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The Preston Chronicle and Lancashire Advertiser, November 9, 1861
OUR GUILD MAYOR.
Robert Townley Parker, Esq,. who to-day will be elected chief magistrate of this borough, has long held a high position in the county, and the many families, of which he is the representative, have been on the roll of the Lancashire gentry for several generations. The Parkers, of Extwistle, of which he is the head, were seated at that place as early as the reign of Henry IV., when their names occur as lessees under the abbey of Newbo, Lincolnshire, to which the township of Briercliffe-with-Extwistle then belonged. At the dissolution of the abbeys Extwistle fell to the lot of John Braddill, who disposed of the manor to Robert Parker, from whom it has come by lineal descent to its present owner, Robert Townley Parker, Esq,. of Cuerden, Royle, Extwsitle, and Astley. John Parker, of Extwistle, served the office of High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1653, during the period of the Commonwealth; Robert (called in Baines’s Lancashire “Roger”) Parker was sheriff in 1710; Thomas Townley Parker, of Cuerden and Extwistle, the father of the present Mr. Parker, was sheriff in 1794, in which year he died; and the gentleman who is to do the honours of our approaching guild, served the same office in 1817. Robert Parker, great great grandfather of the present squire, married Ann, daughter of Christopher Banastre, of Bank, which alliance obtained the Cuerden estate; and in 1719, his son, Banastre Parker, transferred the family seat from Extwistle to Cuerden Hall. This Banastre married Ann, daughter and co-heiress of Wm.Clayton, Esq., of Fulwood, M.P. for Liverpool in several parliaments. His son, Robert Parker, who was born in 1727, married Ann, daughter and ultimately heiress of Thomas Townley, Esq., of Royle, through which alliance his grandson, the present Mr. Parker, succeeded in 1796, on the death of his great great uncle, Mr. Edmund Townley, the last heir male of the family, to the valuable Royle estate, which had been in the Townleys since the reign of Henry VIII, when Richard Townley, a branch of the Towneleys, of Towneley, acquired the property by marriage with the heiress of the Clerkes of Royle.
This Robert Parker was an alderman of Preston; he twice served the office of mayor, viz., in 1752-3 and in 1761-2, and it was in his second mayoralty, a century ago, that a guild took place. On his death, he was succeeded in his estates by his eldest son, Banastre Parker, after whose demise, without issue, they devolved upon Thomas Townley Parker, who, as we have said, died while sheriff of Lancashire, in 1794. Mr. Thomas Townley Parker married the only daughter and heiress of Peter Brooke, Esq,. of Astley, who, after his decease, married Sir H. P. Hoghton.
Through his father, Mr. Parker therefore represents the families of Parker, of Extwistle, Clayton, of Fulwood, Banastre, of Bank, and Townley, of Royle. Through his mother, he represents the Brookes, of Astley, the Charnocks (or Chernocs), of Charnock and Astley, the Booths, of Barton, and the Molyneuxes, of Sefton and Crosby. The Chernocs were settled at Charnock, in this county, so far back as he twelfth century, and their estates are now in the possession of their descendant and representative, Mr. Parker. In the reign of Richard I., Adam de Chernoc, of Astley and Charnock, gave lands in Charnock to the Hospital of St. John, in Jerusalem. His great grand son, Adam de Chernoc, was returned for Lancashire to the great council, in Westminster, 17th Edward II. Stephen Charnock, an eminent Puritan divine, and chaplain in the family of Henry Cromwell, governor of Ireland, under the Commonwealth, was of this family. His portrait, with the quaint inscription, “Preserved dust,” forms one of an interesting series of ancestral pictures at Astley Hall, the property of Mr. Parker. Astley Hall is a good specimen of the domestic architecture of the time of its erection. The handsome south front bears the date of 1600, that being the period when the principal portion of the structure was built, but some parts are still older. Captain Charnock, who distinguished himself at the memorable siege of Lathom House, where, from losing an eye, he acquired the soubriquet of “Single-eyed Charnock,” was of the same family. His portrait is also at Astley Hall.
The heiress of the Charnocks, towards the close of the seventeenth century, married Richard Brooke, second son of Sir Peter Brooke, of Mere, in Cheshire. Their grandson, Peter Brooke, left an only surviving child, the mother of the present Mr. Townley Parker, at whose death Astley and Charnock estates became his property.
Mr. Parker’s ancestors, the Parkers and the Townleys, were for a long period freeman of Preston. The first of the family was Nicholas Townley, of Royle, whose name appears on the guild rolls in 1662, and his descendants continued to renew their freedom, for several guilds. The first of the name of Parker, of Extwistle, on the guild rolls, was Robert Parker, who, in 1702, took up his freedom, and at the same time three of his sons, Banastre, Robert, and Nicholas did the same. At every succeeding guild, except the last two, members of the family appear on the rolls. The last is in 1802, when there is the entry of the present squire of Cuerden, then the only remaining male representative of the race, who is entered as “Parker, Robert Townley, of Cuerden Hall, esquire, infant son of Thomas Townley, deceased.” It appears that Mr. Parker omitted to “take up” his freedom at the guild of 1822, so that he cannot now enjoy the “privileges” which a Preston free man is allowed by law! Mr. Parker’s ancestor, Peter Brooke, of Astley, was also admitted a freeman at the guild of 1742.
Mr. R. Townley Parker, as we have said, served the office of High Sheriff in 1817. His parliamentary career is well known; he represented Preston in two parliaments, those of 1837 and 1852, and was unsuccessful at two contests, viz., in 1841 and 1847. He is, with the exception of Mr. Blackburne, of Hale, the oldest magistrate in the county, having qualified on the 14th of January, 1819.
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