William Kitchen Parker

William Kitchen Parker FRS FRMS (23 June 1823 – 3 July 1890) was an English physician, zoologist and comparative anatomist. From a humble beginning he became Hunterian Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the College of Surgeons of England.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1865, awarded the Royal Medal in 1866. From 1871–73 he was President of the Royal Microscopical Society, and in 1885 he received the Baly Medal of the Royal College of Physicians.

Parker was born in the village of Dogsthorpe, near Peterborough in the County of Northamptonshire. Parker's father, Thomas Parker, was a working farmer living in a thatched house built in 1635. Thomas was a Wesleyan of the old school: a Methodist-Churchman, God-fearing and courteous, farming his own land. He married the daughter of another farmer, Sarah Kitchen, whose name was also given to their son William.

William Parker was the second son, and it is with shock that one reads that six other children in the family died in their infancy. He went to a village dame school early in life, then to parish schools in Werrington and Paston. As was the way then, schooling was interspersed with farm-work.

After telling his father that farm-work was not for him, Parker entered the Peterborough Grammar School for nine months, and then started on the road to medical education. He spent three years apprenticed to an apothecary, using his spare time to teach himself about the plants of the neighbourhood. His knowledge of botany became remarkably extensive and accurate.

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