As a young man, Sydney Parkinson left his native Edinburgh to seek his fortune in London. There he came within the orbit of Joseph Banks, who chose him to be one of his select "scientific gentlemen", as botanical draughtsman, to accompany him and James Cook on a voyage to the South Seas in HMB 'Endeavour'. During the voyage Parkinson made more than 1000 drawings. Sadly, on the return journey, when the 'Endeavour' disembarked at Batavia in 1771 for repairs, Parkinson was one of many who contracted dysentery and died at sea.

In England "later that year a dispute arose between Banks and Parkinson's brother, Stanfield. Banks had paid the latter £500 for balance of salary due and for Parkinson's papers and drawings. The papers were later lent to Stanfield Parkinson, who contrary to agreement had them transcribed for publication and was restrained by an injunction from doing so until the official account of the voyage had appeared. His book was published later in the same year, 1773 [as here], entitled 'A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas', with a second enlarged edition in 1784. A result of the squabble was that although Hawkesworth, who edited the official account of the voyage, used Parkinson's papers and drawings freely he did not acknowledge them. Only two of Parkinson's illustrations in these books are of Australian subjects. His own contains a study of the two Aboriginals who opposed Cook at Botany Bay, and Hawkesworth has a view of the Endeavour River (Cooktown, Queensland). A third of a kangaroo, formerly attributed to Parkinson, is now known to have been from a painting by George Stubbs. Parkinson was the first European artist to set foot on Australian soil, to draw an authentic Australian landscape, and to portray Aboriginals from direct observation. A great quantity of his work survives" (Rienits for ADB online).