Harold Wilson Parker

Born 6 May 1896
Died 4 August 1980

Active: 1911 - 1955

Country of birth and death: England

Sculptor, medallist

Born in Newington, London and birth registered in St Saviour, Southwark. He was the son of Alfred James Parker (born c.1863 at 13 Cow Cross Street, West Smithfield, London EC), a vegetable commission salesman. Harold Wilson studied at Walthamstow Art School probably c.1911. His commissions included the wren on the reverse of the farthing coin.

Parker was married to Constance Howard (1910-2000), embroiderer, who set up the Department of Embroidery at Goldsmiths College in 1948. He taught at Goldsmiths from the 1940s through until at least 1955 and probably later. Parker's colleagues were Keith Godwin and Bobby Jones. The Constance Howard Gallery and Collection at Goldsmiths has many of Parker's drawings for medals. In the stair well of the Deptford Town Hall Building at Goldsmiths there is a statue of a lady by him.

Margaret Langworth, one of Parker's former students at Goldsmiths between 1950-55 recalls his teaching methods: "He was a very quiet, gentle little man, who simply asked you to look, study every angle as most people, at first, find it hard to imagine "in the round" not just to take in the "flat" (i.e. what you are facing). Parker taught us the basics not just of being a sculptor, but also an architect and engineer... He wanted us to know our anatomy, how to cast statues, set up armatures, know how to divide up a piece to be cast into sections with shims - again requiring the ability to see, think and act in a very practical, scientific way. Usually it ended up with Parker and Keith Godwin doing most of the thinking and hard work for us re casting. They were very patient re our chipping out from a mould, finishing a piece with metal powder rubs, and taking us to a foundry to see bronze casting, and encouraging us to frequent sculpture exhibitions and museums, especially the British Museum with its Assyrian friezes. Parker was very keen on stone-carving, and flat frieze patterns. Apart from all this attention to the craft of sculpture and casting, he was the only member of staff who had a camera." (Submitted to the project on 1 February 2012).

The information about Parker's works that are in the Goldsmiths' collection was submitted by Margaret Hall-Townley.

Citing this record

'Harold Wilson Parker', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib6_1251193900, accessed 24 Mar 2023]