Mears Parkes and his wife Kerenhappuch Childs. Samuel Harrison, described by Sir Josiah Mason as the inventor of the split-ring (or key-ring) and widely credited with the invention of the steel pen, was his great-uncle. Parkes was twice married. By his first marriage, to Jane Henshall Moore (1817–50), he had four sons and two daughters (the cricketer Howard Parkes was a grandson), and by his second marriage, to Mary Ann Roderick (1835–1919), four sons and seven daughters. The elder surviving son of his second marriage, Alexander Parkes junior, sometime President of the Association of Certified and Corporate Accountants, presented many original specimens of Parkesine to the Science Museum in 1937, the core of the museum's Parkesine collection. Parkes' younger brother Henry (1824–1909), a trained chemist, who was married to Fanny Roderick (1837–97), a sister of Alexander's second wife, assisted him in many of his experiments during a collaboration lasting more than fifty years. It is believed that the Parkes family descends from the Rev. Michael Parkes, Vicar of Penkridge, Staffordshire (died 1617), and had close connections with the metal-working towns of Wednesbury and Wolverhampton in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Legacy Parkes is remembered in several locations: The Plastics Historical Society placed a blue plaque on his home in Dulwich, London, in 2002; The Birmingham Civic Society erected a blue plaque commemorating him in 2004 on the original Elkington Silver Electroplating Works (the old Science Museum), Newhall Street, Birmingham; There is also a plaque on the wall of the site of the Parkesine Works. In September 2005, Parkes was posthumously inducted into the American Plastics Academy's Hall of Fame. He is buried in West Norwood Cemetery, London, although his memorial was removed in the 1970s. References External links Plastics Historical Society New materials: Plastics Making the Modern World online exhibit, Science Museum, London. Friends of West Norwood Cemetery Newsletter, May 2002, A Plastic Plaque for Parkes. 1813 births 1890 deaths People from Birmingham, West Midlands English inventors Polymer scientists and engineers Burials at West Norwood Cemetery