The potter, another famous Thomas Parr

Despite introduction of the commercially successful flatback (modeled and decorated only in the front with flat backs designed for placement on mantelpieces), one mid-nineteenth century potter, Thomas Parr, maintained a high standard of artistic integrity and produced figures that were finely modeled and decorated in the round. Parr pulled figure making from the quicksand of commercialism, and his work fit into the broader spectrum of the arts, returning truth to medium and ennobling craftsmanship. But Parr was singular and, although the figure-making industry remained strong through all of Victoria's long reign (1837-1901), quality declined substantially by the 1880's. Ubiquitous Spaniels, portraits, and nearly all types of figures took on a "formula" look, and once-vibrant colors were replaced by simple white and gilt decoration. By the time of World War I, figure making had become passé.

The memory of Parr kept alive by almenacs

The seventeenth-century almanac writer Jonathan Dove three times mentions Thomas Parr's death in his 'Memorable Accidents; or A Chronologicall description of many things worthy of memory'. Parr's death is in esteemed company with such events as
-Constantine procuring peace for Christians,
-the Turks taking Jerusalem from the Sarazens, and
-Cambridge University being founded.

See Jonathan Dove, Speculum anni partu Virginis MDCXLIII, or, An Almanack for the year of our Lord God 1643 and subsequent editions in 1647 and 1649.

Arundels stormy relationship with king Charles

To bring Parr to London is consonant with Arundel's need to win points with Charles. In contrast to what had been Arundel's warm friendship with James, the Earl's relationship to Charles was stormy; it included his being imprisoned in the Tower and being forced to give up the hereditary dukedom of Norfolk.

Arundel; collector of antiquities

The act of having Parr carted to London is consonant with the Earl's reputation as a zealous collector of antiquities. While his travels on the Continent usually netted him sumptuous portraits by Italian masters – he owned in all more than eight hundred paintings by 1642 – or statuary relics from his archaeological digs of ancient Rome. In Parr he reels in an aged human being, a relic of the pastoral life.

The fascination with collecting antiquarian specimens and the aristocratic quest for rarities, in the early seventeenth century did not bespeak a genuine interest in science. It was only a superficial and amateurish commitment to the Baconian ideal of experimental science, or rather the very antithesis of it. Instead, 'it encouraged the mentality of the fair-ground peep-show'. Arundel is a greedy urban colonist, Parr a spectacle of biblical age, an aristocrat's Elephant Man.

The discovery of the 2nd Earl of Arundel and Surrey

Parr became a celebrity, albeit briefly in his own lifetime. In 1635 his fame reached the ears of Thomas Howard, 2nd Earl of Arundel and Surrey who was visiting one of his Shropshire estates. The Earl heard all about the incredible 'old, very old man' known as "Old Parr", then said to be l52 years old and working as a farmer near his country seat.

Parr was visited by the Earl at his small hamlet near Shrewsbury in Shropshire. When the Earl encountered Parr he was decided to bring him to London and exhibit the marvel at court and persuaded Parr to visit the King in London. Parr left Shropshire never to return.

The South Transept

The South Transept is lit by a large rose window and one of the best known parts of Westminster Abbey, Poets' Corner can be found here. It was not originally designated as the burial place of writers, playwrights and poets.
The first poet to be buried here, Geoffrey Chaucer, was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey because he had been Clerk of Works to the palace of Westminster, not because he had written the Canterbury Tales. Over 150 years later, during the flowering of English literature in the sixteenth century, a more magnificent tomb was erected to Chaucer and in 1599 Edmund Spenser was laid to rest nearby. These two tombs began a tradition which developed over succeeding centuries. Shakespeare, buried at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616, had to wait until 1740 before a monument appeared in Poets' Corner.

Poets
-Lord Byron
-John Dryden
-Tennyson
-Robert Browning
-John Masefield.
Writers:
-William Camden
-Dr. Samuel Johnson
-Charles Dickens
-Richard Brinsley Sheridan
-Rudyard Kipling
-Thomas Hardy

Not all those buried in the South Transept are poets or writers. Several of Westminster's former Deans and Canons lie here. Also buried here is Thomas Parr, who was said to have died at the age of 152 in 1635 after having seen ten sovereigns on the throne during his long life.

Parr Portrait (2)

Oil on canvas. 65 x 53 cm.
This painting appears to have an authentic likeness and seems fleetingly sketched while Parr was alive. The painting also has a convincing contemporary inscription. Parr had long been blind. The eyes in this portrait are correspondingly hollow but they are open and it does appear that this painting was executed ad vivum, in other words, when Parr was alive.

Inscribed twice recto in a seventeenth-century writing:

Tho Parr. Aiged. 152.A.[o] 1635.

and in a later writing, probably eighteenth-century:

THO.S PARR AGED 152 / ANNO 1635.

Old Parr Iconofraphy

There is a very large and dubious iconography for ‘Old Parr’ including portraits by Van Dyck and Rubens, the latter apparently from memory (engraved for the European Magazine by John Condé in 1793).Many portraits are known but these invariably appear to be painted posthumously.

Parrs death and otopsy

After his death, King Charles ordered an autopsy and it showed the cause of death was brought on by unaccustomed luxuries and indulgences. The slightest cause of death could not be discovered, and the general impression was that he died from being over-fed and too-well treated in London.
In the post mortem carried out by the eminent physician Dr William Harvey examined his body and at the necropsy the old mans internal organs were found in a most perfect condition,
-the colon resembled that of a child's.
-his cartilages were not even ossified, as is the case generally with the very aged.
The autopsy on Parr was widely interpreted as verifying his extreme age.

Wrote Harvey:

The genital organs were in good condition, the penis was neither retracted nor thin, nor was the scrotum, as is usual in old persons, distended by any watery hernia, while the testicles were large and sound -- so good in fact as not to give the lie to the story commonly told of him that, after reaching his hundredth year, he was actually convicted of fornication and punished. Moreover, his wife, a widow, whom he had married in his hundred and twentieth year, in reply to questions, could not deny that he had had intercourse with her exactly as other husbands do, and had kept up the practice to within twelve years of his death. [...]
The cause of death seemed fairly referrible to a sudden change in the non-naturals, the chief mischief being connected with the change of air, which through the whole course of life had been inhaled of perfect purity – light, cool, and mobile, whereby the praecordia and lungs were more freely ventilated and cooled; but in this great advantage, in this grand cherisher of life this city is especially destitute; a city whose grand characteristic is an immense concourse of men and animals, and where ditches abound, and filth and offal lie scattered about, to say nothing of the smoke engendered by the general use of sulphureous coal as fuel, whereby the air is at all times rendered heavy, but much more so in the autumn than at any other season. Such an atmosphere could not have been found otherwise than insalubrious to one coming from the open, sunny, and healthy region of Salop; it must have been especially so to one already aged and infirm.
Of course, it is rather unlikely that he was actually born in 1483. Harvey himself was in no condition to know his proper age, and nothing he said gave any indication of any memories from the 15th century, rather unusual as those would likely be his most vivid memories. While Parr was undeniably old, the scenario sometimes posited is a confusion (deliberate or no) of this Parr's birth record with that of his grandfather.

The Gravestone at Westminster Abbey

The inscription on his gravestone reads:

THO: PARR OF YE COUNTY OF SALLOP. BORNE
IN AD: 1483. HE LIVED IN YE REIGNES OF TEN
PRINCES VIZ: K.ED.4. K.ED.5.K.RICH.3.
K. HEN. 7 .K.HEN. 8.K.EDW. 6.Q.MA.Q.ELIZ
K.JA. & K. CHARLES. AGED 152 YEARES.
7 WAS BURYED HERE NOVEMB. 15. 1635.

The Brand for Quacks

Perhaps one of the most ingenious devices in the art of quackery is that by which a well-known medicine, bearing Parr's name, is vaunted to the public as the mysterious preparation by which he was enabled to attain the extraordinary age of a hundred and fifty-two.
The portrait which is frequently attached to the puffing placard advertising these drugs, is derived from a likeness of Old. Parr, drawn by the celebrated painter Rubens.

Taylors poetic report 2

Good wholesome labour was his exercise,
Down with the lamb, and with the lark would rise:
In mire and toiling sweat he spent the day,
And to his team he whistled time away:
The cock his night-clock, and till day was done,
His watch and chief sun-dial was the sun.

He was of old Pythagoras' opinion,
That green cheese was most wholesome with an onion;
Coarse meslin bread, and for his daily swig,
Milk, butter-milk, and water, whey and whig:
Sometimes metheglin, and by fortune happy,
He sometimes sipped a cup of ale most nappy,
Cycler or perry, when he did repair
T' Whitson ale, wake, wedding, or a fair;
Or when in Christmas-time he was a guest
At his good landlord's house amongst the rest:
Else he had little leisure-time to waste,
Or at the ale-house huff-cap ale to taste;
His physic was good butter, which the soil
Of Salop yields, more sweet than candy oil;
And garlick he esteemed above the rate
Of Venice treacle, or best mithridate.

He entertained no gout, no ache he felt,
The air was good and temperate where he dwelt;
While mavisses and sweet-tongued nightingales
Did chant him roundelays and madrigals.
Thus living within bounds of nature's laws,
Of his long-lasting life may be some cause.

Buried in Westminster Abbey

The King ordered his burial in the Abbey and his grave has been pointed out to visitors ever since. Parr is celebrated by a monument reared to his memory in Westminster Abbey.
He was buried in the south transept of Westminster Abbey
He was buried in Westminster Abbey by order of King Charles I. The inscription on his small white marble gravestone in the centre of the South Transept reads:
‘Old Parr’ as he was known was buried at Westminster Abbey by order of the King. He was buried in the south transept of Westminster Abbey where the inscription over his grave reads:

Taylors poetic report

Thomas Parr seems, through life, to have been of temperate and industrious habits, of which the following metrical account is given by Taylor:

Good wholesome labour was his exercise,
Down with the lamb, and with the lark would rise:
In mire and toiling sweat he spent the day,
And to his team he whistled time away:
The cock his night-clock, and till day was done,
His watch and chief sun-dial was the sun.

He was of old Pythagoras' opinion,
That green cheese was most wholesome with an onion;
Coarse meslin bread,* and for his daily swig,
Milk, butter-milk, and water, whey and whig:
Sometimes metheglin, and by fortune happy,
He sometimes sipped a cup of ale most nappy,
Cycler or perry, when he did repair
T' Whitson ale, wake, wedding, or a fair;
Or when in Christmas-time he was a guest
At his good landlord's house amongst the rest:
Else he had little leisure-time to waste,
Or at the ale-house huff-cap ale to taste;
His physic was good butter, which the soil
Of Salop yields, more sweet than candy oil;
And garlick he esteemed above the rate
Of Venice treacle, or best mithridate.

He entertained no gout, no ache he felt,The air was good and temperate where he dwelt;
While mavisses and sweet-tongued nightingales
Did chant him roundelays and madrigals.
Thus living within bounds of nature's laws,
Of his long-lasting life may be some cause.'

The Old, Old, Very Old Man (citat):

“An old man is twice a child”.

“He held it safer to be of the religion of the King or Queen that were in being, for he knew that he came raw into the world, and accounted it no point of wisdom to be broiled out of it”

>

The Water Poet

Most of the information about the life of this agricultural labourer who found fame because of his longevity is recorded in John Taylor's pamphlet printed in l635 entitled The Old, Old, Very Old Man or the Age and Long Life of Thomas Parr.
Details of Parr’ s life derive from a pamphlet The Old, Old, Very Old Man or the Age and Long Life of Thomas Parr published in 1635 by John Taylor, also known as the water-poet.
TAYLOR, John. THE OLD, OLD, VERY OLD MAN; Or the Age and Long Life of Thomas Parr… London: T. Cooper, [ca. 1700]. 8vo, viii, 20pp. Cloth, lettered in gilt. Edges variously cut, bookplate & inscription to Paul Jordan Smith on front endpapers, writing & bookseller’s description on back endpaper, still very good. $1250. ¶ Third and expanded edition of this celebrated poem on the centrarian
The poem, the chief source of information on Parr, is in the typical whimsical, rollicking verse of John Taylor (1578?-1653), the eccentric "water poet" who travelled from London to Queensborough in a brown-paper boat. Cf. STC 23781 for the first edition of 1635; not in Wing.
He spent much of his life as a Thames waterman -- a member of the guild of boatmen that ferried passengers across the River Thames in London, in the days when the London Bridge was the only passage between the banks
The principal authority for the history of Old Parr is John Taylor, the 'Water Poet,' who, while the patriarch was residing in London, about a month before he died, published a pamphlet, entitled The Olde, Olde, very Olde Man; or The Age and Long Life of Thomas Parr. From the period at which this work was issued, we are warranted in placing considerable reliance on its statements, which appear never to have been controverted.

Luxdorphs collection of pictures of old people

Bolle Willum Luxdorph, who lived from 1716-1788, was the first Dane known to have studied the phenomenon of old age. Luxdorph was a high-ranking Danish civil servant, leader of the Danish Chancellery as well as a scholar and poet. In the last years of his life Bolle Luxdorph created a collection of pictures of long-livers. A fact which has been known from Bolle Luxdorph's diary, which was published in the early part of this century (Luxdorph 1915-30). In 1988 some drawings in the collections of the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle were identified as originals from Luxdorph's collection, and a reconstruction of a small part of the collection of drawings was published by Thorkild Kjærgaard in the Annual Report of the Carlsberg Foundation (Kjærgaard 1990).

The exact date at which Luxdorph began taking an interest in the phenomenon of old age is not known, but it must have happened some time in the late 1770s. At this point, anyway, Luxdorph began systematically collecting data concerning very old people i.e. persons who had reached the age of 80 and over. Luxdorph, who was eminently proficient in classical as well as modern languages, ploughed through literature from throughout the ages, looking for information about persons who had reached extreme old age. At the same time he began an extensive correspondence with members of the Danish and Norwegian clergy, asking them to search the church registers of their parishes in order to find information about centenarians, just as he kept an eye on the newspapers and periodicals of his time looking for information concerning long-livers (Kjærgaard 1995).

The first result of Luxdorph's interest in the phenomenon of old age was a manuscript in Latin: Catalogus longævorum from 1780. This catalogue was never printed, but survives as a beautiful manuscript in the Royal Library of Copenhagen. Catalogus longævorum contains concise information on several hundred persons, ordered alphabetically and mainly from antiquity. It is quite obvious from the empty spaces left in the manuscript, that Luxdorph intended to have it illustrated. This idea was never realised, however, though a few pen-and-ink drawings survive. These had for the main part been copied from Jacob Gronov's Thesaurus Graecarum antiquitatum published in 12 volumes in Leyden 1697-1702. After 1780 Luxdorph used the blank pages of Catalogus longævorum to write notes about long-livers which he had come across, mainly in the periodical literature of his time.
It proved much easier to come by pictures of Luxdorph's contemporaries. Even before the completion of Catalogus longævorum, Luxdorph was busy building up a collection of pictures of old people, mainly from his own time and the recent past. Existing prints depicting old people were procured, and when no picture was available, Luxdorph went through great lengths to have one made. Many of the clergymen with whom Luxdorph corresponded were requested to procure pictures of the old persons whom they had informed Luxdorph about.
In 1783 Luxdorph published a catalogue of his pictures of long-livers, a printed book of 36 pages: Index tabularum pictarum et cælatarum qvæ longævos representant (Catalogue of painted and engraved pictures representing long-livers). Important changes had taken place compared to Catalogus longævorum from 1780. Firstly the main emphasis now lay on Luxdorph's contemporaries or near-contemporaries. Secondly an important change had been made in the ordering of the material, the alphabetical ordering of Catalogus longævorum had been replaced by the - from a gerontological point of view more interesting - sociological-systematical principle of age. Each person in the gallery is carefully listed according to the number of years, months and days of his or her life, with the oldest person - the Hungarian Petracz Czartan - first.
Index tabularum was dedicated to Count Otto Thott, who was Luxdorph's political chief and himself an ardent book collector on a much grander scale than Luxdorph. Index tabularum was published on the occasion of Thott's 80th anniversary on October 15th 1783, the pictures of Otto Thott - youngest of the old - concluding the book. Bolle Luxdorph probably had his inspiration for this rather elaborate birthday present from the story of André Hercules Cardinal de Fleury about whom he writes that Barjac, the valet of cardinal Fleury, some time before the death of Fleury arranged for Fleury to have Twelfth-night dinner with twelve others who were all older than him, thus obliging Fleury as the youngest to "tirer le gateau" (draw the cake)(Luxdorph 1783 p. 14).(1)
The 1783 catalogue lists 271 pictures representing 254 persons, since some of the persons were represented by more than one picture. For the remaining five years of his life Luxdorph continued collecting pictures of long-livers, and it is known that he intended to publish an extended edition of his 1783 catalogue and that a manuscript existed (Luxdorph 1915-30 p. 421 and Junge 1789 II Icones Longævorum p. 79).
On August 13th 1788, Luxdorph died 72 years old. In his will he had left detailed instructions regarding his collections, and the catalogue which was to be made of them for the auction after his death. About his pictures of longævi Luxdorph states: "That all longævi with their age and which of them are but drawings be specified" (Luxdorph 1915-30 II p.421).(2)
Luxdorph's instructions were carried out in the catalogue for the auction in 1789, called Bibliotheca Luxdorphiana, which was compiled by Joachim Junge, who had worked with Luxdorph in his library since 1784. Luxdorph's pictures of long-livers are listed in a separate part of Bibliotheca Luxdorphiana called Icones longævorum. In this list - which constitutes the basis of the reconstruction of Luxdorph's picture gallery - the number of pictures in Luxdorph's collection had grown to 728 representing 515 persons. Of these pictures 78 are drawings, and 650 are prints. The ordering of the material in Icones longævorum is in principle the same as the ordering in Index tabularum, there is, however, one small difference. The ages of the persons in Icones longævorum are given in years only, and generally as the number of years commenced, so that "m. æt. 95" means died in his 95th year, and thus the person in question may have died at the age of 94. This means that in some cases there is a one-year discrepancy between the ages given in Index tabularum and those given in Icones longævorum. At the auction in the autumn of 1789 this unique collection was sold as one lot to an unknown buyer, and was then lost sight of for 200 years.

Read more

Thoms, Records of Longevity

In his pioneering study Human Longevity its facts and its fictions from 1873 William J. Thoms set up criteria for age validation, stressing the fact that the burden of proof in these cases should rest with those who put forward the age-claims, rather than with those who dared disbelieve the amazing age-claims of supercentenarians. The majority of centenarians whose ages were examined by Thoms were his contemporaries or near-contemporaries, but Thoms also examined the legends of these three famous long-livers.

Mr. Thoms, in his Records of Longevity, denies the truth of Parr's great age. Englishman William J. Thoms, who studied aging in the latter half of the 19th century, records an interesting story about Thomas Parr, who claimed to be 152 years old. Parr supposedly lived from 1483 to 1635 and was received in the court of Charles I as the world's oldest living human being. Parr was said to continue working in the fields until he was 130 and to enjoy sexual relations until he was 140. He remained vigorous until he decided to leave Shropshire and travel to London, where he promptly died from "frantic merrymaking."

Thoms' research led him to conclude that Parr's story was fueled by the earl of Arundel, a courtier who wanted to regain favor with the king. Harvey probably became involved because he owed the earl a favor. The actual autopsy report revealed that Harvey made it clear he was responsible only for the technical matter and all else was "furnished by the person who accompanied Parr to London." That person was the earl of Arundel.

No doubt Thomas Parr was very old. However, being the third generation of Thomas Parrs living in the same homestead, he probably, deliberately or inadvertently, picked up the birth date of his own grandfather. Nonetheless, Parr is still cited as a legitimate or probable supercentenarian in a number of record books, principally because Harvey seemed to say it was so.

Though several sceptical individuals, denying the possibility of the life of man being protracted beyond the period of a hundred years, have maintained that no such instance of longevity can be produced, there is abundant and satisfactory evidence to confute this statement, and establish indisputably the fact of the existence of numerous centenarians both in ancient and modern times. One of these instances, that of 'Old Parr,' whose extreme and almost antediluvian age has become proverbial, rests on such well-authenticated grounds, that no reasonable doubt can be entertained as to

Visit the Parr-pubs

See the sign at this URL
Here are directions to The Old Parr's Head Pub at 66 Cross Street, N1 2BA. (Phone: 020 7226 2180) Travel to Highbury & Islington Underground take a 6 minute walk to the North West (Angel Underground)

Portrait (1)

Unknown English Artist active in London around 1635

Portrait of Thomas Parr (Oil on canvas. 65 x 53 cm). Inscribed twice recto in a seventeenth-century writing:

Tho Parr. Aiged. 152.A.[o] 1635. and in a later writing, probably eighteenth-century: THO.S PARR AGED 152 / ANNO 1635.

The present painting is remarkable, as it appears to be an authentic likeness, fleetingly sketched while Parr was alive. The painting also has a convincing contemporary inscription. Parr had long been blind. The eyes in this portrait are correspondingly hollow but they are open and it does appear that this painting was executed ad vivum, in other words, when Parr was alive. Other portraits are known but these invariably appear to be painted posthumously.

Ikonografi

This portrait of him in a coat and with a walking stick may represent his journey to London; it certainly makes the point that he was active. There is an inscription on the rock to the right which claims that Parr was 152 when he died.

At the court of King Charles I

The hospitality and acclaim overwhelmed Parr. Old Parr was treated with kindness and crowds came to see him. He was duly introduced to King Charles I and there are details of their exchanges. Thomas's last few weeks were spent at the palace. His marvellous memory and wits made him an unmatched entertainer.

Thomas's age attracted the attention of King Charles, who wished to investigate the secret of "The English Methuselah" old age (Old Parr was 151 years old at the time).

The King:

"You have lived longer than other men. What have you done more than other men"?

Old Parr:

"Sire, I did penance when I was a hundred years old".

Parrs actual reply was a bit cruder than just mentioning the fact that he did "penance" for having fathered a child out of wedlock when over 100 years old. Charles, who was a bit on the puritanical side, didn´t appreciate the wisecrack.

In the meeting of the venerable patriarch with the British sovereign, a parallel is almost suggested with the grand simplicity in which the presentation of Jacob to Pharaoh is recorded in the Book of Genesis.

Parr' s cottage (2)

Old Parr's Cottage, Shropshire. Engraving. Artist: James Parkes/B. Howlett. Shrewsbury Museums Service (SHYMS: FA/1995/035). Image sy1195.
Old Parr's Cottage at the Glyn in the Parish of Alberbury, Salop. This engraving appeared in Gentlemans Magazine March 1814 and shows a small timber-framed cottage with thatched roof set amongst fields and trees. Thomas Parr (?1483-1635) was buried in Westminster Abbey, with a brass to him in Wollaston church in Shropshire.

Healthy long life

His vigor seems to have been unimpaired, and when 130 years old he is said to have performed his ordinary duties, and was at this age even accustomed to "Thresh", threshed corn.

A diet of green cheese, onions, coarse bread, buttermilk or mild ale (cider on special occasions)kept Thomas healthy. Perhaps the secret of his longevity, was simply a diet of rancid cheese, coarse hard bread, and small drink, generally whey.

His recipe for long life was reputed to be

"Keep your head cool by temperance and your feet warm by exercise. Rise early, go soon to bed, and if you want to grow fat [prosperous] keep your eyes open and your mouth shut".

He never smoked or needed medicine and was never examined by a doctor, until after his death when the scientist and physician, William Harvey, examined his body and declared all his organs to be perfectly healthy.

The journey to London

Arundel brought him to London in a specially constructed litter and not without difficulty because Parrs intelligence and venerable demeanor impressed every one, and crowds thronged to see him and pay him homage. Parr was often in danger of being smothered, and his guards proved quite inadequate at keeping away the curious.

The journey was made in easy stages, as Thomas had been blind for twenty years, and the Earl provided a jester for his entertainment. The earl, as we are informed,

'commanding a litter and two horses (for the more easy carriage of a man so enfeebled and worn with age) to be provided for him; also that a daughter-in-law of his (named Lucye), should likewise attend him, and have a horse for her owne riding with him; and to cheere up the olde man, and make him merry, there was an antique-faced fellow, called Jacke, or John the Foole, with a high and mighty no beard, that had also a horse for his carriage.

These all were to be brought

'out of the country to London, by easie journeys, the charges being allowed by his lordship: and likewise one of his honour's own servants, named Brian Kelly, to ride on horseback with them, and to attend and defray all manner of reckonings and expenses; all which was done accordingly.'

In London he was put on show Lord Arundel's house in the Strand for a few weeks and was presented to King Charles I. But the change of air and diet soon affected him, and the old man died on the 14th of November 1635.

Grandchildren

His great-grandson was said to have died in this century in Cork at the age of 103.

Another socurce is more precise about the off-springs, but on the same time contradictory.

There was doubtless something peculiar in Parr's constitution which enabled him to resist so long the effects of age and natural decay. As a corroboration of the theory of the hereditary trans-mission of qualities, it is a curious circumstance that Robert Parr, a grandson of this wonderful old man, who was born at Kinver in 1633, died in 1757, at the age of a 124.

The Merry Wifes of Alberbury

First wife
He remained single until eighty in 1563 when he married first wife, Jane Taylor, by whom he he lived for thirty-two years and had a son and a daughter, both of whom died in infancy.

Second wife
Eight or ten years after the death of the first wife Jane, he married Jane Lloyd, at the age of 120 or 122 he married, He had a child by his second wife (but other sources say they had no children).

Third wife
He was alleged to have been forced to do penance for licentious conduct when over a hundred. At the age of l00 (according to Taylor at the age of a 105 or, another source, tell when he was over the age of 130) court documents show that he pleaded guilty to the charge of being unfaithful to his wife and in consequence of this intrigue to be the father to an illegitimate child by Katherine Milton, whom he afterwards married as his second wife. He did penance by standing draped in a white sheet at the door of the parish church of Alberbury.

Old Parr's cottage

Old Parr's cottage, in the parish of Alberbury, has under-gone very little alteration since the period when Parr himself occupied it, and that a corner beside the huge misshapen chimney is shewn as the place where the Nestor of Shropshire used to sit.
"Old Parr", is reputed to have been born in 1483, at Winnington, Shropshire, the son of a farmer, John Parr of Winnington near Shrewsbury in the county of Shropshire. In 1500 he is said to have left his home and entered domestic service, and in 1518 to have returned to Winnington to occupy the small holding he then inherited on the death of his father.

The parish register of Thomas Parr's native village proves that fact. Legal documents show that he inherited a small dairy farm in 1560. He was a man of the earth and worked the land all his life, even at the age 145!

The painting of Thomas Parr

The oil painting, to the right of this post, of Thomas Parr [Shrewsbury Museums Service] who is said to have died at the age of 152 years.

The inscription on this portrait reads “Thomas Parr died at the age of 152 years 9 months” “The old old very old man or Thos Parr son of John Parr of Winington in the Parish of Alberbury who was borne in the year 1483 in Rayne of King Edward IV being 152 yeares old in ye yeare 1635”.

Although Thomas Parr had become blind, it may be a death portrait. The artist is not known but may be Dobson who painted Thomas Parr before his death. The clothes are the same in that painting but, in this portrait, Parr is lying back on his collar.

There were several portraits of Thomas Parr painted during his lifetime and these have been reproduced in various guises.

The portrait was in the collection of the Leighton family of Loton Park in Shropshire and is probably that referred to in a publication of 1874. It may well have entered that collection in the 17th century when the family was already a powerful one.

The picture is of considerable historic and local interest. Parr’s story as a Shropshire countryman complements that of the powerful merchant class epitomised by Thomas and Sarah Jones. He was a contemporary of them and was presented to Charles I three years before Charles’s Charter made Thomas Jones the first Mayor of Shrewsbury.

Thomas Parr is unusual because he was a man of lowly birth who became famous in his lifetime, was painted, written about, presented to the King and buried in Westminster Abbey with the rich and famous.

A real personality who lived through a period when the link between the Shropshire countryside and the town merchants was a vital one. Parr was one of very few ‘ordinary’ people whose name is still known today.

Old Parr's cottage

In the Gentleman's Magazine for March 1814, a view, which we have copied. (see the preceding page), is given of Old. Parr's cottage, in the parish of Alberbury; Rodney's Pillar, on the Breidden Hill, appears in the distance. It is also stated in the work referred to, that the cottage has under-gone very little alteration since the period when Parr himself occupied it, and that a corner beside the huge misshapen chimney is shewn as the place where the Nestor of Shropshire used to sit.

Shropshire, Alberbury, Wollaston, Winnington

ALBERBURY, a parish in the hundred of Ford, in county Shropshire (Salop), and the hundreds of Cawse and Deythur, in the county of Montgomery, North Wales, 9 miles to the N.W. of Shrewsbury railway station. It contains the chapelries of Great Wollaston and Criggion, and the townships of Bauseley Alberbury, Benthal with Shrawardine Eyton, Rowton with Amaston, and several others. Wollaston is on the Welsh border 9 miles to the west of Shrewsbury on the road to and Welsh Pool.

Wollaston is a tiny rural parish on the Welsh border to the west of Shrewsbury. It is cut by the A458 Shrewsbury to Welshpool road. Without a doubt, the parish's most famous character is "Old" Thomas Parr.
A real personality who lived through a period when the link between the Shropshire countryside and the town merchants was a vital one. Parr was one of very few ‘ordinary’ people whose name is still known today.
The Christian name of this venerable patriarch was Thomas, and he was born at Winnington, in the parish of Alberbury, Shropshire, in 1483. His father, John Parr, was an agricultural labourer, and Thomas throughout his long life followed the same occupation.
Thomas Parr (or Parre), among Englishmen known as "old Parr," was a poor farmer's servant, born in 1483.
Thomas Parr, it is alleged, lived to the extraordinary age of 152. Old Parr. Thomas Parr lived in the reigns of ten sovereigns; He was a husbandman, born at Salop in 1483, and died 1635, aged 152 years. "Old Parr", or "Old Tom Parr".

Erik Sörensens anteckningar

Thomas Parr föddes i Olderbury I Shropshire 1483. Fadern var en fattig arrendator vars arrende han övertog. Han levde enkelt och det sades att han åt vad som fanns och att var en storsovare som begagnade alla tillfäller till vila.

Han gifte sig 80 år gammal och fick två barn i äktenskapet. Av domarböcker framgår att han 1588, 105 år gammal, fick stå i vit skjorta i botbänken i Albergsburgs kyrka ”då han ehuru gift fått barn med ogifta Catherine Milton”. Han blev änkling 1595. 1605, 122 år gammal, gifte han sig med en 90 år yngre änka med vilken han fick en son.

1635 sändes han till hovet som en kuriositet. Där dog han samma år, troligen på grund av att han ej tålte den fina och rikliga födan som bjöds.