John Parr

John Parr (1 June 1722 – 7 October 1798) was an English merchant and shipowner. He was bailiff and mayor of the Borough of Liverpool in 1773. The Parr family of Liverpool Confusingly, there are three (more or less related) John Parrs listed among the prominent merchants in the Liverpool Directory of 1766: John Parr of Old Church Yard, merchant; John Parr of Frederick Street, gunsmith; and John Parr of Water Street, draper. Edward Parr of Castle Street, merchant and apothecary, also listed, was the first cousin of the present John Parr. Edward was a merchant and slave trader with West Africa, the West Indies and Chesapeake Bay; member of the African Company of Merchants, 1752; shipowner (True Blue, 1758, etc.); and rumoured to be 'the second richest man in Liverpool'. John Parr of Frederick Street and (later) of Argyle Street, Liverpool, and of Elm House, West Derby (which he built, c. 1777), gunmaker, is distinguished in records as a Presbyterian. He is of the line described by Bernard Burke as "Parr of Lythwood". He was born about 1734 and died 15 March 1798; his will dated 1794 and probated in Chester, 30 September 1799, described 'very large and commodious workshops and warehouses' for the gun trade in Liverpool, in the area of Argyle Street where he lived, extending to Pitt Street. His eldest son John Parr, born 1767, is recorded as an insolvent debtor of Elm House, ‘out of business’, by February 1840. His third son Thomas Parr (slave trader), born in 1769, succeeded him in his business as a Liverpool merchant.