The inquisitive tale of “Nosey Parker”

For what it's worth:
I was born in 1948 and grew up in a small town in south-central Colorado. My mother was born in the same town in 1924. Her father was born and grew up in Denver. His grandmother, Eliza Stafford, was an English immigrant. She lived with the family until death, about 1915. Anyway, my mother would chastise us (brothers and sister) not to be "a nosey parker." We would call each other that to incite ire.
I hadn't thought of that much until today, hence my visit to this site.

There is an early etymological article Nosey Parker Public Health vol. 30, page 190 (May 1917).

...

The above expression was in common use in early Victorian days, as applied to persons showing a strong tendency to interfere with other people's business.

Some persons affirm that Nosey was Parker the Violoncello player at Drury Lane (1753), and say that he was so called from his long nose, and his disposition to interfere with the parts of other instrumentalists.

On the other hand, I am informed by one who says he knew her well, that the, or at least an, original Mrs. Parker was a lady of austere propriety and unimpeachable virtue, who flourished in the final quarter of last century about the neighbourhood of Islington or Stoke Newington. Abnormally endowed with the inquisitorial and critical diathesis and prominent features, she early evinced an unquenchable interest in the intimate affairs of others that rendered her a person of consideration among an extensive if unwilling acquaintance.

The memory of this worthy representative of a type only too frequently met with, was immortalised to fame by a character styled Nosey Parker in a pantomime at Drury Lane, circa 189o , and subsequently kept green through the efforts of an eccentric comedian, Happy Tom Parker, who adorned with an explorative proboscis toured the music-halls a dozen or so years ago with a topical song dedicated to our heroine.

The term " Nosey Parker " became common in England as referring to Paul Prys of either sex, and was (and perhaps still is) also applied by the classes who, on general principles, find themselves in opposition to the ordinances of sound citizenship, to members of that useful but unpopular service, the Police.

However, earlier references such as the 1880 The Reader's Handbook of Allusions, References, Plots and Stories at page 691 make the same statement about the violoncello player being "Nosey" or "Old Nosey", but without the addition of "Parker".

"Nosey Parker" was also the title of a song by Herbert Campbell. Many sources such as the 27 April 1899 To-day explain:

Mr. Herbert Campbell is singing with great success two songs, called respectively “No show to-night” and “Nosey Parker.”

similarly, the 03 December 1898 The Sporting Times says:

Mr. Herbert Campbell gave us Nosey Parker, which evidently is going to be one of the pantomime tunes this year

Another candidate, according to the 1946 book Unusual Words: And how They Came about, citing to From Ships to Sailors (1928) by Stanley Rogers is:

Richard Parker, who so pushed his nose into things that should not have concerned him, that he was hanged from the yardarm of H.M.S. Sandwich on 30th June, 1797, for leading the Sheerness Mutiny of that year

Additionally, there is an early example of the verb form in the article A Poet of the People, St. James Gazette, 15 May 1893, page 5, in the context of finding odd jobs:

You have to go nosey-parkering about for 'em, you do, I give you my word.

I wonder if the origin is not in the name of a real person, but in a bowdlerisation of 'poke nose', by way of 'nose poker' and/or 'Nosey Poker' to 'Mr Nosey Parker'. This answer is by way of an exploration of that possibility rather than a definitive claim.

I can find 'Poke nose' as far back as a 1852 Published collection of Mr Julius Caesar Hannibal's 'Scientific Discourses: Originally Published in the New York Picayune' where it literally refers to a nose, but one belonging to persons with the attributes of a Nosey Parker.

De next nose under 'sideration am de poke nose; dese am de wust noses of all. Dey am ginerally long and pinety, and found 'mong de old maids, slip shod married wimming, editors, and now and den it am found 'mong de preecher mans. My dear deluded lams, beware ob de poke nose. You noe dem in a minit by dere sneakingly, downwardly, pintingly 'pearance. if you don't look out for dem, you'll wish you better has, kos dey'll find out all your buisness. Noe how many sasingers you eat for dinner! Whar you git your close! How much you git for white-washing a day! and sich tings, an' den go glab it on de corner an' in de cellar.

NB Julius Caesar Hannibal was the pen-name of Wm Levison, an early editor of the NY Picayune, so he is poking fun at himself in this.

The earliest example of 'Poke Nose' used as a name which I can track down comes from the 1895 Romance Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times, 1769-1776

Ebenezer Richardson, however, could not see the fun of the thing. The schoolboys called him "Poke Nose" because he was ever ready to poke into other people's affairs.

and

"Say, Poke Nose ; how much are ye going to get for the job? " shouted one of the boys. " You mind your own business." " That 's what you don't do." "Don't ye call me names, you little imp," shouted the informer, shaking his fist at the boy.

'Nose Poker' I can only push back as far as a 1920 pharmaceutical Journal 'The Stirring Rod'

Of course, taxes are necessary to pay the salaries and expenses of the district attorneys and health boards, and deputy commissioners, and official Paul Prys, and assistant inspectors, and bureau chiefs and special nose-pokers who now

This is interesting for the reappearance of 'Paul/Poll Pry' which probably undermines it as a source for a longer pedigree for 'nose-poker' than Nosey Parker'. However, Paul Pry seems to have begun life as the eponymous here of a 1825 play, so it may be that Paul Pry and Nosey Parker only met up in later life and on separate occasions as two distinct personifications of the same characteristics.

'Nosey poker' I can only find back in print as far as 1911, so post-dating the example in the question. From the The Reformatory Press (I was only able to glean the text from the snippet on the google search results page)

The“ Nosey-Poker ” By A. J. W.

The noses'-poker is a pest. Each and every day. \ For he bothers all his neighbors And bores them more-—I say. Nosing here and everywhere

'Nosey' as a name with no 'poke' or 'parker' crops up in Arabian Day's Entertainments, a book of fairy tales translated from German and published in 1858. The book features the tale of 'Nosey the Dwarf', who starts life normally enough but is cursed with a long nose while a boy. Later in life his adventures lead him to a castle where he earns the king's approbation for his cooking skills.

'As everyone in my palace receives his name from me, your name shall be Nosey and you shall hold the rank of sub-kitchen-inspector.'

The post he is given is the earliest, if tenuous, link I've found between the name and the idea of inquiring into things, in this case legitimately.

(it might also, after the 'overly curious' meaning of Nosey became established, be the start of the idea of dwarfs being named after a feature of their character, which Disney picked up and ran with.)

Note: This is an answer to the second of the OP's questions.

Hendrickson, in The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins (380), has this entry for Nosey Parker:

Matthew Parker, who became archbishop of Canterbury in 1559, acquired a reputation for poking his nose into other people's business. His reputation is largely undeserved, but Catholics and Puritans alike resented his good works，taking advantage of his rather long nose and dubbing him Nosey Parker, which has meant an unduly inquisitive person ever since. The above, at least, is the most popular folk etymology for Nosey Parker. But other candidates have been proposed. Richard Parker, leader of the Sheerness Mutiny in 1797, is one strong contender. This Parker poked his nose so deeply into what the military thought their exclusive bailiwick that he wound up hanged from the yardarm of HMS Sandwich.

Source: Hendrickson, Robert. The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins. New York: Facts on File, 1987. Print.

FWIW: I'm an audiobook narrator, and 2 years ago I narrated a book containing several references to someone being a "nosy parker." The author is from Washington state, in the U.S., which is where the book was set. It was a very small-town, insular setting, and the phrase was not used by British immigrants. I was struck by it because, being native to the Midwest U.S., I had NEVER heard the phrase before.

He was a big fat nosy parker tattletale then, and he's a big fat nosy parker tattletale now.

The book is Cupidity: A Novel by Patricia Wood