Parry, SIR WILLIAM EDWARD, Arctic navigator, was born at Bath, 19th December 1790, entered the navy as midshipman in 1806, and saw some active service against the Danes in 1808. In 1810 he was sent to the Arctic regions in command of a ship, for the purpose of protecting the British whale-fisheries. At this time he worked out rules for determining accurately the altitude of the pole by observations of the fixed stars. Parry took command in five expeditions to the Arctic regions: (1) in 1818, under Ross, who set out to find the Northwest Passage; (2) in 1819, in chief command of two vessels, he explored Barrow Strait, Prince
Regent's Inlet, and Wellington Channel, and wintered in Melville Island, but his attempt in the spring to reach Behring Strait was frustrated by the state of the ice; (3) from May 1821 to November 1823 he was again at the head of an expedition, which, however, achieved little; (4) a fourth voyage in 1824-25 had a like result; (5) his last voyage was an attempt (1827) to reach the North Pole on sledges by way of Spitzbergen—in which he was of course unsuccessful. After his return home from his second expedition he was awarded the £5000 which parliament had offered to the navigator who first crossed 110° W. long. In 1823 he was appointed hydrographer to the navy; in 1829 was knighted, along with Sir John Franklin; and in 1837 was made comptroller of a department of the navy. In 1846 he retired, accepting the post of superintendent of Haslar; in 1852 he was raised to the rank of rear-admiral, and in the following year was appointed governor of Greenwich Hospital, an office which he held till his death, 8th July 1855, at Ems in Germany. A collected edition of his voyages was published in 1833 (Lond. 5 vols.). See Life by his son, Rev. Edward Parry (Oxford, 1857).