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.
