Joseph Parkes

Joseph Parkes (22 January 1796 – 11 August 1865) was an English political reformer. Born into Unitarian Whig circles, Parkes developed an association with the Philosophical Radicals. In 1822 he established a Birmingham solicitor's practice specializing in election law. He was an advocate of legal reform, and active in the local efforts for parliamentary reform. Although he initially opposed the formation of the Birmingham Political Union, and remained less radical than Thomas Attwood, the BPU's founder, Parkes worked with it during the period of agitation for the Reform Act – acting in effect as an intermediary between radicals and whigs. In 1833 Henry Brougham appointed Parkes secretary of the commission on municipal corporations; he combined this work with a successful Westminster practice as a parliamentary solicitor. In 1847 ill-health prompted his retirement to work on literary projects. Life Born in Warwick on 22 January 1796, he was younger son of John Parkes, manufacturer, a close friend of Samuel Parr and Basil Montagu, in a circle that included William Field. After Warwick grammar school, he went as his elder brother Josiah Parkes had done to be educated at Greenwich in the school of Charles Burney. He then spent some time at Glasgow University, studying under George Jardine initially.