Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/363

Parr brother. His father within a year married Margaret, daughter of Dr. Coxe, a former headmaster of Harrow. Parr was never on friendly terms with his stepmother. She made difficulties about the expense of sending him to college, and it was decided that he should be entered as a sizar, and receive a small sum of money, after the expenditure of which he was to make his own living. He was entered at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, as a sizar on 19 Oct. 1765, and went into residence as a pensioner in the October term of 1765. Richard Farmer [q. v.] was then a tutor, and Parr's schoolfellow Bennet, afterwards a fellow, was an undergraduate. Bennet welcomed him warmly, and he began his studies with enthusiasm. His father died on 25 Jan. 1766, leaving him very little, while his stepmother is said to have been ‘rapacious.’ He was forced to leave Cambridge, though he managed to continue in residence during the whole of 1766, and afterwards kept his name on the books, intending to become a ‘ten-year man.’ (This, under the old system, entitled a clergyman of ten years' standing to the B.D. degree.) He afterwards visited the old college occasionally, and in his later years presented some books and 100l. towards rebuilding after a fire. On 10 April 1784 he migrated for some unknown reason to St. John's College, but must apparently have returned. Robert Sumner, who had succeeded Thackeray as headmaster of Harrow in the autumn of 1760, wrote in September 1766 to offer Parr the place of first assistant, with a salary of 50l. a year, and about as much more in fees. Parr accepted the post, and in February 1767 began his new duties. Sumner was a kind and judicious superior. He sympathised with the whig principles of his assistant. They both had a share in teaching Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the most distinguished Harrow boy of the period (see Parr's letter in 's Life of Sheridan, i. 9). The school rose under Sumner's management from 80 boys in 1760 to 250 in 1771 (, Works, i. 62). Parr was ordained deacon by the Bishop of London at Christmas 1769, and for a short time held a neighbouring curacy. On 22 Sept. 1771 Sumner died suddenly, and Parr became a candidate for the head-mastership. He qualified himself by obtaining the degree of M.A. per literas regias, which was granted on 14 Dec. 1771, on the recommendation of the Duke of Grafton, the chancellor of the university of Cambridge. The governors, however, elected Benjamin Heath, an Eton master. Various causes are assigned. One reason was Parr's youth, although we are told that he now for the first time set up the wig, afterwards a constant topic of ridicule, which, with appropriate ecclesiastical costume, added ten or fifteen years to his apparent age. Field (i. 62), on the authority of Richard Warburton Lytton, grandfather of the novelist, and at this time a pupil of Parr, says that Sumner and Parr had offended the governors by opposing their claim to order holidays at discretion. Parr's own account (Works, i. 63) is that he had voted for Wilkes at the Middlesex election. The boys at the school addressed the governor on behalf of Parr. He was accused, but denied the imputation, of having encouraged them in an insubordinate expression of annoyance. In any case Parr was indignant, and resolved to start a rival school at Stanmore. He borrowed 2,000l. from Sumner's brother, and opened his school on 14 Oct. 1771. David Roderick, the second assistant, joined him, with forty of his former scholars, and the school started with sixty pupils. In November 1771 he married Jane, only daughter of Zachariah Morsingale of Carleton, Yorkshire. The match is said to have been arranged by Dr. Anthony Askew [q. v.], for his own convenience as well as Parr's. Mrs. Parr was a woman with a sharp temper, a keen tongue, and a lively sense of her husband's foibles. Though no open quarrel followed, the marriage produced little ‘connubial felicity.’

Parr's character as a schoolmaster has been described by his pupils William Beloe [q. v.], in the ‘Sexagenarian’ (where he is called ‘Orbilius’) and Thomas Maurice [q. v.] He laid great stress upon Greek, and gave more than usual attention to English composition. He allowed the boys to substitute English poetry for classical verses, at the risk of a flogging if the English were bad. He made his pupils act the ‘Œdipus Tyrannus’ and the ‘Trachiniæ’ of Sophocles (omitting the choruses), and obtained costumes from Garrick. A Greek play is said to have been a novelty in England, though it had been anticipated in Ireland by Sheridan, the friend of Swift. Young's ‘Revenge’ was also performed by the boys. Parr encouraged social meetings of his boys, at which literary discussions took place, and anticipated the more modern love of athletic sports. He not only admired cricket, and smoked his pipe among the spectators, but encouraged pugilism, and arranged that fights should take place at a place which he could see from his study window. His temper, however, was hot and capricious; he praised or reproved to excess; he had his favourites, and his discipline varied from laxity to over severity. He flogged after the old fashion (see Parriana, i. 228, for a pupil's reminiscences of his vigour). According to