Richard Parkinson full name Richard Heinrich Robert Parkinson (1844, in Augustenburg (Alsen Island- 1909) was a Danish explorer and Anthropologist.
In 1875 he became a representative of the Hamburg trading firm J. C Godeffroy & Sohn in Samoa. He was, in part, employed to collect ethnographic material for the Godeffroy Museum.He remained in Samoa until 1882, settling afterwards on the Gazelle Peninsula , New Britain. From there he undertook larger and smaller journeys to the Bismarck Archipelago, then the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. His masterwork Dreißig Jahre in der Südsee , Thirty years in the South Seas, appeared in several editions (first 1907 and 1911). It describes in detail the islands, Neulauenburg ( Duke of York Islands ) , Neumecklenburg and New Hanover, St. Matthias Islands, the Admiralty Islands, the German Solomon Islands , their societies, masks and mask dances, legends and fairy tales as well as the languages.He also collected zoological specimens, especially insects.