The Codrington was a well known family.  The Gloucestershire Codrington 
family were slave traders with estates & sugar plantations, I believe, in 
Antigua in the late 18th century and onwards. There is a fair amount of 
information about them (and online) and not confined to Antigua. Henry 
Codrington Parker may well be linked to the Caribbean but, I imagine, not as 
a slave...

-----Original Message----- 
From: Susan Bolton / Jeffrey Green
Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 4:25 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Henry Parker and family, Bristol 1850s onwards

Yes I had noted that name Codrington and wondered about a Caribbean 
connection too.
The photographs on the Bristol website suggest that all Parker's many 
daughters were clearly of African descent, and so we have around a dozen 
"black" families when they married. That's a lot of people.
Perhaps someone in Bristol has news?

Jeff Green


========================================
Message Received: Aug 04 2015, 01:44 PM
From: "Kathleen Chater"
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: Re: Henry Parker and family, Bristol 1850s onwards

Was at the National Archives this morning. HP was not (unlike Sarah Remond) 
naturalized. I tried a lot of variations of the name, birthplace, daughter 
Emma, in the censuses. I tried all the Parkers born in the US. There were a 
surprising number, mainly women, but no-one in Bristol with Henry as any of 
their names. I also simply searched the Emma Parkers in Bristol. I'm 
starting to wonder where all this info comes from. There's no substantiation 
or documentation on the Bristol website.

A Henry Codrington Parker was married in Bristol in 1854. His wife was 
either Louisa Handy or Margaret Fraser Perkins and in one of the censuses 
there is a Henry and Luisa Parker with an eldest daughter Emma, but he says 
he's born in Bristol.

I'm wondering whether we've got someone embellishing his life history. Maybe 
HP was born in the Caribbean - Codrington seems a very significant name - 
and decided that being an ex-slave was a lot more exciting. Once he'd told 
the story he had to stick with it, especially after becoming a lay preacher.

The thot plickens.

Kathy

> Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 13:51:11 +0200
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Henry Parker and family, Bristol 1850s onwards
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Thanks Kathy
>
> Parker may have taken that name after arriving in England but even so his 
> absence from the census of 1861 and 1871 seems odd. The Bristol website 
> does mention his many daughters but does not name them all. It mentions 
> the grandson killed in France in 1918. The marriage in Clifton registered 
> in 1876 could have produced Thomas Head who married in 1894 and so the 
> grandson's birth in 1898 fits.
>
> I suspect that Parker had two forenames and that he used the second 
> (Henry) but officials have him under his first (unknown) name.
>
> Jeff Green
>
>
> ========================================
> Message Received: Aug 03 2015, 08:26 AM
> From: "Kathleen Chater"
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: Henry Parker and family, Bristol 1850s onwards
>
>
>
> I've tried to track HP in the censuses. The only Henry Parkers
> born in America in the 1861 and 1871 censuses are in London or Liverpool 
> and there's no possible one in the 1881. I can't find him in Bristol from 
> the 1861
> onwards. This is odd - it's not uncommon to find someone fallen out of
> one census but all of them is significant. I wonder if he was
> deliberately avoiding official notice, being afraid he'd be taken back to 
> the US?
> But he must have known he was okay here. It may be he moved to Bristol
> much later than presumed.
>
>
>
> I also searched the censuses for an Emma Parker, daughter of Henry. The 
> only likely one I could find is the
> daughter of a mason but he was born in Bristol and there were a couple of 
> older
> siblings.
>
>
>
> Freebmd
> has only one Emma Parker registered in Bristol between 1850 and 1880, in
> Clifton in the September 1850 Q. This is very very early to be Henry's
> daughter. You would need to get this birth certificate to check. It will 
> also give Mum's maiden name but of course it won't give colour or 
> ethnicity so even if the father is a Henry there's no proof it's him, as 
> the names are so common.
>
>
>
>
> There are
> two possible marriages for an Emma Parker to a James Head. The first is in 
> Leeds in the Dec 1874 Quarter
> but the more likely one is in Clifton in the March 1876 Q. You could get 
> this cert but it will only give Dad's name. It may give an address.
>
> Kathy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 15:10:00 +0200
> > From: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Henry Parker and family, Bristol 1850s onwards
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> >
> > Discoveringbristol.org has images and outline details of Henry Parker, 
> > escaped American slave, and his family which continues to live in the 
> > Bristol region.
> > Has anyone more detailed information?
> > It says his eldest daughter Emma married a James Head and they had 
> > sixteen daughters, and names one of those grand-daughters "Mable" which 
> > might be a typo for "Mabel". There seems to have been a grandson, Thomas 
> > Edwin Head who married Caroline West in 1894. Their son Edwin Head (born 
> > Chertsey 1898) was killed in the First World War in 1918 aged 20 and is 
> > buried in the Pas-de-Calais (the CWGC site names his parents and gives 
> > their address in Surrey).
> > I am unsure of the name of Henry Parker's wife, and his occupation 
> > (being a lay preacher in Bristol was not a paid role).
> >
> > Help will be appreciated.
> >
> > Jeff Green