Family and Education

b. 12 Oct. 1723, 1st s. of George, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, and bro. of Hon. George Lane Parker.  educ. Hertford, Oxf. 1740.  m.12 Dec. 1749, Mary, da. of Sir William Heathcote, 1st Bt., M.P., of Hursley, Hants, 2s. 3da.  suc. fa. as 3rd Earl of Macclesfield 17 Mar. 1764.

Offices Held

Biography

Lord Parker was a regular supporter of the Pelhams, and one of the Whig candidates in the great Oxfordshire election of 1754. In 1761 he attached himself to Bute. In January Bute told Anson, first lord of the Admiralty, ‘that he thought my Lord Parker should be brought into Parliament and asked whether that could not be in some Admiralty borough’; and, at his meeting with Newcastle on 4 Feb., included Parker among the three men the King wished to see in Parliament. ‘I will certainly take care of them’, wrote Newcastle, ‘on very easy and certain conditions’; and Parker was returned for Rochester on the Admiralty interest.1

On 13 Nov. 1761 he seconded the Address, and in November 1762 was considered for proposing the Address on the peace preliminaries.2 He supported Grenville’s Administration and voted with them over general warrants, 18 Feb. 1764.3 He rarely spoke in the House.

He died 9 Feb. 1795.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: John Brooke

Notes

• 1. Namier, England in Age of American Rev. 166, 176.
• 2. Fox to Bute, 30 Nov. 1762, Bute mss.
• 3. Parker to Grenville, 18 Feb., Grenville mss (JM).