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
- ^ a b c "List of Fellows". Archived from the original on 8 June 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2014.
- ^ a b c 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.)
- ^ Burke's Peerage, accessed 24 July 2009
- ^ a b The Times 30 August 2007 Margaret Parkes.
- ^ The London Gazette 22 April 1983 page 5510
- ^ BBC Your Paintings Sir Edward Parkes (image and details)
- ^ "Who's Who: Parkes, Sir Edward (Walter)". Archived from the original on 30 June 2020. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
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- 1926 births
- 2019 deaths
- Academics of the University of Leicester
- Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
- Deputy Lieutenants of West Yorkshire
- English mechanical engineers
- Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
- Knights Bachelor
- People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham
- Presidents of City, University of London
- Vice-Chancellors of the University of Leeds
- British academic biography stubs