Sir Henry Parnell (1776-1842)
1833 Right Honorable Sir Henry Parnell of 89 Jermyn Street became a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.[1]
1843 Obituary [2]
Sir Henry Parnell was born in the year 1776. After the routine of university education he entered early upon a parliamentary career as member for Queen’s County, and became distinguished for his steady industry and application to business; his speeches abounded with facts and calculations, and in many political as well as financial questions he took a prominent part.
In 1828 he was appointed chairman of the Finance Committee; subsequently he became Secretary-at-War and n member of the Privy Council; in 1835 he succeeded Lord Lowther in the office of Treasurer of the Navy, with which were consolidated the duties of Paymaster-General of the Forces and Treasurer of the Ordnance, which combined office he held until his elevation to the peerage in 1841 as Lord Congleton of Congleton, in Cheshire.
These public duties did not prevent him from filling numerous private offices, among which must be principally noticed that of chairman of the Commissioners of the Holyhead Road. This post naturally created an intimacy between him and our first President (Mr. Telford), which was only interrupted by the death of the latter.
The active mind of Lord Congleton being thus directed to engineering pursuits, he cultivated the society of other Civil Engineers, and became an honorary member of this Institution in 1833; his Treatise on the construction of Roads, and his Plan (adopted by the Post Office) for improving the construction of Mail Coaches, show that his acquirements in the practical details of professional subjects were not superficial.
He published also several works on Finance, Banking, and the Currency, besides pamphlets on Catholic Emancipation and other political subjects.
The decease of his Lordship took place in the sixty-sixth year of his age, respected as a public character for his attainments, his general consistency, and his great industry, and regretted by a large circle of private friends.