Edward Parkes

Sir Edward Walter Parkes, DL, FREng (born 19 May 1926) was Vice-Chancellor of City University London from 1974 to 1978 and of the University of Leeds from 1983 to 1991.

Parkes attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and St John's College Cambridge, where he obtained a first class degree in mechanical engineering. He married Margaret Parr (1925-2007) and they had two children.

Other posts included Head of the Department of Engineering at Leicester University in the 1960s and Chairman of the UK University Grants Committee in the early 1980s. From 1989 to 1991 he was Chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. He was also appointed a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1982.

He was knighted in 1983. There is a portrait in oils by Michael Noakes at City University.

References

Academic offices
Preceded by Sir James Sharp Tait	Vice-Chancellor, City University, London 1974–1978	Succeeded by Professor Raoul N. Franklin
Preceded by William Walsh (acting)	Vice-Chancellor, University of Leeds 1983–1991	Succeeded by Alan Wilson