Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parry, William (1687-1756?)

945445Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 43 — Parry, William (1687-1756?)1895Thompson Cooper

PARRY, WILLIAM (1687–1756?), caligrapher and numismatist, son of Devereux Parry, plebeius, of the city of Hereford, matriculated from Jesus College, Oxford, on 19 Feb. 1705–6, and graduated B.A. in 1709, M.A. in 1712, and B.D. in 1719 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714, iii. 1122). He was elected to a fellowship in his college, and on 27 Sept. 1712 was appointed rector of Tellisford, Somerset (Weaver, Somerset Incumbents, p. 198). In 1739 he was presented to the vicarage of Shipston-on-Stour, which is in a detached part of Worcestershire, enclosed in Warwickshire. He probably died about 1756.

He was famous for caligraphy, and wrote an elegant hand, resembling the italic print. Some of his manuscripts are so neatly written that they might easily be mistaken for well-executed typography. Several specimens of his caligraphic skill are extant in the Bodleian Library, and a beautiful transcript which he made of the statutes of his college is preserved among its archives. An account of a collection of his letters, filling a volume of about two hundred pages, was communicated by John Greswell to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (June 1807, p. 502). In these Parry frequently mentions a work on which he was actively engaged, viz. ‘Index Nummorum; or a Collection of the Names and the Value of all Sorts of Coins, antient and modern, arranged in alphabetical order.’ Many of his poetical trifles appeared in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine.’

[Letters written by Eminent Persons (1813), ii. 133; Macray's Cat. of the Rawlinson MSS. p. 857.]

T. C.