APPENDIX
Some detailed notice of the Palmer family will have interest here. Mischance long ago destroyed many genealogical documents relating to John Palmer’s ancestors, but family tradition still points to the “John Palmere” who, in 1384, represented Bath in Parliament, as a distinguished forbear. Of ancient and honourable origin, the matrimonial alliances of the Palmers are found among the old county families of Somerset and Wilts. The postal reformer’s mother was one of the Longs, to this day seated in the latter county. She and her husband, John Palmer the elder, lie at Weston, two miles from Bath, and in the village church their memorial tablets may yet be seen.
A tradition tells how the reformer himself might have become a Long, had he desired. His kinsman, Walter Long, who died unmarried at the age of ninety-five, proposed to make him heir to extensive estates in Wilts, on condition that he assumed the name; but, with the pardonable arrogance of one who owned an ancient and honourable ancestry, Palmer declined, and satisfied his pride even though he relinquished a rent-roll.
He received his education at Colerne, Wilts, and at Marlborough Grammar School. Of his three sons, John proceeded to Cambridge and took holy orders; Charles and Edmund, educated at Eton, went respectively into the Army and Navy. It is curious to note how strong has been the military tradition in the family. Charles became Colonel of the 10th (Prince of Wales’s) Hussars, following upon the scandal which discredited the former Colonel of that regiment, many of whose officers, charged with cowardice before the enemy in the Peninsula, were transferred to other regiments, and became known as the “Elegant Extracts.” Their places were filled by officers from other sources, and the 10th Hussars thereupon acquired the title of “Prince’s Mixture.” Colonel Palmer subsequently rose to the rank of general officer.
Edmund was that distinguished captain in the Navy who, when in command of H.M.S. Hebrus in 1814, captured the French frigate, L’Etoile, the last of the enemy’s ships to be taken at the end of the long war. His son, Colonel Edmund Palmer, R.A., has himself carried on the tradition, and given sons of his own to the service of his country. His son Edmund fell to the bullet of an Afghan hillman, after he had captured a tower in one of the passes of that distant country whose sun-baked rocks have been stained with the blood of many a gallant Englishman. John Jervis Palmer, his brother, captain in the Egyptian Army, died of pneumonia at the frontier post of Wady Halfa, looking out across the parching sands of the Soudan.
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.