Kineton Parkes

{{Short description|English novelist, art historian and librarian}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

William Kineton Parkes (1865–1938) was an English novelist, art historian and librarian, known best for his publication concerning sculpture and his 1914 modernist novel Hardware: A Novel in Four Books.{{Citation|last1=Kemp|first1=Sandra|last2=Mitchell|first2=Charlotte|last3=Trotter|first3=David|year=2002|contribution=Parkes, W. Kineton|title=The Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=308|isbn=019860534X}}

Image:Mason Science College.png.]]

Parkes was born in Aston, Birmingham, one of six children of William Parkes, who worked in Birmingham's jewellery trade.{{Citation|last=Jones |first=Phil |title=Three Serbian Songs |publisher=University of Wolverhampton |url=http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/genealogy/darby/darby01.htm |accessdate=2012-09-29 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015043551/http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/genealogy/darby/darby01.htm |archivedate=2012-10-15 }} He was educated at King Edward's Grammar School in Aston and at Mason Science College, a predecessor of the University of Birmingham.{{Citation|year=1900|title=British library year book: a record of library progress and work|publisher=Scott, Greenwood & Co.|page=153|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MS1LAAAAYAAJ|accessdate=2012-09-29}} From 1891 to 1911 he was principal of the Nicholson Institute, Leek.{{cite magazine|title=Parkes, Kineton|magazine=Who's Who|year=1907|volume= 59|page=1358|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yEcuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1358}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.apr.ac.uk/artists/searches/artistrecs.php?ARID=GB/NNAF/P700547 |title=Parkes, Kineton (1865–1938), Artists' Papers Register: Authority Record |access-date=19 September 2014 |archive-date=3 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303223522/http://www.apr.ac.uk/artists/searches/artistrecs.php?ARID=GB/NNAF/P700547 |url-status=dead }}[http://www.thornber.net/staffs/html/leek3.html Photographs of the Nicholson Institute, Leek]

During 1922 he published his two volume survey Sculpture of Today. The papers for this work and an unpublished third volume are possessed by the Victoria & Albert Museum.{{Citation|title=Sculpture in the Archive of Art & Design|publisher=Victoria & Albert Museum|url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sculpture-in-the-archives/|accessdate=2012-09-09}} A second two volume work The Art of Carved Sculpture was published in 1931.{{Citation|last=Medhurst|first=Phillip|year=2009|title=Walter Gilbert|page=2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XL3MGbX3-2sC&pg=PT2|accessdate=2012-09-29}} He was a regular contributor to magazines such as Architectural Review, Apollo and The Studio.