Joseph Parkes was an English political reformer.

Born in Warwick, in Unitarian Whig circles, Parkes was educated at Warwick grammar school, Dr Charles Burney's college in Greenwich and Glasgow university. Moving to London in 1817, Parkes developed an association with the Philosophical Radicals

Philosophical radicals

The Philosophical Radicals is a term used to designate a philosophically-minded group of English political radicals in the nineteenth century inspired by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill...

. In 1822 he established a Birmingham solicitor's practice specializing in election law. In 1824 he married Elizabeth Rayner, the granddaughter of Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...

. Parkes was an advocate of legal reform (writing a History of the Court of Chancery in 1828) and active in the local efforts for parliamentary reform. Although he initially opposed the formation of the Birmingham Political Union, and remained less radical than Thomas Attwood

Thomas Attwood

Thomas Attwood was a British economist, the leading figure of the underconsumptionist Birmingham School of economists, and, as the founder of the Birmingham Political Union, a leading figure in the public campaign for the Great Reform Act of 1832.He was born in Halesowen, and attended Halesowen...

, the BPU's founder, Parkes worked with it during the period of agitation for the Reform Act - acting in effect as an intermediary between radicals and whigs. In 1833 Henry Brougham

Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux

Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux was a British statesman who became Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.As a young lawyer in Scotland Brougham helped to found the Edinburgh Review in 1802 and contributed many articles to it. He went to London, and was called to the English bar in...

 appointed Parkes secretary of the commission on municipal corporations; he combined this work with a successful Westminster practice as a parliamentary solicitor. Co-proprietor of the Birmingham Journal

Birmingham Journal (nineteenth century)

The Birmingham Journal was a weekly newspaper published in Birmingham, England between 1825 and 1869.A nationally-influential voice in the Chartist movement in the 1830s, it was sold to John Frederick Feeney in 1844 and was a direct ancestor of today's Birmingham Post.-History:The newspaper was...

from 1832 to 1844, Parkes also wrote leaders for the Morning Chronicle and Times. In 1847 ill-health prompted retirement to work on literary projects: a memoir of Sir Philip Francis

Philip Francis (English politician)

Sir Philip Francis was an Irish-born British politician and pamphleteer, the possible author of the Letters of Junius, and the chief antagonist of Warren Hastings. His accusations against the latter led to the Impeachment of Warren Hastings by Parliament.-Early life:Born in Dublin, he was the only...

, whom Parkes believed to have authored the Letters of Junius

1772 Letters of Junius

Letters of Junius a collection of private and open letters from an anonymous polemicist Junius, as well as other letters in-reply from people to whom Junius had written between 1769 and 1772...

, was posthumously (1867) completed by Herman Merivale

Herman Merivale

Herman Merivale CB was an English civil servant and historian. He was the elder brother of Charles Merivale, and father of the poet Herman Charles Merivale....

. Parkes died in London.