Samuel Parkes (1761–1825) was a British manufacturing chemist, now remembered for his Chemical Catechism.
Life
He was born at Stourbridge, Worcestershire, on 26 May 1761. He was the eldest son of Samuel Parkes (died 1 April 1811, aged 76), a grocer, by his first wife, Hannah, daughter of William Mence of Stourbridge. He was at a dame's school in Stourbridge with Sarah Kemble, and in 1771 went to a boarding-school at Market Harborough, Leicestershire, under Stephen Addington.
Parkes began his career in his father's business. In 1790 he was one of the founders, and for some years president, of a public library at Stourbridge. Around 1793 he moved to Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. A Unitarian, he conducted public worship in his own house at Stoke. In 1803 he settled in Goswell Street, London, as a manufacturing chemist. and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1823.
Parkes was a member of 21 learned societies, British and foreign. During a visit to Edinburgh, in June 1825, he went down a painful disorder, which proved fatal. He died at his residence in Mecklenburgh Square, London, on 23 December 1825, and was buried in the graveyard of the New Gravel Pit Chapel, Hackney. His funeral sermon was preached by William Johnson Fox. The Chemical Catechism was written for the education of his daughter, and lent in manuscript to others. After it was translated into Russian, the Emperor of Russia sent him a valuable ring. In 1817 the Highland Society voted him a silver inkstand for an essay on kelp and barilla. He received a silver cup from the Horticultural Society of Scotland for a paper on the uses of salt in gardening.