Robert Parker (1753-97)
The younger brother of a more acclaimed officer, Parker’s short and unhappy career saw him lose hundreds of his crew to yellow fever before he lost his own life to a freak accident at sea.
Parker was born at Queenborough, Kent, on 8 April 1753, a younger son of Augustine (Augustus) Parker, a naval officer who commanded one of the royal yachts and served as the mayor of Queenborough in the Isle of Sheppey, and of his wife, Elizabeth Beale. His oldest brother was Vice-Admiral Sir William Parker.
Approaching his 24th year, Robert Parker was commissioned lieutenant on 3 February 1777. A year later, on 19 February 1778 he married 23-year-old Martha Rosewell at Chatham. The couple would have eight children, including two sons who served in the Navy – Commander Frederick Augustus Hargood Parker and Lieutenant William Frederick Parker.
On 1 December 1787, at the conclusion of the Dutch Armament, Parker was promoted commander of the bomb Vesuvius 8 for purposes of rank only, and on 22 September 1790, during the Spanish Armament, he was appointed to the sloop Flirt 14. Amidst concerns of a fireship attack on the fleet at Spithead, his vessel was one of those detailed to investigate every craft entering the anchorage, but with the dispute drawing to a close the Flirt received orders to pay off towards the end of October. Along with many other officers, the 37-year-old Parker was posted captain on 22 November, being appointed to the Sibyl 28 (again for purposes of rank only).
When the French Revolutionary War broke out in February 1793, Parker was not immediately re-employed, and it was not until the end of September 1794 that he was appointed to the Raisonnable 64, soon to become the flagship of his brother, Rear-Admiral William Parker. Though the Parkers set sail from St. Helens on 17 December with a large convoy for the West Indies, it was not until the middle of February 1795 that the convoy finally departed Plymouth. Arriving at Barbados at the end of March, the Raisonnable continued on to Jamaica, where Admiral Parker was to serve as the commander-in-chief. Unhappily, the crew soon fell victim to yellow fever with thirty men reported to have died in this initial outbreak, and the ship continued to suffer losses throughout the year.
In December 1795 Captain Parker exchanged with Captain Charles Boyles into the Swiftsure 74, where he continued as the flag-captain to his brother. His command was present at the unsuccessful assault on Léogane, San Domingo on 21 March 1796, and during this campaign the Swiftsure lost hundreds of men to yellow fever at Cape Nicolas Mole, Haiti, where over half of the officers and seamen based there lost their lives. Rear-Admiral Parker soon had to relinquish the command of the Jamaican station due to his own ill health; his flagship returned to England at the end of August with a convoy and then entered Portsmouth for a refit. When in October Captain Parker was superseded in the command, he asked either to be put on half pay, or (surprisingly in view of his recent experience) to be given command of a large frigate on the Jamaican Station. During his time on half pay he seems to have lived at Heavitree, near Exeter.
In the spring of 1797, he was appointed to recommission the Intrepid 64, but her planned departure with an East India convoy on 26 May was delayed due to disaffection amongst her crew following the eruption of the Spithead mutiny. She eventually got away in the first week of June with eighteen ships, and having delivered her charges to the Cape, she was returning home with another convoy when on 23 November Parker was washed overboard and lost. The accident occurred when the ship heeled in a gale, his chair gave way, and he crashed through the stern windows of his cabin . He was 44 years old.