Richard Parker (1767-1797)
Reproduction
Object numberRCSHM/Z 31
CollectionCollege Museum
CategoryModels and casts
Object namedeath masks
TitleRichard Parker (1767-1797)
DescriptionDeath mask of Richard Parker (1767-1797), hanged for his part in the Nore mutiny, by William Clift, 1797.
Richard Parker was son of a well-to-do baker and cornfactor in Exeter. At the age of twelve Parker began training for a naval career, and in 1782 he joined the 5th-rater 'Mediator' as an able-seaman. In 1783 he transferred to the 'Ganges'and later the same year he joined the sloop 'Bulldog'. He arrived back in Portsmouth in 1784, and was sent to Haslar Hospital, Gosport. Although he was briefly assigned to another vessel, his ill-health appears to have led to his discharge in August 1784. He then sailed on Exeter merchant ships to the Mediterranean and to the East Indies until 1793. In that year he appears to have fallen into difficulties: he re-enlisted in the navy, but before he could sail he was taken up and held in Newgate Prison for what he described as 'a slight misfortune'. After extricating himself from jail he resumed his naval career, serving briefly as a midshipman before being court-martialled and disrated. By 1794, Parker was in financial difficulties, which were only briefly alleviated by his marriage in 1795 to Ann McHardy, a farmer's daughter from Braemar. The following year he was arrested for debt, and re-enlisted in the navy for a bounty to escape prison. By 1797 he was serving on the 'Sandwich', a 2nd-rate, under Captain James Moss. While the ship was moored off the Nore in Kent in April 1797 a mutiny broke out among the fleet at Spithead. Several of the ships anchored at the Nore mutined in support, including the Sandwich. After the mutiny was suppressed it was alleged that Parker was among the ringleaders, a claim which he denied but which nonetheless led to his conviction and execution on 30 June 1797.
Parker's body was initially interred in the naval burying ground at Sheerness. Ann Parker secretly retrieved his coffin and took it to Rochester, and then to London, where the body was exhibited in the Hoop and Horseshoe tavern near Tower Hill, where it excited considerable public interest. It is likely that the mask was made by Clift at this time. Fearing disorder, the magistrates ordered that Parker's body be buried, and it was re-interred in the vault of St Mary Matfelon, Whitechapel, on 4 July.
William Clift was John Hunter's former assistant and later first Conservator of the College of Surgeons' Hunterian Museum. After Clift's death, in 1849, the mask passed into the possession of Richard Owen, Clift's son-in-law and successor as Conservator of the Museum. Owen's executor, Dr Charles Davies Sherborn, left it to the College in his will in 1942.
Production date 1797
Preparator
Sitter/subject
Owner/user
bequeathed
Physical Location
LocationNot on public display: contact museum for access conditions
Physical Information
Physical descriptionDry
Bibliography
SourceDobson 1956a
NotesShort account of the Nore mutiny in 1797.
