Charles Parke (10 June 1791 – 1860) was an English landowner and Deputy Lieutenant of Dorset.
He was the son of William Parke of the Thickets, Jamaica, and his wife Eleanor Baldwin Crosse.[1] In 1810 he was HBM Commissioner to Mexico where he was tasked with purchasing bullion for the British Government.[2] The family were slave-owners in Jamaica. The compensation money paid to them on emancipation was shared between Charles's brother William Parke (1784–1863) and his mother.[3]
Parke's father died in 1813. In 1847 Charles Parke purchased the Henbury estate in Dorset, and resided there.[4] [5]
In 1820 Parke married Letitia Alcock, daughter of Joseph Alcock of Roehampton.[4] Letitia's brother was Thomas Alcock (MP). Their children included Charles Joseph Parke; and William Parke, at Eton College with him.[6] Charles' great-niece Alice Katherine Parke, married Henry James Grasett, a Canadian militia and army officer who became the longest serving police chief in the history of the Toronto police force.[7]
