Thomas Chase Parr (1802–1883) was a British officer of the East India Company's Bombay Army. He ended his military career with the rank of full general.[1]
Life
He was the son of John Owen Parr I, eldest son of John Parr of Liverpool, by his wife Elizabeth Mary Patrick, daughter of Thomas Patrick. John Owen Parr I was a merchant in the African trade and an insurance broker of Lloyd's of London in partnership with his brother-in-law, Thomas Chase Patrick, who however were declared bankrupt in August 1808.[2]
Parr was an East India Company cadet for the 1818 season.[3] In the 113th Infantry, he took part in the Bani Bu Ali expedition of 1821, and was present at the night attack on Sur.[1][4] As a young Ensign, he survived a notorious attack by a man-eating tiger in 1825, an event described by his companion James Outram, who shot the tiger.[5]
Parr commanded the Marine Battalion 1833–1835, and the 7th Bombay Native Infantry, in particular in the 1845 operations in the Southern Mahratta country against the rebellion there.[1]
Then Parr took furlough, an extended period in which he married and started a family. His arrival in the United Kingdom in November 1845 was reported, his rank then being a major in the 7th Native Infantry.[6] The East-India Register and Army List for 1847 has him as a lieutenant-colonel with the 1st European Regiment, on furlough.[7] On 22 February 1849 he was presented to Queen Victoria at a levée, by Thomas Pemberton Leigh.[8] In March 1849 he was given leave to remain in the United Kingdom.[9]
Parr's wife gave birth to a daughter in Bhuj, in 1851.[10] In the 1856 East-India Register and Army List, Parr was listed as colonel, commandant at Kurrachee (Karachi), and on furlough.[11] He was Colonel of the 2nd European Regiment during the Indian Mutiny.
On leaving India, Parr took with him the colours of the 7th Bombay Native Infantry.[12] By the late 1860s, he was living in Harrow-on-the-Hill.[13] He moved to Kent around 1873–4, leaving the colours to the church at Harrow.[12] He died at Bickley on 15 June 1883[1] and is buried in St Mary's, Harrow-on-the-Hill.[14]
Family
Parr married in 1846 Harriet Pott, second daughter of Charles Pott of Freelands.[15] Freelands was a house owned by Samuel Scott as part of his Sundridge Park estate, near Bromley, Kent, from 1818. The Pott family were long-term tenants, to 1876.[16][17]
The children of the marriage included:
Charles Chase Parr (died 1897, aged 49).[18] He married in 1872 Katherine Anne Millar;[19] their daughter Olive Katherine Parr was the writer Beatrice Chase.[20]
Alfred Arthur Chase Parr (1849–1914), naval officer.[21][22]Cape Parr in Antarctica was named after him.[23]
The Rev. Canon John Owen Parr II (1798-1877), vicar of Preston, Lancashire, was his elder brother.[29]
He married firstly in 1821 Maria-Elizabeth Wright, by whom he had nine children; secondly in 1857 his sister-in-law, Mary Emily Pott, youngest surviving daughter of Charles Pott;[30] and thirdly in secret in 1858 his domestic servant, Alice Stewardson, an alliance which was to lead to scandal.[31]
^ abBombay Historical Society (1930). Journal. Society. p. 42.
^Bushell, William Done (1912). Introduction to the architecture and history of the parish church of st. Mary, Harrow-on-the-hill. Revised and repr. Bowes & Bowes. p. 24.
^United States Board on Geographic Names; United States Defense Mapping Agency Geographic Names Data Base Division (1981). Geographic Names of the Antarctic. National Science Foundation. p. 641.