Edward Parry and Anne, his wife, he was born 6 April 1786; his father was at the time rector of Llangar, but held the living with the curacy of Mold, Flintshire, where he lived and kept school; he did not move on becoming in 1790 rector of the neighbouring parish of Llanferres.
Parry was educated at Ruthin grammar school, and then entered the office of his uncle, Mr. Wynne, a solicitor at Mold.
[1] Inheriting some property on the death of his father, Parry was in 1807 admitted to the Temple, and in 1811 was called to the bar.
On 12 February 1825 he was attacked and killed in North Street, Pentonville, by a bricklayer named Bennett, with whom he had quarrelled in the Prince of Wales tavern.
In 1824 appeared The Cambrian Plutarch (London: some copies have a different title-page from 1834), a collection of short biographies of Welsh worthies.