Thomas Parry (Chennai merchant)

Thomas Parry (1768–1824) was a Welsh merchant. The third son of Edward Parry and Anne Vaughan, of Leighton Hall, near Welshpool, he was instrumental in realising the potential for business and commerce in India. Parry moved to Chennai in southern India, a part of the British India in the late 1780s, and set up a modest business of piece goods and banking on 17 July 1788 (Doubtful Parry was in London on 14 March 1788 - source Gilbert Ross will probated on that date. As it took six months to travel around Cape of Good Hope he could not possibly have reached Chennai by this date).The business he set up continued to grow and Parry became a household name in Chennai. Parry set up the EID Parry company in 1787 (Parry was in London till late 1788), the corporate headquarters of which stand on the corner. Parry's Corner, a well-known central business district of Chennai was named after him.

Childhood He was left fatherless in 1774 aged 6, one of five children under the age of 15. Two of the children, Elizabeth (1759-1825) and Thomas came under the influence of his Aunt Ann Ross (nee Parry) and her merchant husband Gilbert Ross, a Scot, a Freeman of the City of London and a merchant who traded in Billiter Lane, City of London. Gilbert Ross died 4 March 1788. His will was probated 14 March 1788 (Source National Archives) and contains an affadavit signed by Thomas Parry 'of Billiter Lane' which suggests that Thomas was tutored to be a merchant under the guidance of his uncle alongside his cousin Gilbert Ross junior. On the death of Gilbert Ross, the London business was inherited by Gilbert Ross junior (1755-1815), who was by then married to Elizabeth Parry, Thomas Parry's sister. There would be no role for Thomas Parry in the London business, so this is the reason that he left London later in 1788 (source - Thomas Parry Free Merchant by G H Hodgson published 1938), probably as an agreed strategy of the two cousins to expand into India. Parry undertook the six month journey around Cape of Good Hope arriving in Chennai (Then known as Madras) in 1789. He entered Chennai as a Free Merchant, free from the controls of the East India Company. Several partnerships were formed and dissolved in the early years. The Parry and Co business was not formed till 1796.