bequeathed him 40l., and the see of Ely was offered him. But, like many others, he declined to agree to the conditions with which the offer was accompanied, considering them to be injurious to the revenues and dignity of the church of Ely. The see remained vacant for seventeen years.

Parker died on 26 May 1592, and was buried four days later in the chancel of Stretham Church, within the altar-rails (, Hist. of Ely, p. 241, gives the inscription on his tomb). He married Winifred, daughter of William Turner, M.D., dean of Wells, the celebrated botanist. By her he had several children: Richard (1572–1629), who is noticed separately; John, born 1574; Peter, born 1576.

He was the author of ‘A Pattern of Pietie, meete for Housholdores, for the better Education of their Families in the Feare of God,’ London, 1592, 8vo (, Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, p. 1180). 