Early Years
He was born in London, England, on 19 February 1810. Parnell's father was a gentleman named James Parnell, and his mother Joan Parnell. He trained as carpenter's apprentice until 1834, when he took a job at a joinery on Theobald's Road in London. As carpenters in London routinely worked 12 to 14 hours per day, the problems with such long working days would have been painstakingly clear to him. Parnell argued about the length of the working day with his colleagues. Around the same time, a Grand National Consolidated Trades Union was being formed, and Parnell asked the union to support the shortening of the working day. The union did not agree, and so Parnell did not join the union, but instead set up his own business.
On 6 September 1839, Parnell married widow Mary Ann Canham, and only eleven days later, the newly wedded couple set off together for New Zealand. For £126, Parnell had secured the boat fare, and the right to 100 acres (40 ha) of country land, and 1-acre (4,000 m2) of land in the area then called Port Nicholson and now the city of Wellington, New Zealand. The couple left on the Duke of Roxburgh on 17 September 1839, and landed on Britannia (Petone) Beach on 8 February 1840.
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