Thomas Gambier Parry

Thomas Gambier Parry, J.P., D.L., (22 February 1816 – 28 September 1888) was an English artist and art collector. He is best remembered for his development of the Gambier Parry process of fresco painting, and for forming the significant collection of early Italian paintings and objects that his heirs gave to the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where many are displayed in the Courtauld Gallery.

Gambier Parry's parents, Richard and Mary Parry of Banstead, Surrey, died when he was young and he was raised by his maternal aunts and uncles, the Gambiers. He was the nephew of James Gambier, 1st Baron Gambier. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He moved to Highnam Court, Gloucestershire when he was 21 and, in 1839, he married, firstly, Anna Maria Isabella Fynes-Clinton, daughter of Henry Fynes Clinton. Only two of their six children survived to adulthood, Clinton Charles Parry and Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (the composer); Isabella survived the birth of Hubert in 1848 by only twelve days. In 1851, Gambier Parry married, secondly, Ethelinda Lear, daughter of Francis Lear, Dean of Salisbury, by whom he had six more children.

Thomas Gambier Parry's father and grandfather were both directors of the British East India Company, and Gambier Parry devoted his inherited wealth to good works. He adopted the principles of the Tractarian Movement, and was a prominent member of the Ecclesiological Society. Thomas Gambier Parry was a notable collector of medieval and Renaissance art; the Courtauld Institute was bequeathed his collection in 1966.

After studying the technique of the Italian fresco painters, Thomas Gambier Parry developed his own spirit fresco method and executed grand-scale mural projects at Ely Cathedral, Gloucester Cathedral and the parish church at Highnam.

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