John Henry Parker
Encyclopedia
John Henry Parker CB English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 writer on architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 and publisher, was the son of John Parker, a London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 merchant.

He was educated at Manor House School, Chiswick
Chiswick
Chiswick is a large suburb of west London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located on a meander of the River Thames, west of Charing Cross and is one of 35 major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with...

, and was apprenticed in 1821 to his uncle, the Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 bookseller Joseph Parker (1774?–1850). He succeeded to his uncle's business in 1832, and ran the firm with great success, the most important of his publications being perhaps the series of the Oxford pocket classics.

In 1836 he published his Glossary of terms used in Grecian, Roman, Italian, and Gothic architecture, which, published during the Gothic Revival in England, had considerable influence in extending the movement, and supplied valuable inspiration to young architects. In 1848 he edited the fifth edition of Thomas Rickman
Thomas Rickman
Thomas Rickman , was an English architect who was a major figure in the Gothic Revival.He was born at Maidenhead, Berkshire, into a large Quaker family, and avoided the medical career envisaged for him by his father, a grocer and druggist; he went into business for himself and married his first...

's Gothic architecture, and in 1849 he published a handbook based on his earlier volume entitled Introduction to the study of Gothic architecture. The completion of Hudson Turner's Domestic architecture of the Middle Ages next engaged his attention, three volumes being published (1853–1860). He published Medieval architecture of Chester in 1858 and Architectural antiquities of the city of Wells in 1866.

Parker was one of the chief advocates of the restoration of ecclesiastical buildings. In 1863 he and the Oxford Diocesan
Diocese of Oxford
-History:The Diocese of Oxford was created in 1541 out of part of the Diocese of Lincoln.In 1836 the Archdeaconry of Berkshire was transferred from the Diocese of Salisbury to Oxford...

 Architect G.E. Street
George Edmund Street
George Edmund Street was an English architect, born at Woodford in Essex.- Life :Street was the third son of Thomas Street, solicitor, by his second wife, Mary Anne Millington. George went to school at Mitcham in about 1830, and later to the Camberwell collegiate school, which he left in 1839...

 revised plans for the resoration of St. Andrew's parish church, Chinnor. Parker also designed the triplet of traceried
Tracery
In architecture, Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window. The term probably derives from the 'tracing floors' on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out.-Plate tracery:...

 lancet window
Lancet window
A lancet window is a tall narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural motif are most often found in Gothic and ecclesiastical structures, where they are often placed singly or in pairs.The motif first...

s in the chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...

 of St. Nicholas the Confessor, Forest Hill. His son James Parker (1832 or 1833–1912) also practiced as an architect.

Later he devoted much attention to explorations of the history of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 by means of excavations, and succeeded in satisfying himself of the historical truth of much usually regarded as legendary. Two volumes of his Archaeology of Rome were published at Oxford in 1874 and 1876.

In recognition of his work Parker was decorated by King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
Victor Emanuel II was king of Sardinia from 1849 and, on 17 March 1861, he assumed the title King of Italy to become the first king of a united Italy since the 6th century, a title he held until his death in 1878...

 and received a medal from Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX
Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...

. In 1869 he endowed the keepership of the Ashmolean Museum
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...

 with a sum yielding £250 a year, and under the new arrangement he was appointed the first keeper. In 1871 he was nominated CB.

In Italy one of Parker's principal projects was to compose an archive collection of photographs of the city's greatest monuments from the Renaissance era onwards. Employing local photographers the collection recorded not only Rome's greatest building and works, but also detailed scenes of the late 19th century archaeological excavations. He used many of these to illustrate his books. In 1893 the entire archive perished in a fire at the Palazzo Della Porta Negroni Caffarelli
Palazzo Della Porta Negroni Caffarelli
This Palazzo should not be confused with the Palazzo Caffarelli-Clementino, the Palazzo Viddoni Caffarelli or the Palazzo Aragona Gonzaga Negroni Galitzin, also in Rome....

depriving modern archeologists of an invaluable source of material.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK