1>AEMA— PARNELL.
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in Mr» Gathome Hardy's measure, and when Mr. C. P. Villiers's House- less Poor Act was in danger of be- ing rendered inoperative by the policy of Boards of Guardians, Mr. Parkinson devoted days and nights to examining individual cases of pauperism, and used the informa- tion thus acquired to expose and finally to abolish the abuses which formerly characterized the metro- politan poor-law. On these and kindred subjects Mr. Parkinson contributed to the Fortnightly Re- view under Mr. G. H. Lewes' editor- ship. With equal energy and suc- cess he laboured to preserve the commons to the people and fol- lowed the Wimbledon Conmion and Epping Forest cases from their commencement to their happy ter- mination. In addition to his regu- lar work on the Daily News, as leader writer and special commissioner, Mr. Parkinson contributed largely and effectively to periodicals, weekly and monthly, including Household Words and All the Year Botmd. In 1869 he visited Egypt as the guest of the Viceroy, and described the opening of the Suez Canal for the Daily News. He next went to India on a special mission for the Telegraphic authorities and returned in the Great Eastern in 1870 with the Telegraphic expedi- tion, an account of which he has given in a volume entitled "The Ocean Telegraph to India." A collection of hiis fugitive papers, "Places and People," appeared about the same time. Mr. Parkin- son has since withdrawn from literature as a profession, and is now largely interested in the mine- ral wealth both of this country and of Nova Scotia. He is an active member of the Council of the Coal owners of South Wales. Though he has been invited to represent constituencies in parliament he has h-itherto declined. He retains an active interest in our municipal in- stitutions, and revived in the City the Needlemakers' Company, of
which he is a past master. He holds high office in Freemasonry, in connection with which he has published a volume, entitled" Shak- spere a Freemason." In 1875 Mr. Parkinson was appointed a Justice of the Peace for the county of Monmouth; and in 1882 was ap- pointed a Deputy-Lieutenant for the same county.
PAR MA, Ex-DiTKB OP. (iSfee Robert I.)
PARNELL, Chables Stewart, M.P., was born in 1846, at Avon- dale, CO. Wicklow. He is descended from an old English family that passed over from Congleton, Che- shire, to Ireland^ and many of his ancestors have played prominent parts in history. Thomas PameU^ the poet, was one of the family. Mr. Pamell's great-grandfather. Sir John PameU, held for many years the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Irish Parliament, and resigned rather than vote for the Act of Union; and Sir Henry Pamell, Sir John's son, after many years' service in the House of Com- mons, was raised to the peerage as Lord Congleton in 1841. Mr. Par- nell, whose mother is a daughter of Admiral Charles Stewart, a cele- brated American naval officer, was educated at various private schools in England, and afterwards went to Magdalen College, Cambridge . After a tour of some duration in the • United States, he returned to his home in Wicklow, and was High Sheriff of the county in 1874. He made his first attemptto enter public life in the same year, contesting the county of Dublin with the late Col. Taylor on the latter's acceptance of office as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the second adminis- tration of Lord Beaconsfield. He was defeated by an overwhelming majority, but in the following year — 1875 — he was returned for the county of Meath, in succession to the late Mr. John Martin. For some time he took no prominen part in the proceedings of Parlia- 3 K
