Henry Parkes Totally Explained

Everything about Henry Parkes totally explained

Sir Henry Parkes, GCMG (27 May 1815 – 27 April 1896) was an Australian politician, also called the "Father of Federation." As the earliest advocate of a Federal Council of the then colonies of Australia, a precursor to the Federation of Australia, he's generally considered the most prominent of the Australian Founding Fathers. Parkes was described during his lifetime by The Times as "the most commanding figure in Australian politics". Alfred Deakin described him as "though not rich or versatile, his personality was massive, durable and imposing, resting upon elementary qualities of human nature elevated by a strong mind. He was cast in the mould of a great man and though he suffered from numerous pettinesses, spites and failings, he was in himself a large-brained self-educated Titan whose natural field was found in Parliament and whose resources of character and intellect enabled him in his later years to overshadow all his contemporaries".
Parkes was tall, rugged in features, commanding in personality. He was a fine orator who eschewed flights of rhetoric and spoke as a plain man to plain men, with great effect, in spite of occasional difficulties in controlling his aspirates. He had no schooling worthy of the name but had read widely. It has been said of him that he lacked gracious manners and was too conscious of his superiority, but his kindly reception by the Carlyles and Tennyson suggests that he wasn't without charm. He was interested in early Australian literary men, having been a friend of both Harpur and Kendall. He was a bad manager of his own affairs; what he'd he spent, and he died penniless.
Yet he evidently knew a good financier when he saw him, for he'd able treasurers in his cabinets and their financial administration was good. He was vain and temperamental, and frequently resigned his parliamentary seat only to seek election again soon afterwards. He wasn't a socialist but he'd strong views about the rights of the people and for most of his parliamentary life was a great leader of them. In his later years, however, he seems to have been worn down by the strong conservative opposition he encountered, and he was responsible for less social legislation than might have been expected. Early to recognise the need for federation, when he saw that it had really become possible he fought strongly for it, when many leading politicians in New South Wales were fearful of its effect on their colony. His indomitable character which had raised him from a farm labourer to premier of his colony, and his recognition of the broader view that was required in a great movement like federation, had an immense effect when its fate was in doubt, and turned the scale in its favour.

Early years

Parkes was born in Canley, Warwickshire (now a suburb of Coventry), England to yeoman parents, he was christened in Stoneleigh. His father, Thomas Parkes, was a small tenant farmer. Of his mother little is known, but when she died in 1842 Parkes could say of her that he felt as if a portion of this world's beauty was lost to him for ever. He received little schooling, and at an early age was working on a rope-walk for four pence a day. His next work was in a brickyard, and later on he tells us he "was breaking stones on the Queen's highway with hardly enough clothing to protect me from the cold". He was then apprenticed to John Holding, a bone and ivory turner at Birmingham, and probably about the year 1832 joined the Birmingham political union. Between that year and 1838 he was associated in the political movements that were then endeavouring to better the conditions of the working classes.
   He was steadily educating himself with much reading, including the British poets, and in 1835 addressed some verses, afterwards included in his first volume of poems, to Clarinda Varney, the daughter of a local butler. On 11 July 1836 he married Clarinda Varney and went to live in a single room. Parkes commenced business on his own account in Birmingham and had a bitter struggle. The acting-governor had sent for William Forster before parliament met, but he was unable to form a ministry, and in May 1872 Parkes formed his first ministry which was to last for nearly three years.
   Parkes had always been a free-trader and no doubt his convictions were strengthened when in England by contact with Cobden and other leading free traders. During his first administration he so reduced the duties in New South Wales that practically it became a free trade colony. Generally there was a forward policy. Railway and telegraph lines were much extended, and at the same time there was some reduction in taxation.
   In 1873 the retirement of Sir Alfred Stephen, the Chief Justice, led to an incident which raised much feeling against Parkes. It seems clear that Parkes at first encouraged his Attorney-General, E. Butler, to believe that he'd be appointed chief justice. Opposition developed in many quarters and Parkes gradually realized that Sir James Martin was generally considered to be the most suitable man and offered him the position. When the announcement of his appointment was made on 11 November 1873 Butler took the opportunity to make a statement, read the correspondence between Parkes and himself, and resigned his seat in the cabinet. However much Parkes may have been to blame for his early encouragement of the aspirations of his colleague, there appears to be no truth in the suggestion then made that he had, by appointing Martin, found means of getting rid of a formidable political opponent.
   The ministry went on its way though unable to pass bills to make the upper house elective and to amend the electoral law. The council was jealous of its position and succeeded in maintaining it for the time being. Two or three unsuccessful attempts were made to oust the government without success, but in February 1875, Governor Robinson's decision to release of the bushranger Frank Gardiner led to the defeat of the ministry. Subsequent discussions between Robinson, Parkes and the Colonial Office clarified the governor's responsibilities in pardoning prisoners. on April 27, 1896, five years before Australia became a federation on 1 January 1901, having established the political directions for the new country. Parkes had left directions that his funeral should be as simple as possible, but though a state funeral was declined, a very large number of people attended when he was placed by the side of his first wife at Faulconbridge, in the grounds of his former home in the Blue Mountains. His portrait by Julian Ashton is at the national gallery, Sydney.
   Julia Lynch survived him with five daughters and one son of the first marriage and five sons and one daughter by the second. His eldest son, Varney Parkes, entered parliament and was postmaster-general in the Reid ministry from August 1898 to September 1899. The children of the second marriage were faithfully brought up by Julia Lady Parkes and one of them, Cobden Parkes, born in 1892, eventually became New South Wales government architect.

Honours

He was created Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1877 and Knight Grand Cross of the same order in 1888.
   His image appears on the Australian one-dollar coin of 1996; and on the Centenary of Federation commemoration Australian $5 note issued in 2001.
   The suburb of Parkes and the road Parkes Way in Canberra is named after him as well as the town of Parkes in central New South Wales.
   He is commemorated in Canley, Coventry by the naming of a road (Sir Henry Parkes Road

) and a primary school (Sir Henry Parkes Primary School). Canley railway station also commemorates the link with Sir Henry Parkes with Australian-themed decor.

Literary works

Parkes's literary work includes six volumes of verse, Stolen Moments (1842), Murmurs of the Stream (1857), Studies in Rhyme (1870), The Beauteous Terrorist and Other Poems (1885), Fragmentary Thoughts (1889), Sonnets and Other Verses (1895). It has been the general practice to laugh at Parkes's poetic efforts, and it's true that his work could sometimes be almost unbelievably bad. Yet though he'd no real claims to be a poet he wrote some strong, sincere verse which has occasionally been included in Australian anthologies. His prose work includes Australian Views of England (1869), and his autobiographical Fifty Years in the Making of Australian History (1892), extremely interesting in places but necessarily giving a partial view of his own work. A collection of his Speeches on Various Occasions, delivered between 1848 and 1874, was published in 1876, and another collection dealing mostly with federation appeared in 1890 under the title of The Federal Government of Australasia. In 1896, shortly after his death, An Emigrant's Home Letters, a small collection of Parkes's letters to his family in England between 1838 and 1843, was published at Sydney, edited by his daughter, Annie T. Parkes.

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