Author: Parker, Henry Meredith
Biography:
PARKER, Henry Meredith (1795-1863: PBI)
He was born on 4 June 1795 at St. George’s, Southwark, the son of William Parker, an equestrian performer and pantomime actor of Bridge Street, Lambeth, and Sophia Garnier, a singer, dancer and actress. His parents later married at St. James’s, Piccadilly, on 14 Nov. 1797. (Two younger sisters, Sophia Zenana and Josephine, would later join him in India.) He was educated first in Islington and then at a commercial and classical academy in Soho Square. Thanks to the intervention of the Prince Regent, he was nominated to a writership in the EIC without going through their college. He thrived in India and eventually became a member of the Calcutta Board of Revenue, the Union Bank of Calcutta, and the Assam Tea company. He published early verse in the Calcutta Journal under the name of Bernard Wycliffe and later contributed to the Oriental Herald, Bengal Annual, and other magazines. His first collection, The Draught of Immortality, and Other Poems (1827), was indebted to Byron and Moore. He was admired by the Indian poets Derozio (q.v.), who addressed a sonnet to him, and Ghosh (q.v.), who dedicated the third canto of The Shair to him. He married a widow, Frances Lina Plowden (formerly Erskine) (1789-1848) on 25 Dec. 1837 at the Cathedral, Bengal. She had had eight children from her first marriage but there was no issue with Henry Meredith. They returned to England in 1842. His wife died in 1848. Back in London, he published a collection of prose and poetry, Bole Ponjis (1851). In 1861, he was living at 3 Langham Place, Marylebone, and remained there for the rest of his life. He died on 17 Sept. 1863 at Richmond and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery. He left an estate of just under £25,000 to his extended family. (PBI 1: 237-69; BL, IOR, EIC Enlistment Papers; ancestry.co.uk 26 Dec. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 26 Dec. 2022; Globe 31 May 1827; Morning Post 1 Apr. 1848; Homeward Mail from India 19 Sept. 1863; J. H. Stocqueler, Memoirs of a Journalist [1873], 90; Highfill, 8: 200-4, 11: 208-11.) AA