PALMER, Peregrine (?1703-62), of Fairfield, Stoke Courcy, Som.

In 1737 Palmer inherited Fairfield from his sister-in-law, who expressed in her will the hope that he would live there, marry, and have children ‘to enjoy what little is left’.1Somerset Wills, iii. 89. At a by-election for Oxford University in the same year he and Edward Butler were the rival Tory candidates for the vacancy; but when on canvassing the Tory vote it was found that Butler had a great majority, ‘Palmer went at the head of his own friends and voted for the doctor.’2HMC 10th Rep. I, 490. On Butler’s death in 1745 he was returned for the university, which he represented unopposed for the rest of his life. The 2nd Lord Egmont in his electoral survey c.1749-50 describes him as ‘an honest plain man, much affected with the gout, and wont attend often, a Tory but I believe will be with us’. His only recorded vote was against the Hanoverians in 1746. He died 30 Nov. 1762, leaving £500 to All Souls.3W. R. Ward, Georgian Oxford, 224.