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PARKER, Hugh (1673-1713), of Honington, Warws. and Ormond Street, Holborn, London
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Family and Education
bap. 16 Dec. 1673, 1st s. of Henry Parker*. educ. Magdalen Coll. Oxf. 1690; I. Temple 1690. m. Anne (d. 1733), da. and coh. of John Smith of Beaufort Buildings, the Strand, Westminster, 4s. 3da.1
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Biography
Parker inherited his father’s interest at Evesham when the latter retired from politics after desisting before the poll in January 1701. The prospect of Parker’s return in November 1701 was not perceived in a favourable light by the Whig William Walsh*, who would have preferred John Rudge*. Lord Spencer (Charles*) concurred with this opinion, marking Parker’s return as a loss for the Whigs. Likewise, Robert Harley’s* analysis of the newly elected Parliament listed him with the Tories. Further evidence of his party orientation emerges from his first session in the House where his name appeared on a list of those who favoured the motion of 26 Feb. 1702 vindicating the proceedings of the Commons over the impeachment of William III’s ministers.2
Parker was returned again in 1702. He was named to draft a local navigation bill in December. He may have voted against agreeing with the Lords’ amendments to the abjuration bill on 13 Feb. 1703, as the compiler of the list put down his father who was not then a Member. He acted as a teller for the first time on 17 Feb. 1703, in favour of a clause offered on behalf of Colonel Luke Lillington at the report stage of the bill continuing the Act appointing commissioners to state the debt due to the armed forces during the previous war. In the following 1703–4 session he shared in the management of a bill to enable the widow of William Keyt of Clopton, Warwickshire, to vest a Somerset manor in trustees for the benefit of her children, presenting it on 26 Nov. 1703. Similarly, in the 1704–5 session he helped to manage William Trafford’s estate bill through the Commons. Although he was only added to the committee on the bill as an afterthought, he reported the bill on 5 Feb. and carried it up to the Lords on the 10th. On the most controversial issue of this session, the Tack, he was listed as a probable supporter of the measure in the forecast of 30 Oct. 1704. From Harley’s lobbying list, Lord Portland and Parker’s father-in-law, an excise commissioner, were deputed to speak to him, but to no avail as he voted for the Tack on 28 Nov.3
Returned for Evesham in 1705, Parker was noted as ‘True Church’ in an analysis of the new Parliament, and he confirmed this stance on 25 Oct. 1705 when he voted against the Court candidate for Speaker. Furthermore, on 11 Dec. 1705, he acted as a teller against giving a first reading to a bill from the Lords providing for the better security of the Queen and her government (the regency bill). On 12 Dec. 1707 he told unsuccessfully against allowing a clause to be brought up at the report stage of the land tax bill which would have allowed the commissioners to charge the six hundreds in Monmouthshire as they had in 1697 and 1698. His final tellership occurred on 17 Feb. 1708, when he opposed a motion that the Tory Frederick Tilney was not duly elected Member for Whitchurch. An analysis of the House compiled early in 1708 classed him as a Tory.
Parker was probably defeated at the 1708 election and there is no evidence that he stood again. He died v.p. on 2 Jan. 1713, at Kensington Gravelpits, after a long illness described by a contemporary as ‘a consumption’. In his will he left instructions for his burial in the family vault at Honington. He activated a power in his marriage settlement allowing him to raise £8,000 in order to provide for his children, and he appointed his wife, father-in-law and brother Harry as their guardians. His widow married the 10th Earl of Clanricarde [I] (Michael Bourke) in 1714.4
