- ‘Treatise on the Corn Trade and Agriculture,’ 1809, 8vo.
- ‘The Substance of the Speeches of Sir Henry Parnell, bart., in the House of Commons, with additional Observations on the Corn Laws,’ London, 1814, 8vo; the third edition was published in vol. iv. of the ‘Pamphleteer,’ London, 1814, 8vo.
- ‘Observations on the Irish Butter Acts,’ London, 1825, 8vo.
- ‘Observations on Paper Money, Banking, and Over-Trading, including those parts of the Evidence taken before the Committee of the House of Commons which explain the Scotch System of Banking,’ London, 1827, 8vo; another edition, 1829, 8vo.
- ‘On Financial Reform,’ London, 1830, 8vo; 2nd edit. London, 1830, 8vo; 3rd edit. London, 1831, 16mo; 4th edit. enlarged, 1832, 8vo. Selections from this book, compiled by Henry Lloyd Morgan, were published under the title of ‘National Accounts,’ 2nd edit., London, 1873, 8vo.
- ‘A plain Statement of the Power of the Bank of England, and the Use it has made of it; with a Refutation of the Objections made to the Scotch System of Banking, and a Reply to “The Historical Sketch [by J. R. McCulloch] of the Bank of England,”’ London, 1832, 8vo, anon.
- ‘A Treatise on Roads, wherein the Principles on which Roads should be made are explained and illustrated by the Plans, Specifications, and Contracts made use of by Thomas Telford, Esq., on the Holyhead Road,’ London, 1833, 8vo; 2nd edit. enlarged, 1838, 8vo.
Limerick to the Union,’ London, 1808, 8vo; a ‘new edition’ appeared in vols. xx. and xxi. of the ‘Pamphleteer’ (London, 1822, 8vo); 4th edition (with slightly altered title), London, 1825, 8vo.
John Vesey Parnell, second Baron Congleton (1805–1883), born in Baker Street, London, on 16 June 1805, was educated first in France, and afterwards at Edinburgh University, where he took a prize for mathematics. Though intended by his father for the army, he joined the Plymouth brethren in 1829, and in May 1830 he established a meeting-room in Aungier Street, Dublin, which is said to have been ‘the brethren's first public room’ (Andrew Miller, The Brethren: a brief Sketch of their Origin, Progress, and Testimony, p. 21). In September 1830 he set out on a mission to Bagdad, in company with F. W. Newman and Edward Cronin. The mission proved a failure, and Parnell, after two years' residence at Bagdad, went on to India, where he was equally unsuccessful. He returned to England in 1837, and spent the remainder of his life in travelling over the country on preaching tours, and in endeavouring to spread the doctrines of the ‘brethren.’
He succeeded his father as second Baron Congleton in June 1842, but did not take his seat in the House of Lords until 4 Nov. 1852 (Journals of the House of Lords, lxxxv. 8), ‘his conscience not allowing him to take the necessary oaths’ (Groves, Memoir, p. 90). He sat on the cross-benches, and spoke but three times in the house (Parl. Debates, 3rd ser. cxxxviii. 2028, cxxxix. 1856, cxli. 998). He died at No. 53 Great Cumberland Place, Hyde Park, on 23 Oct. 1883, aged 78, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery on the 29th of the same month, when numbers of the ‘brethren’ from all parts of the country attended the funeral. Congleton was a simple-minded enthusiast, with gentle manners and a retiring disposition. He married, first, in 1831, at Aleppo, Nancy, the sister of his colleague, Edward Cronin. She died at Latakia a few months after her marriage, from the hardships to which she had been exposed while travelling. He married, secondly, at Bagdad, on 21 May 1833, Khatoon, younger daughter of Ovanness Moscow of Shiraz and widow of Yoosoof Constantine of Bushire. She died on 30 May 1865, aged 57. He married, thirdly, on 21 Feb. 1867, Margaret Catherine, only daughter of Charles Ormerod of the India Board, who survived him, and by whom he had an only daughter, Sarah Cecilia, born on 5 Aug. 1868. He was succeeded in the title by his brother, Henry William, third baron Congleton (1809–1896). Besides several tracts on various religious subjects, he published ‘The Psalms: a new Version,’ London, 1860, 8vo; a ‘new edition, revised, with notes suggestive of interpretation,’ London, 1875, 16mo.
[Diary and Correspondence of Lord Colchester, 1861, vols. ii. iii.; Walpole's History of England, vols. i–iv.; Random Recollections of the House of Commons, 1836, pp. 230–3; Georgian Era, 1834, iv. 468–9; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878, pp. 428–9; Gent. Mag. 1842 pt. ii. pp. 202–4, 677; Annual Register, 1842 Chron. pp. 104–5, 271, 1883 pt. ii. p. 175; Stapylton's Eton School Lists, 1864, pp. 4, 11; Burke's Peerage, 1892, p. 317; Foster's Peerage, 1883, p. 180; Cecil Moore's Brief History of St. George's Chapel, p. 57; Notes and Queries, 6th ser. viii. 509–11, ix. 98; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 214, 229, 241, 256, 271, 283, 298, 314, 327, 339, 348, 360, 374, 690; Haydn's Book of Dignities, 1890; Macculloch's Literature of Political Economy, 1845, pp. 170–1, 179, 180, 200, 338; Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 262; Watt's Bibl. Brit. 1824; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit. 1870, ii. 1510; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Groves's Memoir of [the second] Lord Congleton, 1884; Newman's Personal Narrative in Letters principally from Turkey in the years 1830–3, 1856.]
