Article

Sir George Robert Parkin

Published Online April 20, 2009

Last Edited March 4, 2015

Sir George Robert Parkin, educator (b at Salisbury, NB 8 Feb 1846; d at London, Eng 25 June 1922). In his own words, the "wandering evangelist of Empire," Parkin was a successful teacher at New Brunswick high schools

Parkin, Sir George Robert

 Sir George Robert Parkin, educator (b at Salisbury, NB 8 Feb 1846; d at London, Eng 25 June 1922). In his own words, the "wandering evangelist of Empire," Parkin was a successful teacher at New Brunswick high schools who became in the 1880s a leader of the Imperial Federation Movement, about which he wrote 3 books. He was principal of Upper Canada College from 1895 to 1902 when he became secretary of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust in England, where he lived until his death. In 1908, he wrote the first biography of Sir John A. MACDONALD, whom he had known, arguing that autonomous dominions could still co-operate in a reorganized British Empire. He was knighted in 1920.