Richard Timothy George Mansfield Parker, 9th Earl of Macclesfield (born 31 May 1943) is a British peer. He was a member of the House of Lords from 1992 until 1999.
On 7 December 1992 he succeeded his father as Earl of Macclesfield, Viscount Parker, and Baron Parker.[1]
On 11 August 1967 he married firstly Tatiana Cleone Anne Wheaton-Smith, daughter of Major Craig Wheaton-Smith. They were divorced in 1985, and in 1986 he married Sandra Hope Fiore. By his first wife he has three daughters:[1]
Lady Tanya Susan (born 1971)
Lady Katherine Anne (born 1973)
Lady Marion Jane (born 1973)
Macclesfield was the last of the Parker family to live at Shirburn Castle, from which he was evicted in 2005 by other members of a family company which owned the property. They contended in court that he was "no more than tenant at will".[2][3] However, the contents of the castle had been given to Macclesfield in 1967 by his grandfather, including three important libraries.[4]
Macclesfield then decided to sell the libraries and some other items from the castle,[5][6] including the Macclesfield Psalter, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the Macclesfield Alphabet Book, now in the British Library.[7] The receipts came to more than £16 million, "the highest total ever for any sale of scientific books and manuscripts".[8] A painting by George Stubbs, "Brood Mares and Foals", was sold at auction in 2010 for £10,121,250, a record price for Stubbs.[9]
↑ Paul Quarrie, Paul, "The scientific library of the earls of Macclesfield" in The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science 60:1 (2006), pp. 5-24, doi:10.1098/rsnr.2005.0124
Nathaniel Bliss was an English astronomer of the 18th century, serving as Britain's fourth Astronomer Royal between 1762 and 1764.
Earl of Macclesfield is a title that has been created twice. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1679 in favour of the soldier and politician Charles Gerard, 1st Baron Gerard. He had already been created Baron Gerard, of Brandon in the County of Suffolk, in 1645, and was made Viscount Brandon, of Brandon in the County of Suffolk, at the same time as he was given the earldom. These titles are also in the Peerage of England. Lord Macclesfield was the great-grandson of the distinguished judge Sir Gilbert Gerard, Master of the Rolls from 1581 to 1594. He was succeeded by his eldest son, the second Earl. He was involved in the Rye House Plot of 1683, was sentenced to death but later pardoned by the King. On his death without legitimate issue in 1701 the titles passed to his younger brother, the third Earl. He had earlier represented Yarmouth, Lancaster and Lancashire in the House of Commons. When he died in 1702 the titles became extinct.
Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, was an English Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1705 to 1710. He was Lord Chief Justice from 1710 to 1718 and acted briefly as one of the regents before the arrival of King George I in Britain. His career ended when he was convicted of corruption on a massive scale and he spent the later years of his life in retirement at his home, Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire.
George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, FRS was an English peer and astronomer.
The Macclesfield Psalter is a lavishly illuminated manuscript probably produced c. 1320–30 in East Anglia. The psalter, or book of Psalms, contains 252 beautifully illustrated pages and is named after its most recent owner, the Earl of Macclesfield.
Thomas Hornsby was a British astronomer and mathematician.
Shirburn Castle is a Grade I listed, moated castle located at the village of Shirburn, near Watlington, Oxfordshire. Originally constructed in the fourteenth century, it was renovated and remodelled in the Georgian era by Thomas Parker, the first Earl of Macclesfield who made it his family seat, and altered further in the early nineteenth century. The Earls of Macclesfield remained in residence until 2004, and the castle is still (2022) owned by the Macclesfield family company. It formerly contained an important, early eighteenth century library which, along with valuable paintings, sculptures, and other artifacts including furniture, remained in the ownership of the 9th Earl and were largely dispersed at auction following his departure from the property; notable among these items were George Stubbs's 1768 painting "Brood Mares and Foals", a record setter for the artist at auction in 2010, the Macclesfield Psalter, numerous rare and valuable books, and personal correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton.
Kirby Hall is an Elizabethan country house, located near Gretton, Northamptonshire, England. The nearest main town is Corby. One of the great Elizabethan houses of England, Kirby Hall was built for Sir Humphrey Stafford of Blatherwick, beginning in 1570. In 1575 the property was purchased by Sir Christopher Hatton of Holdenby, Lord Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth I. It is a leading and early example of the Elizabethan prodigy house. Construction on the building began in 1570, based on the designs in French architectural pattern books and expanded in the Classical style over the course of the following decades. The house is now in a semi-ruined state with many parts roof-less although the Great Hall and state rooms remain intact. The gardens, with their elaborate "cutwork" design, complete with statues and urns, have been recently restored. Anne of Denmark stayed at Kirby on 9 August 1605 while her husband King James I stayed at Rockingham Castle.
Moses Williams was a Welsh antiquarian, scholar and cleric. He oversaw new editions of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer in Welsh.
British and Irish country house contents auctions are usually held on site at the country house, and have been used to raise funds for their owners, usually before selling the house and estate. Such auctions include the sale of high quality antique paintings, furniture, objets d'art, tapestries, books, and other household items.
Thomas Parker, 3rd Earl of Macclesfield FRS, styled Viscount Parker between 1732 and 1764, was a British peer and politician.
Shirburn is a village and civil parish about 6 miles (10 km) south of Thame in Oxfordshire. It contains the Grade I listed, 14th-century Shirburn Castle, along with its surrounding, Grade II listed park, and a parish church, the oldest part of which is from the Norman period. The parish has a high altitude by county standards. Its eastern part is in the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Shirburn, the largest civil parish in the district, is forested to the south. A motorway cuts across one edge.
John Baron Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherborne, was a British peer.
George Loveden William Henry Parker, 7th Earl of Macclesfield, of Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire, was a British peer and landowner. He was among the last to serve simultaneously as Lord Lieutenant of an English county and as chairman of its county council.
James Alastair Stourton, is a British art historian and a former chairman of Sotheby's UK.
Antonio Montauti was an 18th-century Italian sculptor active in Florence and Rome.
Mary Frances Parker, Countess of Macclesfield, formerly Mary Drake, was the wife of George Parker, 4th Earl of Macclesfield.
Sidney Parker was a rugby union international who represented England from 1874 to 1875.
George Roger Alexander Thomas Parker, 8th Earl of Macclesfield, of Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire, was a British peer and landowner. He was a member of the House of Lords from 1975 until his death.
The Shirburn Ballads is the name given to an early 17th-century manuscript collection of Elizabethan to early Stuart-era ballads that formerly resided in the collection of the Earls of Macclesfield in the library at Shirburn Castle. As per the Ballad Index compiled by W.B. Olsen, it is one of a number of significant sources for ballads of that period. According to the relevant entry in the Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450–1700, the main scribe may have been Edwarde Hull, whose name appears on f.59. The collection is mainly known to scholars via an edited version that was published by the Reverend Andrew Clark in 1907. Most or all of the included ballads derive from broadside ballad sources which were recorded as published for copyright purposes in relevant 16th-century sources, and include a subset for which the original broadside copy has not survived. Since 2007, the original work is now in the collection of the British Library.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
