A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Parr, Alexander Forsyth
PARR. (Lieutenant, 1806. f-p., 34; h-p., 17.)
Alexander Forsyth Parr was born 7 Oct. 1786. His father, a veteran Gunner, entered the service in 1777 and died in 1840 at the advanced age of 85. He had served in seven ships of war under 30 different Admirals and Captains; he had been on board the Swiftsure 74 when captured by the French in June, 1801; and on board the Venerable 74 when wrecked in Torbay in Nov. 1804. One of Lieut. Parr’s brothers died a Midshipman at Guadeloupe in 1790; two others were also in the R.N. – the first a Commander, the second a Lieutenant; and a fourth died as Deputy-Assistant-Commissary-General in the Army at George Town, Demerara.
This officer entered the Navy, 20 Oct. 1796, as Third-cl. Vol., on board the Swiftsure 74; in which ship (of which his father was at the time Gunner) he continued employed under Capts. Arthur Phillip, John Irwin, and Benj. Hallowell, until May, 1801. After participating in a sUght engagement with a fort at Teneriffe during an attempt made to cut some merchant-vessels out from that place, he proceeded off Lisbon and then to the Mediterranean. While on that station he shared as Midshipman in the glories of the Nile 1 Aug. 1798, and assisted in expelling the French from Naples, where he united in the siege of Fort St. Elmo. He was subsequently present off Cabritta Point, in the Gut of Gibraltar, when the Swiftsure, being becalmed, was attacked, severely cut up in her sails and rigging, and subjected to a loss of 2 men killed and 3 wounded, by a flotilla of 40 Spanish gun-boats. On 8 March, 1801, we find him aiding at the debarkation of the troops in Aboukir Bay. On leaving the Swiftsure as above, Mr. Parr joined the Penelope 36, Capt. Hon. Henry Blackwood, with whom he returned home from the Mediterranean and was paid off in May, 1802. Being next, in June, 1803, received on board the Wasp 18, Capts. Hon. Fred. Wm. Aylmer, John Packwood, and John Simpson, he twice escorted convoy in that vessel to the coast of Portugal, served for some time off the port of Cadiz, and cruized in various parts of the Mediterranean, until his return to England in July, 1805, when he was discharged for the purpose of passing his examination. In the following Oct. he became attached to the Agamemnon 64, Capts. Sir Edw. Berry, Joseph Spear, and Jonas Rose; under the first-mentioned of whom, after having narrowly escaped capture by the enemy, he had the good fortune to enact a part in the action off Cape Trafalgar. Subsequently to the battle he was sent on board the Colossus 74, to ascertain the state of that ship, and so dilapidated did it prove to be that the Agamemnon was under the necessity of taking her in tow. During the long and disastrous gale which shortly afterwards arose, the rope that connected the two vessels unfortunately broke, and the Colossus was in imminent danger of being driven on shore and utterly lost. In order to prevent if possible a catastrophe so awful, it was determined by Sir Edw. Berry, notwithstanding the risk, that a boat should be lowered for the purpose of passing a fresh rope to the distressed ship, and of thus again taking her in tow. We have only to add that the execution of the hazardous enterprise was confided to, and most ably accomplished by, Mr. Parr. Continuing in the Agamemnon, we find him, besides sharing in various pursuits after the enemy’s squadrons, present, 6 Feb. 1806, in the action off St. Domingo (for his conduct on which occasion he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant 2 April following), and next at the capture of La Lutine national corvette, and in the operations connected with the expedition to Copenhagen. On the fall of the latter place (previously to which event he had assisted in escorting a large convoy home from the West Indies) Mr. Parr aided in navigating to England, as second in command, the Danish 74-gun ship Princess Caroline with the 95th Regiment on board. On again joining the Agamemnon, he sailed for South America, where, while filling the post of First-Lieutenant, he was wrecked, in the Rio de la Plata, 20 June, 1809. So great were the exertions he underwent on the occasion, that, on being received on board the Bedford 74, he sank into a state of complete exhaustion, and, from the effects of inflammation produced in the eyes, was for eighteen days deprived of the power of sight. Mr. Parr’s next appointment was, 26 Dec. 1809, to the Argo 44, Capt. Fred. Warren; which ship, however, he did not join until July, 1810. Becoming soon her First-Lieutenant, he was employed in that capacity in protecting convoys to the river St. Lawrence, to the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and to the Mediterranean, also in conveying an ambassador to Constantinople and Algiers, and in accompanying another convoy from Malta to England. Being superseded from the Argo at his own request in Nov. 1813, he was nominated, 18 May, 1814, Senior of the Alpheus 36, Capt. Geo. Langford, fitting for the East Indies; whence he returned in Dec. 1816. Since 27 April, 1831, the Lieutenant has been attached to the Royal Hospital at Haslar.
When on board the Swiftsure, in 1798, Mr. Parr fell and broke the small bone of his left leg; while belonging, in Nov. 1804, to the Wasp, and on duty aloft, his right leg was so severely lacerated that he was for two months on the doctor’s list; and in 1808 an explosion of powder on board the Agamemnon occasioned him a severe wound in the forehead. He married 21 April, 1821.