Parkes was born in
Canley (now a suburb of
Coventry) in Warwickshire, England, and
christened in the nearby village of
Stoneleigh. His father, Thomas Parkes, was a small-scale tenant farmer. His mother, Martha Falconbridge, died in 1842 and would serve as the namesake for his
home in New South Wales. He received little formal education. As a young adult, Parkes
educated himself by reading extensively, and also developed an interest in poetry. In 1835, he wrote poems (later included in his first volume of poems) that were addressed to Clarinda Varney, the daughter of a local butcher. On 11 July 1836 he married Clarinda Varney.
Immigration to Australia After the loss of their two children at an early age and a few unsuccessful weeks living in London, Parkes and his wife emigrated to
New South Wales. They travelled aboard the
Strathfieldsaye, which arrived at
Sydney on 25 July 1839. Another child was born two days before. On arrival they had only a few shillings between them and had to sell their belongings as Parkes looked for work. He was eventually employed as a labourer with
John Jamison, one of the colony's wealthiest settlers, on the
Regentville estate near
Penrith. He was paid with
£25 a year and food rations. After spending six months at Regentville, he returned to Sydney and worked in various low-paying jobs, first with an ironmongery store and then with a firm of engineers and brass-founders. About a year after his arrival in Sydney, Parkes was hired by the New South Wales Customs Department as a
tide waiter, and given the task of inspecting merchant vessels to guard against smuggling. He had been recommended for this post by Jamison's son-in-law, William John Gibbes, who was the manager of Regentville and the son of Colonel
John George Nathaniel Gibbes who led the Customs Department. Parkes's financial position improved due to his stable new government job, even though he was still burdened with a backlog of undischarged debts. Parkes continued to write poetry. A volume entitled
Stolen Moments was published in Sydney in 1842. He met the poet
Charles Harpur and
William Augustine Duncan, the editor of a local newspaper; he mentions in his
Fifty Years of Australian History, that these two men became his "chief advisers in matters of intellectual resource". In early 1846, he left the Customs Department after a disagreement with Colonel Gibbes over a press leak that concerned the alleged behaviour of one of Parkes's co-workers. Despite this, Parkes would continue to remain on friendly terms with Gibbes and his family for the rest of his life. Gibbes' grandson, Frederick Jamison Gibbes, was also a member of the
Parliament of New South Wales in the 1880s and like Parkes became a supporter of federation. After his departure from the Customs Service, Parkes worked in the private sector. He worked as an ivory and bone turner and later ran a shop of his own in Hunter Street. At one stage, he owned several newspapers, including ''
The People's Advocate and New South Wales Vindicator and Empire''. He was not successful as a businessman and eventually went bankrupt after running up debts totaling £48,500. He continued to support Australian culture and published poetry in his newspapers. ==Early campaigns==