Thomas Parry
| Thomas Parry | |
|---|---|
 Stained glass depiction of Thomas Parry | |
| Born | 23 February 1818 |
| Died | 23 December 1879 (aged 61) |
| Occupation | Member of Parliament (1865-66; 1867-68; 1874) |
| Notable work(s) | Donated £1,200 to Boston Grammar School |
Thomas Parry has Boston Grammar School's Parry (green) house named after him.
Thomas Parry (23 February 1818 - 23 December 1879) was a British Liberal Party politician from Sleaford in Lincolnshire. He sat in the House of Commons for three short periods between 1865 and 1874.
Early life
Parry was born in 1818 (according to his tombstone, on 23 February), son of William Parry (1786–1876), of Lincoln, and his wife, Mary Stanley (1799–1868), daughter of Henry Stanley.[1][2][3]
Political life[4]
In the general election of 1865 there was great rivalry in Boston between the two Liberal candidates, the retiring second Member (Boston returned two MPs at the time), Meaburn Staniland, and Thomas Parry an old business associate of Herbert Ingram (a former MP for Boston who had died in office in 1860). John W Malcolm was returned with the largest majority the borough had ever known, the second seat going to Parry, who polled only a dozen more votes than Staniland. Staniland petitioned against Parry's return, accusing him of bribery, treating and undue influence.
On 21 March 1866 a Commons' select committee declared Staniland duly elected, the news was telegraphed to Boston, and when the new Member returned by train to the town that evening he was met by an angry mob. His cab was got safely away only after an desperate 'whipping' by the driver, and the crowd gave chase towards Staniland's home in London Road. Windows in the homes of some of his supporters were smashed on the way but his pursuers dispersed when confronted by Supt. Manton's men (members of the county constabulary) near 'The Folly'. The police hero of the day was PC Joel Smith who 'taking his stand at the hand-gate at the Skirbeck Quarter railway gates, drew his truncheon as they came up and began to wield it about their heads and shoulders with such terrible force that they were perfectly dismayed and ran back as if they were pursued by a regiment of soldiers'. Holland quarter sessions awarded Smith £2 for his 'meritorious conduct'.
On 8 March 1867, by pre-arrangement, Staniland resigned and his Westminster seat was taken by Parry who was returned unopposed at a by-election on 16 March. Staniland had agreed to this, he revealed later, only 'to save his native town the disgrace of disenfranchisement'. The feud between the two men was never resolved.
At the next election, in 1868, the last with open voting, Parry withdrew and both seats went to the Conservatives (John W Malcolm and Thomas Collins Jnr).
Malcolm and Collins both sought re-election in 1874, when the Liberals introduced Herbert Ingram's son, barrister William James Ingram, now proprietor of The Illustrated London News which his father had founded. In this, the first election at which the secret ballot operated Ingram was an easy winner, the second seat going to Parry, staging a comeback. The result was not however allowed to stand unchallenged: Malcolm petitioned against both returns, charging Ingram and Parry with obtaining their seats through bribery and corrupt practices.
At the petition hearing at Boston Sessions House, before Sir William Grove, a justice of the Common Pleas, it was established to the judge's satisfaction that upwards of 800 voters had been bribed by Parry's agents. He ruled that Ingram was 'entirely exonerated from personal knowledge of corrupt practices', and that Parry was 'not personally guilty of corrupt practices', but had been so guilty through his agents. And the trial judge reported to the Commons that 'there was reason to believe that corrupt practices extensively prevailed' at the Boston election.
A royal commission set up to enquire into the matter publicly examined eighty-nine witnesses in lengthy hearings at the Sessions House. The eventual outcome was that Malcolm took Parry's seat; and Ingram warned his supporters that, should he offer himself for re-election, it would be 'independently of any colleague who may be chosen as a candidate in the Liberal interest'. Malcolm represented Boston until 1878.
At the 1878 election Parry was still debarred from standing following the petition verdict, and no other Liberal stood.
Gifts to Boston Grammar School[4]
At the end of 1875 it was announced that Thomas Parry had vested a sum of £1,200 in trustees to provide a number of scholarships to the school and a gold medal, "to the value of ten guineas", to be awarded annually to the best scholar of the year. The original trustees of the Parry Scholarship and Gold Medal Trusts were the mayor (John Maltby), vicar (Blenkin) and headmaster ex officio, Alderman Charles Wright and Councillor JC Simonds; the first clerk was solicitor Benjamin Billis Dyer, who gave services.
It was, said the Boston Guardian on 11 December 1875, "a charitable act... unparalleled in the wisdom of its conception and in the admirable purposes which is has in view". The plan was to fund scholarships of the value of £8 a year each , tp be held for three years, and to be competed for annually by boys of the National and Public Schools, the Wesleyan School, Laughton's Charity School and the two Skirbeck schools. The award would pay the school fees of the successful boys and be used "for such other purposes for their benefit as the trustees may think fit".
No time was lost in putting Parry's plan into operation. Indeed, at that same month's pre-Christmas speech day the first gold medal was hended over: it had, said Major Hopkins, who made the presentation to "his old friend Fred Pattenden" been "fairly and honourably won". The Revd. George Coltman, rector of Stickney, who gave the address, referred to Parry's "truly noble and magnificent gift".
The Boston Guardian, a supporter of Parry wrote of his starting of the trust:
...as the richly laden barque is now fully launched we breathe out a final hope that no hidden shoals or rough weather may impede its course, but that its voyage of usefulness may be a calm and prosperous one, and we are sure we echo the feeling of every right-minded Bostonian when we wish it 'God speed'.
At the December speech day a year later, the headmaster George Edwin Pattenden, whose son had been the first winner of the gold medal, was able to report that the Parry scholars received from the primary schools of Boston and Skirbeck the previous January had made "satisfactory progress". Two of their number ( from the National and Wesleyan schools) had taken the first prizes in the first and second forms, and two others (from the Blue Coat and Public schools) had received honourable mentions in these forms.
Death and legacy[4]
Thomas Parry, who died Mustapha Superieur in Algiers on 23 December 1879 aged 61 while still disqualified from standing for election, had advanced loans totalling £6,600 to 'persons connected with Boston' between his first election for the town in 1865 and his death. He was buried at at Quarrington, Lincolnshire.
External links
- Thomas Parry on Wikipedia
References
- ↑ "Deaths of Note" Exeter and Plymouth Gazette 2 January 1880
- ↑ "Parry, William" National Probate Calendar 1876. "The will of William Parry late of the Bail of Lincoln in the City of Lincoln Gentleman who died 26 September 1876 ... was proved at Lincoln by Thomas Parry of New Sleaford in the County of Lincoln Contractor for Public Works the Son the sole executor".
- ↑ Memorial inscription at "Saint Botolph Churchyard, Quarrington, Lincolnshire County, England" Interment.net. Retrieved 14 January 2015.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Floreat Bostona by George S Bagley - The Old Bostonian Association - ISBN 0951043102