Samuel Parkes

Samuel Parkes (1761–1825) was a British manufacturing chemist, now remembered for his Chemical Catechism. Life He was born at Stourbridge, Worcestershire, on 26 May 1761. He was the eldest son of Samuel Parkes (died 1 April 1811, aged 76), a grocer, by his first wife, Hannah, daughter of William Mence of Stourbridge. He was at a dame's school in Stourbridge with Sarah Kemble, and in 1771 went to a boarding-school at Market Harborough, Leicestershire, under Stephen Addington. Parkes began his career in his father's business. In 1790 he was one of the founders, and for some years president, of a public library at Stourbridge. Around 1793 he moved to Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. A Unitarian, he conducted public worship in his own house at Stoke. In 1803 he settled in Goswell Street, London, as a manufacturing chemist. He joined Sir Thomas Bernard in agitating (1817) against salt duties, which were repealed in 1825. In 1820 he was prominent, as a chemical expert, in a notable case between Messrs. Severn, King, & Co. and some insurance offices. He was a numismatist, and made a collection of Greek and Roman coins; he was a collector also of prints and autographs, and brought together a set of the works of Joseph Priestley. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1822 and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1823.