Education
He was educated at Marlborough College and Street John"s College, Oxford, where he was Chair of Oxford University Labour Club.
He was educated at Marlborough College and Street John"s College, Oxford, where he was Chair of Oxford University Labour Club.
He remains the longest-serving Labour Party Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament), retaining a seat in the House of Commons for 48 years. He was first elected to represent Romford in November 1935. After boundary changes, he continued as Member of Parliament for Dagenham from 1945, remaining in the House of Commons until he retired in June 1983.
As the longest-serving Member of Parliament, he was the Father of the House of Commons from 1979 to 1983.
Parker was raised in Liverpool. They had one son. Parker contested the seat of Holland with Boston in Lincolnshire in the 1931 general election, but the sitting National Liberal Member of Parliament James Blindell was reelected.
In the 1935 general election, Parker was elected as Member of Parliament for Romford in Essex, which he represented until 1945. He was elected as Member of Parliament for Dagenham at the 1945 general election, a new seat carved out of the Romford constituency.
Parker was a briefly a junior minister from 1945 to 1946, serving as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Dominions Office, with James Callaghan as his Parliamentary private secretary.
He remained a backbencher afterwards, serving on several Parliamentary committees, including the Procedure Committee from 1966 to 1973. He also shepherded a ten minute rule bill into law, the British Nationality (Number 2) Acting 1964, which implemented the implementing the United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Parker remained Member of Parliament for Dagenham until he retired at the 1983 general election.
He was the last serving Member of Parliament to have been elected before the Second World War, and he was the Father of the House of Commons from 1979 to 1983, succeeded by his former Parliamentary Private Secretary, Callaghan.
Labour politician Bryan Gould was elected as his replacement in Dagenham in 1983. Parker had been reelected with substantial majorities through his term as Member of Parliament, and the seat has been represented by Labour politicians subsequently although with substantially reduced majorities.
The constituency became Dagenham and Rainham in 2010. Parker was associated with the Fabian Society throughout his political career.
He became General Secretary of the New Fabian Research Bureau in 1933, and was General Secretary of the Fabian Society from 1939 to 1945.
He was subsequently its Vice-Chairman and Chairman. He became President of the Fabian Society in 1980. He published several books, including 42 Days in the Soviet Union (1946) and Labour Marches On (1947), and his memoirs, Father of the House (1982).
His archive of papers, spanning nearly 40 years of public office from 1943 to 1982, are held by the London School of Economics as part of the British Library of Political and Economic Science.
He lost this position as a result of the strong views he held on South Africa.
37th United Kingdom Parliament. 38th United Kingdom Parliament. 39th United Kingdom Parliament.
40th United Kingdom Parliament.
41st United Kingdom Parliament. 42nd United Kingdom Parliament.
43rd United Kingdom Parliament. 44th United Kingdom Parliament.
45th United Kingdom Parliament.
46th United Kingdom Parliament. 47th United Kingdom Parliament. 48th United Kingdom Parliament]
When he left parliament in 1983, he was the last serving Member of Parliament to have served in the Commons before or during World World War World War II