A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Parker, George
PARKER, K.C.B. (Admiral of the Red, 1837. f-p., 34; h-p., 40.)
Sir George Parker was born in 1767, and died 24 Dec. 1847. He was son, by Miss Gore, of the late Geo. Parker, Esq., elder brother of Admiral Sir Peter Parker, Bart.; and was cousin’of the present Sir Chas. Christ. Parker, Bart., Captain ll.N. His ancestor, the Rev. Dr. Parker, was Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
This officer entered the Navy, 21 Dec. 1773, under the patronage of his uncle Sir Peter Parker, who promoted him, 13 March, 1782, to the rank of Lieutenant. He had then served throughout the whole of the American war. In 1786 he obtained an appointment to the Wasp sloop, on the Downs station; and on his removal, in 1788, to the Phoenix 36, Capts. Geo. Byron and Rich. John Strachan, he sailed for the East Indies. While on that station he was actively employed, in the boats and on shore, in co-operation with the army under Sir Robt. Abercrombie during the war with Tippoo Saib; and he was also, 19 Nov. 1791, present, in company with the Perseverance frigate, in an obstinate action (produced by a resistance on the part of the French Captain to a search being imposed by the British upon two merchant-vessels under his orders) with La Résolue of 46 guns, whose colours were not struck until she had herself sustained a loss of 25 men killed and 40 wounded, and had occasioned one to the Phoenix of 6 killed and 11 wounded. In Oct. 1792, having been sent home in charge of the despatches of Commodore Hon. Wm. Cornwallis, Mr. Parker, who on the occasion last named had played the part of First-Lieutenant, was appointed, in a similar capacity, to the Crescent of 36 guns and 257 men, Capt. Jas. Saumarez; under whom, whose gallantry in the affair procured him the honour of Knighthood, he assisted, 20 Oct. 1793, at the capture of the French frigate La Réunion of 40 guns and 300 men, of whom 120 were killed and wounded, without any casualty whatever to the British. For his own conduct on the occasion Lieut. Parker was promoted, 4 Nov. in the same year, to the command of the Albacore sloop, on the North Sea station, where he was posted, 7 April, 1795, into the Squirrel 20. Removing, towards the close of 1796, to the Santa Margarita 36, he contrived, during a cruize off the coast of Ireland and in the West Indies, to effect the capture of a variety of the enemy’s vessels, particularly of L’Adour of 16 guns, pierced for 20, and 147 men, and of La Victorine of 16 guns and 82 men, the San Francisco of 14 guns and 53 men, and Le Quatorze Juillet of 14 guns and 65 men. He was also much employed in convoying the trade to Quebec, the Mediterranean, and (the East India ships) past the Canary Islands; and on one occasion he received a letter of thanks from the masters and owners of a convoy, transmitted through the Admiralty, for his care and attention to them. At the close of the war, at which period the Santa Margarita was serving on the Leeward Island station, Capt. Parker’s health obliged him to invalid. His next appointments were, in 1804-5, to the Argo 44 and Stately 64, both attached to the force in the North Sea; where, in the Stately, he was for a time employed in blockading the enemy’s squadron in the Texel. Being sent, in Jan. 1808, on a particular service to the Baltic in command of three ships of the line, it was his fate, on reaching Gottenborg, to be frozen up in the ice; through which, however, in the ensuing March, he caused a canal to be cut, and thus extricated as well his own squadron as a large convoy of merchantmen bound to England. On 22 of the same month Capt. Parker, then in company with the Nassau 64, had the good fortune to fall in with, and, after an obstinate running fight, attended with a loss to the Stately of 4 men killed and 28 wounded, to enforce the surrender, on the coast of Zealand, of the Danish 74-gun ship Prindts Christian Frederic. The Nassau’s loss in the engagement did not exceed 2 killed and 16 wounded; while that of the enemy (whose ship, having taken the ground, was fired and blown up by her captors) extended to as many as 55 killed and 88 wounded.[1] Not long after this Capt. Parker was succeeded in his command by Rear-Admiral Sir Sam. Hood, who expressed his entire approbation of all the arrangements he had made, and of the able conduct he had manifested on every occasion. On the return of the Stately to England he was appointed to the Aboukir 74, in which ship (part of the Walcheren expeditionary force) he continued employed in the North Sea and Mediterranean until the end of 1813. He then returned home in the Bombay 74, and did not again go afloat. He became a Rear-Admiral 4 June, 1814; a Vice-Admiral 19 July, 1821; and a full Admiral 10 Jan. 1837. His nomination to the K.C.B. took place 6 June, 1833.
Sir Geo. Parker married a daughter of the late Peter Bult, Esq. Agents – Hallett and Robinson.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1808, p. 536.