Charles Parkin

Charles Parkin (1690–1765) was an English clergyman and antiquarian. He was rector of Oxburgh in Norfolk, and assisted Francis Blomefield on his history of the county, completing it after Blomefield's death.

Life The son of William Parkin of London, a prosperous shoemaker, he was born on 11 January 1690, and educated at Merchant Taylors' School. In 1708 he went to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, graduating B.A. 1712 and M.A. 1717. He married Mary, the widow of John Meriton the rector of Oxburgh, Norfolk, in 1717. She died in 1732. they had no children. Parkin's Topography of Freebridge Hundred and Half in Norfolk, containing the History and Antiquities of the Borough of King's Lynn, and of the Towns, Villages, and Religious Buildings in that Hundred and Half (London, 1762) was reprinted from the fourth volume. in a pamphlet entitled An Answer to, or Remarks upon, Dr. Stukeley's "Origines Roystonianæ" (London, 1744). When Stukeley published a reply, Parkin responded with A Reply to the Peevish, Weak, and Malevolent Objections brought by Dr. Stukeley in his Origines Roystonianæ, No.2 (Norwich, 1748).

Death and bequests Parkin died on 27 August 1765, and by his will (dated 17 June 1759) bequeathed money to his old college for the foundation of exhibitions to be held by scholars from the Merchant Taylors' School and from the free school at Bowes, Yorkshire, which had been founded by his uncle, William Hutchinson of Clement's Inn.