Parry, Caleb Hillier, 1755-1822

Caleb Hillier Parry was born on 21 October 1755 at Cirencester. He was the eldest son of Joshua Parry a non-conformist minister. Caleb was educated at Cirencester Grammar School (where he met and became lifelong friends with Edward Jenner), and at the Dissenter's Academy in Warrington. He went on to study medicine at Edinburgh University, graduating in 1778, the year in which he married Sarah Rigby. In 1779, they settled in Bath where their son, William Edward Parry, the Arctic explorer, was born in 1790, the eighth of nine children.

Establishing a successful medical practice, Caleb Parry was appointed physician to the Bath General Hospital in 1782, later publishing important medical and scientific research, including a study of the causes of angina (1799) and the nature of the pulse (1816). Besides his interest in medicine, Parry managed a large farm, where he conducted experimental sheep breeding in an effort to improve the quality of wool. An enthusiastic collector of fossils and minerals, he became one of the original members of the Geological Society when it was founded in 1807 and was a fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1816, he suffered a debilitating stroke and he died on 9 March 1822 at Bath.

From the guide to the Caleb Hillier Parry Collection, 1800-1822, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)