Richard Timothy George Mansfield Parker, 9th Earl of Macclesfield (born 31 May 1943) is a British peer. He was a member of the House of Lords from 1992 until 1999.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Shirburn_Castle_and_Gardens-adj.jpg/200px-Shirburn_Castle_and_Gardens-adj.jpg)
The son of George Parker, 8th Earl of Macclesfield, and his wife Valerie Mansfield, he was educated at Stowe School and Worcester College, Oxford.[1]
On 7 December 1992 he succeeded his father as Earl of Macclesfield, Viscount Parker, and Baron Parker.[1]
On 11 August 1967 he married firstly Tatiana Cleone Anne Wheaton-Smith, daughter of Major Craig Wheaton-Smith. They were divorced in 1985, and in 1986 he married Sandra Hope Fiore. By his first wife he has three daughters:[1]
- Lady Tanya Susan (born 1971)
- Lady Katherine Anne (born 1973)
- Lady Marion Jane (born 1973)
Macclesfield was the last of the Parker family to live at Shirburn Castle, from which he was evicted in 2005 by other members of a family company which owned the property. They contended in court that he was "no more than tenant at will".[2][3] However, the contents of the castle had been given to Macclesfield in 1967 by his grandfather, including three important libraries.[4]
Macclesfield then decided to sell the libraries and some other items from the castle,[5][6] including the Macclesfield Psalter, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the Macclesfield Alphabet Book, now in the British Library.[7] The receipts came to more than £16 million, "the highest total ever for any sale of scientific books and manuscripts".[8] A painting by George Stubbs, "Brood Mares and Foals", was sold at auction in 2010 for £10,121,250, a record price for Stubbs.[9]
Notes
edit- ^ a b c Burkes Peerage, volume 2 (2003), p. 2456
- ^ Neutral Citation Number: [2003] EWHC 1846 (Ch) (archived version), accessed 18 December 2021.
- ^ Godfrey Barker: Who's laughing now? London Evening Standard, 18 August 2004.
- ^ Paul Quarrie, Paul, "The scientific library of the earls of Macclesfield" in The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science 60:1 (2006), pp. 5-24, doi:10.1098/rsnr.2005.0124
- ^ Carol Vogel, Inside Art: "From an Earl's Attic" The New York Times, 20 February 2004
- ^ Sothebys, 2004: Sales Results: The Library of The Earl of Macclesfield Removed from Shirburn Castle Part Two: Science A-C
- ^ R. Gaskell, P. Fara, Selling the silver: country house libraries and the history of science. Endeavour 29:1 (2005), pp. 14-19, doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2005.01.005
- ^ Sotheby's, press release, October 26, 2005: The Scientific Library of The Earls of Macclesfield Realises Over £14 Million
- ^ Sotheby's Press Release: Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Old Master & British Paintings Realises £23,577,600 / $37,054,556 / €28,179,870. December 8, 2010.