Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/310

 its ‘entire satisfaction’ with the treaty, and appointed Parkes (7 March 1884) minister-plenipotentiary to the king of Korea, in addition to his China legation. On 21 April 1884 he left Shanghai in order to exchange the ratifications of the treaty with the king.

The Korean treaty was the chief result of Parkes's brief tenure of the legation at Peking. The absorbing event of the time was the French attack upon Tongking. Parkes had, it is true, nothing to do with the negotiations ensuing upon this act of aggression, so far as may be judged from the very meagre selection of his despatches hitherto published; but the peculiar conditions of the struggle, when hostilities went on without any declaration of war, and the duties and rights of neutrals were extremely difficult to define and protect, caused him constant labour and anxiety. The anti-foreign feeling stirred up in China by French aggression led to riots, in which the distinction between French and English was naturally disregarded; and at Canton and Wênchow disturbances took place, the punishment and reparation for which demanded all Parkes's firmness and pertinacity. He had to deal with the tsungli yamên, or foreign board, a body even more bigoted and overbearing than the local commissioners, governors, and intendants, with whom as consul he had formerly negotiated, and stormy interviews at the yamên were no unusual occurrence. But never was his influence more decisively felt by the Chinese ministers than when he demanded and obtained (September 1884) the immediate repudiation of the monstrous proclamation in which the Chinese were instigated to poison the French wherever they found them. His last public service was the acquisition in 1885 of Port Hamilton as a coaling station for the British fleet in the North Pacific. He did not live to witness its ill-judged abandonment in the following year. Worn out by overwork and restless mental activity, he succumbed, after a brief illness, to Peking fever, 22 March 1885, at the age of fifty-seven. His body, after every mark of honour and respect had been paid by the foreign communities and both the Chinese and Japanese governments, was brought to England, and buried at Whitchurch. A memorial bust (by T. Brock, R.A.) was unveiled in St. Paul's Cathedral by his old chief, Sir Rutherford Alcock, in 1887; and a statue was erected at Shanghai and unveiled by the Duke of Connaught in 1890. Of seven children (five daughters and two sons), the eldest daughter died in 1872; another, the wife of Commander Egerton Levett, R.N., was killed by a fall from her horse in 1890; and the younger son, Douglas Gordon, succumbed to fever at Penang in 1894. The eldest surviving daughter married, in 1884, Mr. J. J. Keswick, of the China firm of Jardine, Matheson, & Co.

In person Parkes was short and slight, of a very fair complexion, large head, broad high brow, alert expression, and bright vigilant blue eyes. In character he was extraordinarily tenacious of purpose, restlessly active, prompt and energetic, never losing his presence of mind in danger or difficulty, courageous and daring to a fault. Earnest, religious, zealously devoted to his country, and possessed of very clear views as to her interests and imperial duties, his work became the absorbing passion of his life, and any obstruction to that work was visited with impatient wrath and indignation. The admiration and devotion which he inspired among a distinguished band of assistants, some of whom were largely trained by himself, is proof enough that he was a just and generous, as well as a hardworking, exacting, and masterful chief.

[S. Lane-Poole and F. V. Dickins's Life of Sir Harry Parkes, 2 vols. 1894, with portrait, where all other authorities are cited; private information.]

 PARKES, JOSEPH (1796–1865), politician, born in Warwick on 22 Jan. 1796, was younger son of John Parkes, manufacturer, an intimate friend of Samuel Parr [q. v.] and Basil Montagu [q. v.] Like his elder brother, Josiah Parkes [q. v.], he was educated at Greenwich at the school of Dr. Charles Burney [q. v.], but speaks of himself as having been ‘miseducated’ (Parkes to Francis Place, 2 Jan. 1836). After leaving school he was articled to a London solicitor, and became one of the young men who surrounded Jeremy Bentham. His name first occurs in the Bentham MSS. in the British Museum, under the date July 1822 (Addit. MS. 33563). Three affectionate letters from him to Bentham, written from Birmingham in 1828, are preserved (ib.)

When his apprenticeship was finished he returned to Birmingham, and worked as a solicitor from 1822 to 1833. At the age of twenty-eight he married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Joseph Priestley [q. v.] In January 1828 he was secretary to the town's committee for getting the East Retford seats transferred to Birmingham (Parkes to Francis Place, 7 Jan. 1828), and during 1830 spent a month in opposing a scheme for Birmingham grammar school, which had been introduced in the House of Lords (ib. 10 Oct. 1831). From the introduction of the Reform