Born on 19 March 1896 in London he was educated at William Ellis School, King's College, and the Westminster Hospital where he won a gold medal at graduation. Qualifying in the middle of the first world war, he was commissioned a Surgeon-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and transferred to the Royal Flying Corps with the rank of Captain. He started in general practice at Wisbech, but deciding to specialise as an ophthalmologist he took the Fellowship in 1932 and was appointed county oculist for the Isle of Ely. He moved in 1934 to Middlesbrough and was appointed ophthalmologist to the North Riding Infirmary. He was ultimately senior consulting ophthalmic surgeon to the Tees-side Hospitals Group. In the British Medical Association he was chairman of the Isle of Ely division 1927-28 and of the Cleveland division 1944-47, and President of the Tees-side branch 1958. He retired in 1958 to Grosmount on the Esk, and died in North Ormesby Hospital, Middlesbrough on 11 September 1961 aged 65, survived by his son Richard M S Parker MB BS of Wallsend, Northumberland. Parker was a man of many interests, a keen salmon-fisher, president of his local cricket club, and an accomplished violinist.