Joshua Parry (17 June 1719 – 6 September 1776) was a Welsh nonconformist minister and writer.

Life

Parry was born at

Llangan Llangan ( cy, Llanganna) is a small village and community in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. It is located approximately outside the market town of Cowbridge. As a community it contains the settlements of St Mary Hill, Treoes and Llangan itself. I ...

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...

, on 17 June 1719 (O.S.); his parents died in his infancy. He was first taught by a private tutor at

Haverfordwest Haverfordwest (, ; cy, Hwlffordd ) is the county town of Pembrokeshire, Wales, and the most populous urban area in Pembrokeshire with a population of 14,596 in 2011. It is also a community, being the second most populous community in the county, ...

, and then was a pupil of

John Eames John Eames (2 February 1686 – 29 June 1744) was an English Dissenting tutor. Life Eames was born in London on 2 February 1686. He was admitted to Merchant Taylors' School on 10 March 1696–7, and was subsequently trained for the dissenting m ...

at the Fund Academy,

Moorfields Moorfields was an open space, partly in the City of London, lying adjacent to – and outside – its northern wall, near the eponymous Moorgate. It was known for its marshy conditions, the result of the defensive wall acting like a dam, i ...

, where

John Canton John Canton FRS (31 July 1718 – 22 March 1772) was a British physicist. He was born in Middle Street Stroud, Gloucestershire, to a weaver, John Canton (b. 1687) and Esther (née Davis). As a schoolboy, he became the first person to deter ...

and John Hawkesworth were also students. In 1738 Parry went to live with

John Ryland John Ryland (1753–1825) was an English Baptist minister and religious writer. He was a founder and for ten years the secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society. Life The son of John Collett Ryland, he was born at Warwick on 29 January 175 ...

in Moorfields. In 1741 he was acting as minister at

Midhurst Midhurst () is a market town, parish and civil parish in West Sussex, England. It lies on the River Rother inland from the English Channel, and north of the county town of Chichester. The name Midhurst was first recorded in 1186 as ''Middeh ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

, and on 3 March 1742 took up residence at Cirencester as minister of the Presbyterian church founded by Alexander Gregory in 1662. Here Parry formed a lifelong friendship with

Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst, (16 November 168416 September 1775), of Bathurst in the County of Sussex, known as The Lord Bathurst from 1712 to 1772, was a British Tory politician. Bathurst sat in the English and British House of Commons f ...

; Parry preached the sermon on Bathurst's death in September 1765, and wrote the article on him for ''

Biographia Britannica ''Biographia Britannica'' was a multi-volume biographical compendium, "the most ambitious attempt in the latter half of the eighteenth century to document the lives of notable British men and women". The first edition, edited by William Oldys (169 ...

''. Parry declined in 1748 an invitation to succeed Edmund Calamy at Crosby Square, London, and in 1757 and 1766 invitations to become assistant, and afterwards successor, to

Samuel Chandler Samuel Chandler (1693 – 8 May 1766) was an English Nonconformist minister and pamphleteer. He has been called the "uncrowned patriarch of Dissent" in the latter part of George II's reign. Early life Samuel Chandler was born at Hungerford in B ...

, of the Old Jewry dissenting church. He remained at Cirencester until his death, on 6 September 1766. He was buried in the ground attached to his chapel, where a plain stone without inscription marked his grave.

Works

From 1738 or thereabouts Parry contributed to the newly founded ''

Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term ''magazine'' (from the French ''magazine'' ...

''. His work remained on the small scale, and he published mostly anonymously or pseudonymously. He was author of: * ''Political Essays and Satires'', some of them signed "Philopatria"; * ''Evidences of Christianity'', 1742; * ''Erastes, an Ethic Poem in defence of Love; with Advice to Lovers, a Fragment'', 1749; * ''An Answer to Hervey's Theron and Aspasio'', 1757; * ''A Confession of Faith'', 1757 (printed in the ''Memoir''); * ''A Poem to the Memory of Major-General James Wolfe'', 1759. * ''Seventeen Sermons on Practical Subjects'' published posthumously, Bath and London, 1783. Among essays appended to

Charles Henry Parry Charles Henry Parry (1779–1860) was an English physician and writer. Life The eldest son of Caleb Hillier Parry, by his wife Sarah, a sister of Edward Rigby, he was born at Bath, Somerset. He studied medicine at the University of Göttingen ...

, ''A Memoir of the Reverend Joshua Parry'' (1872) are: ''Natural Theology: a Free Discourse on the Being and Attributes of the Deity''; ''On the Moral Sense''; ''A Short Defence of Christianity'' (written 1743); ''A Satire on King George the Second, in a Letter to His Majesty''

746 Year 746 ( DCCXLVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 746 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became t ...

''directed against that Party Spirit which sees no Good in the existing Order of Things, and discovers in the best Intentions the most obnoxious Purposes''.

Family

Parry married, in 1752, Sarah, daughter of Caleb Hillier of Upcott, Devonshire, and Withington, Gloucestershire, who, with two sons and two daughters, survived him. She died in 1786. His eldest son was

Caleb Hillier Parry Caleb Hillier Parry (21 October 1755 – 9 March 1822) was an Anglo-Welsh physician credited with the first report of Parry–Romberg syndrome, published in 1815, and one of the earliest descriptions of the exophthalmic goiter, published in 182 ...

; his daughter Amelia married

Sir Benjamin Hobhouse Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, 1st Baronet (1757–1831) was an English politician. Life The son of John Hobhouse, a slave trader and merchant at Bristol (and nephew to Isaac Hobhouse), he received his education at Bristol grammar school and Brasenos ...

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Parry, Joshua 1719 births 1776 deaths Welsh Presbyterians Welsh writers People from Pembrokeshire