Edward Stone Parker

Edward Stone Parker (1802–1865) was a Methodist preacher and assistant Protector of Aborigines in the Aboriginal Protectorate established in the Port Phillip District of colonial New South Wales under George Augustus Robinson in 1838. He established and administered the Franklinford Aboriginal Protectorate Station in the territory of the Dja Dja Wurrung people from January 1841 to the end of 1848.

Early life Parker was born on 17 May 1802 in St Pancras, Middlesex to Joseph Parker, a printer, and his wife Martha. He became an apprenticed printer and a Sunday school teacher in the Methodist Church and was a candidate for the ministry. He married Mary Cook Woolmer in 1828, thus breaking probationary conditions for the ministry leading him to teaching in a Methodist day school in Greater Queen Street, London.

Assistant Protector The Colonial Office in England appointed him as assistant Protector of Aborigines, and he and his wife and six sons sailed for Sydney. He arrived in Melbourne in January 1839. Robinson appointed Parker to the northwest or Loddon District in March, but he did not start his protectorate until September 1839. The Protector's duties included to safeguard aborigines from "encroachments on their property, and from acts of cruelty, of oppression or injustice" and a longer-term goal of "civilising the natives".

A Homestead, church, school and several out buildings were initially constructed. Parker employed a medical officer, Dr W. Baylie, to treat the high incidence of disease, a teacher to educate Dja Dja Wurrung children, and employed several free and assigned labourers.

While chiefly remembered for his work as Assistant Protector, Parker was a leading layman and preacher in the Port Philip colony's Methodist community. He also served on the Council of the University of Melbourne in 1853, was a nominated member of the Victorian Legislative Council from 29 August 1853 to 1 August 1854; in 1857-62 he was an inspector for the Denominational Schools Board.

Legacy Edward Stone Parker's work as Assistant Protector of Aborigines has been described as "a successful failure". While the Franklinford Station he established to protect the Dja Dja Wurrung was eventually closed, he is remembered for his advocacy for land rights and reconciliation. He supported land ownership between Europeans and Aboriginal people. Without his journal observations of Aboriginal society, knowledge of many of their cultural practices could have been lost.

Family Parker's first wife, Mary, died in 1842. Parker remarried in 1843. He died on 27 April 1865 at Franklinford, survived by his second wife Hannah, née Edwards and by ten children. One son was George Alfred Parker, born 1859 and died 1916, whose son was Charles George Bright Parker, born 1897 and died 1938. Charles George Bright Parker married Kathleen Harley Wainwright / Bright-Parker OBE.