William Kitchen Parker - Life

Life

Parker was born in the village of Dogsthorpe, near Peterborough in the County of Northamptonshire. Parker's father, Thomas Parker, was a working farmer living in a thatched house built in 1635. Thomas was a Wesleyan of the old school: a Methodist-Churchman, God-fearing and courteous, farming his own land. He married the daughter of another farmer, Sarah Kitchen, whose name was also given to their son William.

William Parker was the second son, and it is with shock that one reads that six other children in the family died in their infancy. He went to a village dame school early in life, then to parish schools in Werrington and Paston. As was the way then, schooling was interspersed with farm-work.

After telling his father that farm-work was not for him, Parker entered the Peterborough Grammar School for nine months, and then started on the road to medical education. He spent three years apprenticed to an apothecary, using his spare time to teach himself about the plants of the neighborhood. His knowledge of botany became remarkably extensive and accurate.

In 1842 he became apprenticed to a country surgeon. During this time he continued educating himself in natural history by reading, looking and doing. The doing consisted of collecting and dissecting birds and mammals, and working up a portfolio of exquisitely beautiful and accurate drawings.

Parker married Elizabeth Jeffery whilst still a student: she was the daughter of the Clerk to the Vauxhall Bridge Company. Her mother was the sister of Joseph Prendergast DD (1791–1875), the Headmaster of Colfe's Grammar School (1831–1857), and the benefactor of Prendergast School, both in the borough of Lewisham.

William and Elizabeth had seven children, three daughters and four sons. The first son became Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in the University of Otago, New Zealand; the second (T. Jeffery Parker) became Professor of Biology in the University College, Cardiff; the third was a draghtsman and lithographer; the fourth was a surgeon. In his work on the vertebrate skull Parker became close to Thomas Henry Huxley, and named one of his sons after him. His second son was sent to study under Huxley, and became one of Huxley's demonstrators.

Parker was elected FRS in 1865, and a few years afterwards the Royal Society gave him an annual grant to aid his work, and a generous Wesleyan friend more than once presented £100 towards the cost of publishing some of his plates. Later in life a State pension was awarded.

The honours and appointments Parker gained later in life were due mainly for his work on the vertebrate skeleton and its significance in establishing a "true theory of the vertebrate skull" (Edward Sabine). His Royal Society obituary notice described him as "An unworldly seeker after truth, loved by all who knew him". He is buried in a Wandsworth cemetery under a cross of red granite.