Parkinson, C Northcote

▪ 1994

      British historian (b. July 30, 1909, Barnard Castle, Durham, England—d. March 9, 1993, Canterbury, Kent, England), formulated "Parkinson's Law," the oft-repeated dictum "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." He later discovered (as he called it) ancillary laws, including "Expenditure rises to meet income." Parkinson showed a flair for expressing serious economic and social "truths" in the form of pithy witticisms and humorous paradoxes that captured the public's fancy and made him an international celebrity. After studying history at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (B.A., 1932), and King's College, London (Ph.D., 1935), he taught at Cambridge and at a boys' school in Devon (1937-39). He later said that his laws were inspired by his experiences as an army staff officer during World War II, when he observed bureaucrats making work for each other and expanding their staffs in order to enhance their own prestige. After the war he taught naval history at the University of Liverpool. In 1950 Parkinson moved to Singapore, where he was Raffles professor of history at the University of Malaya (1950-58). In 1955 he published his first law in a dry, tongue-in-cheek article in The Economist magazine. He expanded his ideas in a series of books, including Parkinson's Law, or The Pursuit of Progress (1958), The Law and The Profits (1960), and Mrs. Parkinson's Law, and Other Studies in Domestic Science (1968). From 1958 to 1960 he was a visiting professor in the U.S.; thereafter he wrote and traveled the after-dinner lecture circuit until he retired to Kent in 1989. In addition to his more famous books, Parkinson wrote serious historical works, notably The Evolution of Political Thought (1958) and Britannia Rules: The Classic Age of Naval History, 1793-1815 (1977); several novels; biographies of fictional characters such as C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves; and an autobiography.

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