Thomas Parr (MP for Westmorland)

Sir Thomas Parr (1407 – November 1461 or 24 November 1464) was an English landowner and elected Member of Parliament six times between 1435 and 1459. He was great-grandfather of Queen Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII.

Ancestry

The Parr family originally came from Parr, Lancashire. Sir Thomas's grandfather, Sir William de Parre (died 1405), son of Sir John de Parre, lord of Parr; married, in 1383, Elizabeth, daughter of John de Ros, and granddaughter and heiress of Sir Thomas de Ros, Baron of Kendal.

Biography

Sir Thomas was the son of Sir John Parr of Kendal and Agnes Crophull (or Crophill) (c.1371/72-3 February 1436) By his mother's previous marriage to Sir Walter Devereux of Weobley, he was the maternal half-brother of Elizabeth and Walter Devereux, Esq., the great-grandfather of Anne Devereux who married William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1468 creation). His father died before 6 October 1407 and when his mother remarried to John Merbury, Esq. he was made the ward of Sir Thomas Tunstall of Thurland Castle, Lancashire. About 1413 he married Alice Tunstall, the daughter of Sir Thomas.

Within a year of his coming of age Thomas was escheator of Cumberland and Westmorland, and was knighted about the same time. He was elected Member of Parliament for Westmorland five times (in 1435, 1449, 1450, 1455 and 1459) and once for Cumberland (1445). He was actively involved in local administration and law enforcement, and became very influential.