Sir WILLIAM EDWARD, Knight, the arctic navigator, was born at Bath, December 19, 1790. His father, Dr Caleb Hillier Parry, was a physician of considerable celebrity; his mother, the daughter of John Rigby, Esq., of Lancaster. The subject of this notice, their fourth son, had been originally intended for the medical profession, but circumstances occurred to alter this view; and in June 1803 he was appointed to the Ville de Paris, Admiral Cornwallis' flag-ship, of the Channel fleet, as a volunteer of the first class. He remained on board this ship for nearly three years, and was once engaged in action during this time off Brest harbour. Admiral Cornwallis thus recorded his opinion of the young sailor when he left his ship:—"Parry is a fine steady lad; I never knew any one so generally approved of. He will receive civility and kindness from all while he continues to conduct himself as he has done, which, I dare believe, will be as long as he lives."

His next appointments were, successively, to the Tribune frigate, and Vanguard, 74. The latter was frequently engaged with Danish gunboats in the Baltic, on which occasions Parry commanded one of the Vanguard's boats.

Obtaining his lieutenant's commission in 1810, he joined the Alexandria frigate, in which vessel Parry made his first acquaintance with Polar ice between North Cape and Bear Island, after which he joined the La Hogue at Halifax. In 1814 he took part in a successful boat expedition up the River Connecticut, and was himself in command of one of the boats. For this service a medal was afterwards awarded. In 1817 he was recalled to England by his father's illness. He had for some time past almost despaired of promotion, when an opening unexpectedly occurred which threw a gleam of encouragement over his professional prospects, and finally proved the forerunner of success and renown. Towards the close of this same year he wrote to a friend on the subject of an expedition in contemplation for exploring the River Congo. The letter was written, but not posted, when his eye fell on a paragraph in the newspapers relative to an expedition about to be fitted out to the northern regions. He seized his pen, and added to his letter, by way of postscript, that, as far as he was concerned, "hot or cold was all one to him, Africa or the Pole." The friend to whom the letter was addressed showed it to Mr Barrow, secretary of the Admiralty, and the well-known patron of arctic discovery. In a few days, Parry, still a lieutenant, was appointed to the command of the Alexander discovery ship, under the orders of Commander John Ross in the Isabella, "for the purpose of exploring Baffin's Bay, and ascertaining the probabilities of a N.W. passage to the Pacific." This expedition, as is well known, ended in nothing. The ships entered Lancaster Sound, on the western side of Baffin's Bay; but the lively imagination of Ross conjured up a range of mountains barring all advance, and the ships returned home. The next year (1819), Lieutenant Parry, whose opinion as to the practicability of a N.W. passage had become known, was appointed to the command of the Hecla,—the Griper, Lieutenant Liddon, being also placed under his orders. Entering Lancaster Sound in the summer of 1819, Parry sailed over the supposed Croker Mountains of Ross, and naming, as he advanced, Barrow's Straits, Wellington Channel, and Melville Island, was compelled to winter at the latter place. The most difficult part of Parry's task now began. Hitherto, while the necessity of active exertion remained, and constant watchfulness of eye and hand were requisite in the prosecution of the dangerous voyage, it was comparatively easy for the commander of the expedition to preserve the health and cheerfulness of the crews. Now, however, it needed all the resources of a fertile mind and an active example to prevent the evil consequences likely to arise from want of regular employment during the dreary hours of a northern winter. But Parry was fully equal to the emergency. Theatrical entertainments were set on foot, Parry himself turning author for the time being; a weekly newspaper, the North Georgian Gazette, was started in the officers' mess-room; and every precaution taken to promote amusement and exercise among all. After ten months of confinement in Winter Harbour, the ships were set free; but the state of the ice rendering further progress to the westward hopeless, Parry was compelled to retrace his course to England. On his return, he was promoted to the rank of commander, was presented with the freedom of Bath and Norwich, and elected a member of the Royal Society. The narrative of this voyage to Melville Island was published by order of the Admiralty. "No one," it was said of this work at the time, "could rise from its perusal without being im- pressed with the fullest conviction that Commander Parry's merits as an officer and scientific navigator are of the highest order; that his talents are not confined to his professional duties; but that the resources of his mind are equal to the most arduous situations, and fertile in expedients under every circumstance, however difficult, dangerous, or unexpected." (Quarterly Review, vol. xxv.)

In a scientific point of view, the results of this voyage are most important. On the subject of magnetism, especially, the observations, constantly and carefully registered, were the first which had ever been made so near the magnetic pole of the earth. No opportunity was ever omitted of gathering information which the means at hand could supply, and the exertions of the commander were ably seconded by those under him. The labours of Captain Sabine, R.A., who accompanied the expedition as astronomer, speak for themselves, being arranged in a valuable appendix to the narrative.

His second and third voyages, from 1821 to 1824, and from May 1824 to October 1825, respectively, were also undertaken with a view to the discovery of the long-sought N.W. passage. The former, on his return from which he was promoted to the rank of post-captain, and appointed hydrographer to the Admiralty, resulted in the discovery of the Straits of the Hecla and Griper. The voyage of 1824, resulting in the loss of the Fury, was the last expedition in which Parry was engaged for the discovery of a N.W. passage, his next public service having a different end in view, though it led him once more into similar scenes. Still, while the great problem remained unsolved, his own exertions had not been without brilliant results. To him we owe the passage of Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Strait; on the south and north, Prince Regent's Inlet and Wellington Channel; Melville Island and Banks' Land, to the far westward. Even his failures served as landmarks to guide the steps of those who followed in his track; and the extent of his success, on ground hitherto unexplored, had in a great measure exhausted the more difficult part of the undertaking, leaving to his successors only the glory of completing the last link in the chain of discovery. He lived just long enough to see this link added, as he felt sure would eventually be the case.

After the unsuccessful termination of the recent efforts to discover the N.W. passage, it seemed useless for the present to pursue the attempt further; but this did not hinder Parry from turning his attention to another quarter, where success seemed more hopeful. The interesting experiments which had been made during the late expeditions in the neighbourhood of the magnetic pole had induced many scientific men to speculate on the possibility of carrying out similar observations at the very pole of the earth itself. Parry employed the few leisure moments he could snatch from the duties of his office in drawing up a statement respecting the practicability of effecting this object by means of sledge-boats, as had been before proposed by his friend and brother officer Captain Franklin. Of the difficulties involved in the scheme he was fully aware; but, as he remarked in a letter to Franklin, then himself absent from England on arctic discovery, "The true reply to all doubts is, go and see!" The memorial, when completed, was laid before Lord Melville and the lords of the Admiralty, supported by a recommendation from Sir Humphry Davy, the president of the Royal Society, to whom Parry, as a member of the society, had communicated his views. As might be anticipated, some opposition was at first made to the scheme; but after further discussions, the objections were overruled, and Parry was appointed to the command of an expedition "for the purpose of attempting to reach the North Pole."

In March 1827 the Hecla left England. Treurenberg Bay, in the Isle of Spitzbergen, was the spot selected for her to remain in during the absence of the exploring party; and at 5 p.m. on the 21st of June, the two boats Enterprise and Endeavour, respectively commanded by Parry and his lieutenant, James C. Ross, bade farewell to their comrades on board the ship, and, with the usual salute of three hearty cheers, set out for the northward. The boats employed on this novel service were fitted with strong runners shod with smooth steel, in the manner of a sledge, to the forepart of which the ropes for dragging the boat were attached. The crew of each consisted of two officers and twelve men, of whom two were marines. The rough nature of the ice, combined with the softness of its upper surface, rendered each day's work very tedious and laborious. Urged on, however, by the example of their commander, the men, in spite of all these discouragements, laboured with the greatest cheerfulness and good-will. All hoped, and none more confidently than Parry himself, that the rugged ice over which they were now toiling would prove but the introduction to the smooth continuous plain of the main ice which the accounts of former navigators had led them to expect to the north of Spitzbergen. Day after day, however, went on, and no signs of improvement were visible for some distance to the northward, when it became by degrees painfully evident to both the commander and his officers that another obstacle to the completion of their purpose had unexpectedly arisen. This consisted in the southerly drift of the whole body of ice over which they were laboriously tracking their way, owing to the wind, which blew steadily from the N. or N.W. The observations carefully made at the close of each day's hard work showed too clearly that often less than half the distance travelled could be regarded as progress in a northerly direction. This mortifying truth was for some time kept from the knowledge of the men, who used, however, good-humouredly to remark that they were "a long time getting to this 83°!" For a few days more they persevered in the face of heavy snow-storms and torrents of rain, which Parry had never seen equalled, but the drift of the ice continuing as great as ever, he was at length compelled to confess that further labour was useless. It was now the 27th of July; the day was warm and pleasant, forming a cheerful contrast to the weather they had lately experienced. "Our ensigns and pendants," Parry writes, "were displayed during the day, and sincerely as we regretted not having been able to hoist the British flag in the highest latitude to which we had aspired, we shall, perhaps, be excused for feeling some little pride in being the bearers of it to a parallel considerably beyond that mentioned in any well-authenticated record." The southward journey over the ice occupied a fortnight; and on the 28th August the Hecla weighed anchor for England. On the 1st November she was paid off, when, for the last time, Parry hauled down his pendant.

"No successor on the path of arctic adventure has yet snatched the chaplet from the brow of this great navigator. Parry is still the champion of the North." (Times, January 20, 1856.) At this day, through the graceful compliment of recent navigators, the land nearest either pole on which the eye of civilized man has ever rested, bears the name of him who unfurled his country's flag at a higher latitude than any before or since have been able to reach: 82° 45' was the latitude attained on this occasion. The Parry Mountains were discovered by Sir J. C. Ross in the antarctic regions in 1841; and the same name was given by Dr Kane in 1853 to a mountain visible to the N. of Smith Sound.

His next appointment led him into far different scenes. In consequence of the mismanagement and neglect of the agents resident on the property of the Australian Agricultural Company, the directors had for some time been anxious to secure the services of some one of sufficient ability to restore matters to a proper footing, and whose known character and name would at the same time be a guarantee against the evils from which they had before suffered. With these views, they offered the post to Captain (now Sir Edward) Parry, for he and Franklin hail, on the 29th of April 1829, received the honour of knighthood at the hands of his Majesty George IV. All professional difficulties were over-ruled by the kind assurance of Lord Melville, that his acceptance of the company's offer should in no way interfere with his future prospects. Accordingly, in the spring of 1829, he received his appointment as commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company in New South Wales. Residing at Port Stephens, the neglected state of the settlement called for the exercise of all his energies. It was, in truth, to use his own words, "a moral wilderness!" and to the cultivation of this unpromising soil he and his wife resolved to apply all their energies. The people around them consisted of three distinct classes,—First, The officers and servants of the company; secondly, The convicts, working also in the employ of the company, or acting as domestic servants in the officers' families, that of the commissioner himself included; and lastly, The natives, whose home was in the "bush," and whose encampments were often found within a few yards of the settlement. He fitted up a carpenter's shop as a place of worship, conducting the service himself, and regarding nothing as too trivial, whether a cricket-match or a fête, which could tend to promote innocent enjoyment, and draw close the bond which united him to those under his charge. The task of reformation proved, indeed, no easy one. The almost total want of proper discipline which had previously existed in the settlement rendered it a matter of no small difficulty to introduce a new system of order and regularity. This, however, Parry was determined to effect; and though there was at the outset much to dishearten, his judgment and firmness by degrees triumphed over all obstacles, while the genial kindness of his disposition, and his evident desire for the general welfare, gained the respect and affection of all. The want of a regular church and minister becoming more and more felt each day, he felt, as the time for his departure approached, that he could not leave a better legacy to those over whose interests he had watched for four years than a building consecrated to the service of Him whose glory had been his constant aim. A site was accordingly determined upon at Stroud. Monday, April 29, 1833, was a day long remembered in the colony, when the first stone of the new church was laid by Sir Edward. "At Port Stephens," wrote one who visited that place some years later, "Sir E. Parry found a wilderness, but left a land of hope and promise." On his return to England in 1835, the directors of the Australian Agricultural Company invited him to a public dinner, and presented him with a handsome service of plate, "in testimony of the high sense entertained of the benefits conferred by him on the colony during his residence there."

Returning to England in 1835, Sir Edward was appointed assistant-commissioner of poor-law in the county of Norfolk. The act of 1834, passed to remedy the abuses which existed under the old poor-law administration, rendered the duties of the situation arduous and often very unpleasant, by bringing him into contact with those who were unwilling to acquiesce in the new order of things. His health shortly became impaired under the pressure of work, and after a year and a half he was compelled to tender his resignation. In accepting his resignation, the commissioners expressed their regret, "on their own account personally, but still more on account of the loss of his public services, the value of which they had learnt fully to appreciate from the many proofs they had received of the discreet, judicious, and efficient manner in which he had conducted his operations in Norfolk."

In February 1837 Sir Edward was employed for a short time by the Admiralty in the organization of the packet service between the Liverpool, Holyhead, and Dublin stations. His health was now so far improved that he was anxious to be once more actively employed. An opportunity soon presented itself. The introduction of steam-power into the navy had by that time wrought great changes in the service, and a new department being about this time formed at the Admiralty, the superintendence was offered to, and accepted by, Sir Edward, under the title of "Comptroller of Steam Machinery." For nearly nine years he held the post, which proved no sinecure. The duties of his office, at first sufficiently arduous, became each day more laborious. During the time of his appointment as comptroller of steam machinery the application of steam-power in the navy became almost universal. Among the most important improvements effected was the introduction of the screw-propeller, now justly regarded as indispensable in every man-of-war. Those who took an interest in this invention, and were, consequently, able to form a judgment on the subject, acknowledge that its success in the Royal Navy (which led to its general adoption in the merchant service) was, in no small degree, owing to Sir Edward's constant and earnest advocacy. Certainly few were more sanguine in their expectations of its ultimate success, and none more energetic in the support of its claims at the Admiralty. In the autumn of 1841 he was employed by Sir Robert Peel's government in drawing up a report on the state of the Caledonian Canal, and the advantage which might result from opening its waters to larger vessels. The report drawn up by him after this survey resulted in the completion of the Caledonian Canal, which was re-opened in April 1847, and has been in operation since that time, with all the advantages of increased depth of water, and other accommodation for the transit of larger vessels. In December 1846 he received from Lord Auckland (first lord of the Admiralty) the appointment to the post of captain-superintendent of the Royal Clarence Yard and of the Naval Hospital at Haslar. The position was one in every way congenial to his tastes, as bringing him once more into immediate connection with members of his own profession. As might be supposed from his life at Port Stephens, he took an active interest in the spiritual, no less than the temporal, welfare of the patients in the hospital. With the exception of the lunatics, to whom one wing of the establishment was devoted, the same individuals seldom remained under his control for many weeks together, but the number of patients actually within the walls at one time amounted to several hundreds. Desirous of providing these with an opportunity of religious instruction, independently of the regular services conducted by the chaplain, Sir Edward, on the second or third Sunday after his arrival at Haslar, commenced, with the chaplain's consent, a series of Sunday evening lectures, which were continued during the whole time of his command. These were always well attended, upwards of a hundred patients being sometimes present. "In such repute," says a medical officer of the hospital, "were these lectures held, that numerous visitors found their way to the officers' houses in order to have the satisfaction of attending them." The organization of the dockyard battalions was first commenced during the time of Sir Edward's command at Haslar; and the labourers and artisans employed in the Clarence Yard were formed into a separate corps, of which he received his commission as colonel-commandant. While at Haslar, Sir Edward gave his full support to the different religious societies of which he was a member. At Gosport and Portsea he was continually called upon to take the chair at their provincial meetings. At the time of the well-known papal aggression in 1850 a meeting was held at Gosport for the purpose of presenting an address to her Majesty; and the resolution embodying the proposed address was moved by Sir E. Parry in an energetic speech. Parson and expressive of his own willingness to take a foremost place in resisting a movement which he felt to be opposed to "the Protestant throne, the Protestant liberties, and, above all, the Protestant faith of his country."

In the foundation of a Sailor's Home at Portsmouth Sir Edward took an active part. Of the great importance and value of these institutions he was fully convinced, and always condemned in the strongest terms the idea entertained by not a few naval officers, that the character of British seamen would be lowered in the eyes of the world by any attempts to improve their moral and social condition on shore.

In May 1852 he reached his rear-admiral's flag, and was therefore obliged to vacate his post at Haslar; but towards the close of the following year he was appointed by Lord Aberdeen to the lieutenant-governorship of Greenwich Hospital. A lecture to seamen, delivered about this time at Southampton, has since been published, and placed in the seamen's libraries of her Majesty's ships by order of the Admiralty. In the summer of 1854 London and its suburbs were severely visited with Asiatic cholera. In the hospital itself it found its victims, though its ravages there were not so great as in the surrounding localities. Towards the end of August Sir Edward was himself attacked with the premonitory symptoms, which, though soon brought under control, seemed to be the exciting cause of his suffering and fatal disorder. The malady soon evidently gained ground instead of decreasing; and in order to leave no means of alleviation untried, it was determined to remove him to Ems, for the benefit of the advice of a celebrated German doctor. The hopes of recovery at first held out soon proved delusive, and he died on the 8th of July 1855.

The remains were brought to England, and buried in the mausoleum of Greenwich Hospital. Sir Edward Parry was twice married: his first wife was a daughter of Sir John Stanley, afterwards Lord Stanley of Alderley; the second, Mrs Samuel Hoare junior, daughter of the Rev. R. H. Kin-son.

Besides the lecture to seamen above mentioned, and the narratives of his four polar voyages, Sir Edward Parry wrote a small volume—The Parental Character of God. (See Memoirs of Rear-Admiral Sir W. E. Parry, Knt., F.R.S., &c., by his son the Rev. E. Parry, M.A., London, 1857.)