Edward Parkes

Sir Edward Walter Parkes DL FREng^[1] (19 May 1926 – 25 September 2019) was Vice-Chancellor of City University London from 1974 to 1978 and of the University of Leeds from 1983 to 1991.

Life

Parkes was born in 1926.^[2]

Parkes attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, and St John's College, Cambridge, where he obtained a first class degree in mechanical engineering.^[3]

Other posts included Head of the Department of Engineering at Leicester University in the 1960s^[4] and Chairman of the UK University Grants Committee in the early 1980s. From 1989 to 1991 he was Chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. He was also appointed a Fellow^[1] of the Royal Academy of Engineering^[1] in 1982.

Edward and Margaret Parkes commissioned Leicester based architect James Gowan to design them a holiday home on land they had bought above St David's Cathedral in Wales. The resulting Round House was listed after it was completed in 1967.^[2]

Parkes was knighted in 1983.^[5] There is a portrait in oils by Michael Noakes at City University.^[6] Parkes died in September 2019 at the age of 93.^[7]

Private life

He married the educationalist Margaret Parr^[2] (1925-2007) and they had two children. Lady Parkes CBE died in 2007 having changed the UK's educational system to include Design and Technology.^[4]

References

1. "List of Fellows". Archived from the original on 8 June 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2014.
2. Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B.; Goldman, L., eds. (23 September 2004). "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. ref:odnb/99042. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/99042. Retrieved 21 February 2023. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. Burke's Peerage, accessed 24 July 2009
4. The Times 30 August 2007^{[dead link‍]} Margaret Parkes.
5. The London Gazette 22 April 1983 page 5510
6. BBC Your Paintings Sir Edward Parkes (image and details)
7. "Who's Who: Parkes, Sir Edward (Walter)". Archived from the original on 30 June 2020. Retrieved 29 June 2020.

Academic offices
Preceded by Sir James Sharp Tait	Vice-Chancellor, City University, London 1974–1978	Succeeded by Professor Raoul N. Franklin
Preceded by William Walsh (acting)	Vice-Chancellor, University of Leeds 1983–1991	Succeeded by Alan Wilson