While in England, Parkes met Fanny Plumer, the granddaughter of Sir Thomas Plumer, the first Vice Chancellor of England, at the home of a mutual friend. "She was a beautiful girl," wrote a friend about her, "tall, well-proportioned, and graceful, her colouring rich and soft, her features expressing sensitiveness and the power of warm emotion; her dark brown eyes full of intelligence and speaking earnestness of purpose. She possessed in a large degree the power of fascination in which all her family were remarkable." After a six-week courtship, Parkes and Plumer were married on New Year's Day, 1856, in St Lawrence's Church, Whitchurch. The couple left England on 9 January.