I have been familiar with the Parker/Edwards website referred to by W. John Richardson for some years now.1 This website appears to be an Edwards family history. It repeats several earlier errors regarding William Parker, including incorrect details of Parker’s well documented death. An entry in Wikipedia relating to Parker also has errors.2
CCS members may be interested in the entry for William Parker by Kenneth Breen in the online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. It was updated in 2012 with information from my researches.
The baptismal records for Queenborough, Isle of Sheppey, Kent, record that William Parker was baptised on the 26th December 1742. So it is likely that he was born within the parish of Queenborough during mid to late December. I presume the error of his birthplace being given as Harburn on the websites comes from him taking Harburn in his honours title at the end of the 18th century, when he became 1st Baronet, of Harburn.
The Parker/Edwards website also has errors about his death. William Parker died on the 31 December, 1802, and his death was reported in newspapers on 4 January, 1803. He was buried in the Parker family vault at St Alfege, Greenwich, on 7 January, 1803.
Daphne Joynes
References
- Cook’s Log, page 23, vol. 36, no. 4 (2013).
- wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_William_Parker,_1st_Baronet,_of_Harburn
Originally published in Cook's Log, page 7, volume 37, number 1 (2014).