James Parkinson (baptised 28 February 1730,

St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury St Mary's Church is a redundant Anglican church in St Mary's Place, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and is under the care of the Churches Co ...

– 25 February 1813) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

land agent and the proprietor of the Leverian Museum which he won in a lottery. He then moved the Leverian collection to a museum at the

Blackfriars Rotunda The Blackfriars Rotunda was a building in Southwark, near the southern end of Blackfriars Bridge across the River Thames in London, that existed from 1787 to 1958 in various forms. It initially housed the collection of the Leverian Museum after i ...

which was sometimes referred to as "Parkinson's Museum". He has sometimes been confused with the surgeon

James Parkinson James Parkinson (11 April 1755 – 21 December 1824) was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist and political activist. He is best known for his 1817 work ''An Essay on the Shaking Palsy'', in which he was the first to desc ...

Life

Parkinson was the son of James Parkinson and his wife, Jane Birch who had moved from

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

in Shropshire, England, in 1723. His first training was as a law stationer, but he then became a

land agent Land agent may be used in at least three different contexts. Traditionally, a land agent was a managerial employee who conducted the business affairs of a large landed estate for a member of the nobility or landed gentry, supervising the farming ...

and accountant. In 1769 he helped in the settlement of

Sir Thomas Robinson Thomas Robinson, 1st Baron Grantham, (c. 169530 September 1770), of Newby, Yorkshire, was a British diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1727 and 1761. Early life Robinson was a younger son of Sir William Robin ...

's tangled estates at Rokeby, Yorkshire. This success made his reputation. He later became involved in the

Ranelagh Gardens Ranelagh Gardens (; alternative spellings include Ranelegh and Ranleigh, the latter reflecting the English pronunciation) were public pleasure gardens located in Chelsea, then just outside London, England, in the 18th century. History The R ...

. Parkinson's wife Sarah (married around 1775) had bought two tickets at a guinea each of the lottery for the disposal of the Holophusicon collection of Sir

Ashton Lever Sir Ashton Lever FRS (5 March 1729 – 28 January 1788) was an English collector of natural objects, in particular the Leverian collection., Manchester celebrities], retrieved 31 August 2010 Biography Lever was born in 1729 at Alkrington, A ...

sometime in 1784. On 23 March 1786, the draw had been made and Parkinson later discovered that his wife, now deceased, had won the lottery. The formation of the collection had bankrupted Lever. Parkinson spent nearly two decades trying to make a success of its display, at the

, which he specially designed with the help of his son, the architect Joseph T. Parkinson. He published various pamphlets; however, the museum did not pay enough for its own maintenance and, after twenty years, he put it up for auction in 1806, and the collection was dispersed. The auction took place over 65 days, with a total of 8000 lots, and earned a total of £6600. Parkinson had two sons and a daughter. Of the sons, John (1775-1847) who had an interest in minerals became a diplomat, and was elected FRS in 1840 while Joseph (1782-1855) became an architect.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parkinson, James 1730 births 1813 deaths Businesspeople from Shrewsbury Directors of museums in the United Kingdom English accountants