PARKER, JOSEPH (183o-19o2), English Nonconformist divine, was born at Hexham-on-Tyne on April 9, 1830, his father ,being a stonemason. He managed to pick up a fair education, which in after-life he constantly supplemented. In the revolu tionary years from 1845 to 1850 young Parker as a local preacher and temperance orator gained a reputation for vigorous utter ance. He was influenced by Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, and Edward Miall, the Liberationist, and was much associated with Joseph Cowen, afterwards M.P. for Newcastle. In the spring of 1852 he wrote to Dr. John Campbell, minister of Whitefield Tabernacle, Moorfields, London, for advice as to entering the Congregational ministry, and after a short probation he became Campbell's assistant. He also attended lectures in logic and phil osophy at University College, London. From 1853 to 1858 he was pastor at Banbury. His next charge was at Cavendish Street, Manchester, where he rapidly made himself felt as a power in English Nonconformity. While here he published a volume of lectures entitled Church Questions, and, anonymously, Ecce Deus (1868), a work provoked by Seeley's Ecce Homo. In 1869 he re
turned to London as minister of the Poultry church, founded by Thomas Goodwin. He then began the scheme which resulted in the erection of the great City Temple in Holborn Viaduct. It cost £70,000, and was opened on May 19, 1874. His original ser mons, with their notable leaning towards the use of a racy vernacular, made him one of the best known personalities of his time. Dr. Parker was twice chairman of the London Congrega tional Board and twice of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. The death of his second wife in 1899 was a blow from which he never fully recovered, and he died on Nov. 29, 1902.
Parker's published works are mainly sermons and expositions, chief among them being City Temple Sermons (1869-7o) and The People's Bible, in 25 vols. (1885-95). Other volumes include the autobiograph ical Springdale Abbey (1869), The Inner Life of Christ (1881), Apostolic Life (1884), Tyne Chylde: My Life and Teaching (1883; new ed., 1889), A Preacher's Life (1899).
See E. C. Pike, Dr. Parker and his Friends (19o5) ; Congregational Year-Book (1904) •