William Parry-Okeden

William Edward Parry-Okeden (13 May 1841 – 30 August 1926) was a public servant, Police Commissioner and Protector of Aborigines (1895-1903), and a horseman, in Queensland, Australia. He stood tall.

Early life

William Edward Parry-Okeden was born on 13 May 1841, the son of David Parry-Okeden (c.1810–9 August 1895), a Royal Navy officer who had served during the Battle of Navarino, and Rosalie Caroline Dutton. The family had descended from the Okedens of Dorset, England, and the Parrys from Wales.

He was born at Maranumbela, his father's station, Snowy River, in the Monaro District of New South Wales. Education commenced at the Diocesan Grammar School. By the age of 14 he had already participated as a volunteer police officer in the Ballarat riots. Having served three years as an articled clerk to a solicitor in Melbourne, he relinquished the law and joined his father in squatting pursuits in Queensland in 1861, including managing the Burrandownan Station, the largest property in the Burnett district. With Richard W. Stuart, he explored the upper waters of the Dawson River, aged 22 in 1862.

In response to the 1892 small pox epidemic, as Under-Colonial Secretary, Parry-Okeden organised health services, opened infection camps, and quarantine services. to 1 April 1905. As Commissioner he oversaw the 'Gatton tragedy' in 1896 and the 'Kenniff affair' of 1902. Parry-Okeden retired from the public service in 1905, aged 65.

With the royal visit of the Duke and Duchess of York, Parry-Okeden was the state and federal governments' Australasian coordinator.

Personal life

William Parry-Okeden married (E)lizabeth Gertrude Wall in October 1873. She came from a West Indian family of planters in Barbadoes and Trinidad.

Captain Uvedale Edward Parry-Okeden (1874–1961), serving at Gallipoli, later of Wells Station, Mundubbera, Queensland. He married Auburn Jessie May Hayes (–1964) in 1922; Charles Fitzmaurice Parry-Okeden (1878–1974), later of 'Glen Haughton', Taroom, Queensland Captain (H)erbert David Parry-Okeden (1889–), formerly of the Royal Flying Corps then Australian Flying Corps, later of 'Bungilburra', Chinchilla, Queensland; Hilda Beatrice Parry-Okeden (1880–), who later married Dr (H)ubert Roger Cope, settling in Goulburn, New South Wales; Rosalie Gertrude Parry-Okeden (1875–1950), in 1902 marrying Harry Richardson Pockley, 'Redlands', Corinda, Queensland; Evelyn Constance Parry-Okeden (–1980). On 17 February 1912 she married a distant cousin, Edmund Robert Parry-Okeden, in St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, before moving to England; and Violet Vivian Parry-Okeden (1883–1952), who later married Charles Dudley de Burgh Persse, of Tabragalba, Beaudesert, Queensland.

The family lived at Hawthorne, Bulimba, before they moved in January 1897 to the spacious residence of 'Delamore', 115 Turner Road, Kedron, Brisbane. His wife died in July 1918. In his last few years, he lived with his daughter Rosalie Pockley and her husband at Redcliffe.

He was subject of a 1927 book A son of Australia: Memories of W. E. Parry-Okeden, I.S.O., 1840–1926 by Brisbane journalist Harry C. Perry.