JAMES PARKINSON (d. 1824), English palaeontologist, was educated for the medical profession, and practised in Hoxton, from about the year 1785. He was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and one of the original members of the Geological Society of London (1807). He was author of numerous chemical and medical books, the most important of which were Organic Remains of a Former World (3 vols., 1804, 1808, 1811), and Outlines of Oryctology (1822). Parkinson died in London, on the 21st of December 1824.
See Hist. of Collections in Brit. Mus. Nat. Hist. Dep. (1904), pp. 315-316.