Roundell Palmer's Memorials

Memorials. Part I. Family and Personal. 1766-1865. Roundell Palmer, Earl of Selborne. Volume 1. London, Macmillan & Co. Ltd. 1896. Index

CHAPTER I

ANCESTORS—MY UNCLE THOMAS PALMER

1773–1799  [Notes relating to William Jocelyn Palmer only]

[…]Thomas Palmer and his wife had a country house at Cheshunt, where he died in 1789.

The younger of his two sons, my grandfather, William Palmer, was born in 1737, and 1766 married Mary Horsley, daughter (by his second marriage with Mary Leslie) of the Rev. John Horsley, Rector of Thorley in Hertfordshire and of Stoke-Newington. He was like his father and London merchant and became head of the prosperous business in King’s Arms Yard near the Bank of England. Not long after his marriage he purchased some property at Nazing in Essex, which now belongs to the elder line of his descendants. There about twenty miles from London, with a spacious breezy common on rising ground immediately in front, he established himself in a convenient house, which he surrounded with gardens and pleasure grounds, in which many of the happiest days of my childhood was spent.My Grandfather was a prosperous and honourable man, of considerable influence in the City of London.

[…] My grandparents at Nazing had nine children: three daughters and six sons, five of whom went to Charterhouse, of which Matthew Raine, a good scholar, and in political and religious opinions a liberal, was then headmaster. My Uncle George, the oldest son, went early to sea the service at East India Company, in which he rose, while still young, to the command of the ship Boddam,[i] and had a share of adventures in tempest and war. Thomas went to India, as a Writer in the East India Company’s civil service. My Father, William Jocelyn, went to Oxford and took Holy Orders. Edward entered the Royal Navy and 1794, at the age of 13. Horsley joined his father in business; Ralph was called to the Bar in 1808. […]

[i] George Palmer became commander of Boddam on 3 July 1796.