Thomas Parnell was born in West Haddon, Northamptonshire, England and died in Indooroopilly in Brisbane, Australia.

He elected to move to Brisbane with friend and future wife, Hermiene Ulrich, also a lecturer at the newly established University of Queensland.

During 1922, he took part in an expedition to Goondiwindi to witness a total solar eclipse, and test Einstein's theory of relativity in this setting.

In 1927 Parnell initiated an intriguing experiment to allow long-term observation of the behaviour of material known to have an extremely high coefficient of viscosity.

[1] Survived by his wife and son, Parnell died of hypertensive cardiorenal failure on 1 September 1948 at Indooroopilly, Australia, and was cremated.

He was survived by his wife and son, Thomas Meredith Parnell who would later become Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Queensland.