Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parsons, John (1742-1785)
PARSONS, JOHN (1742–1785), physician, son of Major Parsons of the dragoons, who resided principally in Yorkshire, was born at York in 1742. He was educated at Westminster School, being admitted a king's scholar in 1756. In 1759 he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on 19 June. He graduated B.A. 27 April 1763, and M.A. 6 June 1766. As an undergraduate he contributed a Latin ode to the ‘Oxford Poems’ (1761) on the death of George II. He subsequently studied medicine at Oxford, London, and Edinburgh, evinced a preference for natural history and botany, and while at Edinburgh in 1766 was awarded the Hope prize medal for the best Hortus Siccus. In 1766 (or 1767) he was elected the first professor of anatomy on the foundation of Drs. Freind and Lee at Christ Church, Oxford, though still without a medical degree. He graduated M.B. on 12 April 1769, and M.D. 22 June 1772. He was elected reader in anatomy in the university in 1769, physician to the Radcliffe infirmary 6 May 1772, and first clinical professor on Lord Lichfield's foundation 1780–5. Under his direction a commodious anatomical theatre was built at Oxford. Parsons was admitted a candidate of the Royal College of Physicians on 30 Sept. 1774, and fellow exactly a year later, 30 Sept. 1775. In 1784 he delivered the Harveian oration.
He died of fever on 9 April 1785, and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, where there is a white marble gravestone to his memory. In July 1772 ‘Dr. John Parsons’ was married to Miss Anne Hough (Gent. Mag. 1772, p. 390).
[Munk's Coll. of Phys.; Welch's Alumni Westmon. p. 364; Wood's Hist. and Antiquities, ii. 886, iii. 516; Hervey's Oratio ex Harvæi instituto for 1785; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1714–1886; ‘A Select Account of the late Dr. John Parsons, professor of anatomy in the university of Oxford,’ 1786, reprinted from the Edinburgh Medical Commentaries, x. 322.]