PALMER, George (1772-1853), of Nazeing Park, nr. Epping, Essex

A ‘firm friend of the shipwrecked’, who was best known for pioneering the introduction of lifeboats on the British coastline, Palmer sat for over a decade as Conservative Member for Essex South and was responsible for important legislation improving the safety of timber ships.1Life-boat (1853), ii. 28. A descendant of the Palmers of Wanlip, Leicestershire, he was the eldest son of William Palmer, of Nazeing Park, Essex, a London merchant with high Anglican sympathies.2F. Harcourt, ‘Palmer, George (1772-1853)’, Oxf. DNB, www.oxforddnb.com; A. C. Howe, ‘Palmer, (John) Horsley (1779-1858)’, ibid. After leaving Charterhouse at the age of fourteen, he joined the navy of the East India Company, serving as a midshipman on the Carnatic, which sailed to China in 1786. His early, often dangerous experiences at sea left an indelible mark upon him: a narrow escape from drowning near Macao in 1788 persuaded him that a boat’s equilibrium was paramount to its safety, a conviction that shaped his future thinking on timber vessels. He voyaged regularly to China throughout the 1790s, until ill-health prompted him to retire at the turn of the century. In 1802 he entered into partnership with his father, his brother, the merchant banker John Palmer Horsley, and Captain Wilson, as East India merchants and shipowners, trading mainly with India and China.3Life-boat (1853), ii. 28-32; M. Greenberg, British trade and the opening of China, 1800-42 (1951), 32-6.

Maritime safety, though, remained Palmer’s foremost concern, and in 1826 he began working with the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck (known as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution after 1854), an organisation he went on to serve as deputy chairman for a quarter of a century. In 1828 his design of a lifeboat was officially adopted by the institution, which became his main claim to fame. By 1844 lifeboats based on his work had been placed at over 30 coastal locations around the British Isles.4Life-boat (1853), ii. 28-30; The Times, 24 Oct. 1872. In 1832, meanwhile, he played a pivotal role in establishing the General Ship Owners’ Society, becoming its first chairman. He subsequently helped draft rules for a new Lloyd’s register, which in 1834 became the globally accepted model for shipping.5Harcourt, ‘Palmer, George’, Oxf. DNB; S. Palmer, Politics, shipping and the repeal of the navigation laws (1990), 28-37.

Now established as one of the shipping interest’s most prominent figures, Palmer accepted a requisition from the electors of South Shields to stand in the Conservative interest at the 1832 general election, but following a campaign marred by accusations that local shipowners on his election committee had pressurised their employees to vote for him, he was comfortably defeated by the Newcastle-upon-Tyne lawyer Robert Ingham.6Morning Post, 11 Dec. 1832; The Times, 18 Dec. 1832. Nevertheless, his parliamentary ambitions were soon realised. Brought forward for a vacancy at Essex South in 1836, he successfully overcame concerns that, as a shipowner, he was unable to adequately represent an agricultural constituency and after a short, hostile contest in which he called for repeal of the malt tax, he was elected by a commanding majority.7The Times, 3, 8 June 1836. He successfully defended his seat at the 1837 general election, when his proposer, John Round, Conservative Member for Essex North, generously praised him a ‘friend of the plough, the loom and the sail’.8Essex Standard, 28 July, 4 Aug. 1837. He was again comfortably re-elected in 1841.9Ibid., 2, 9 July 1841.

Palmer made his mark in his first full Parliament through his crusade to address the loss of life caused by shipwrecks. In April 1839 he successfully moved for a select committee to consider the regulation of timber trading ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean.10Hansard, 9 Apr. 1839, vol. 46, cc. 1302-3. The report of the inquiry, which he adroitly chaired, recommended that timber-laden vessels between the United States and Britain be barred from carrying deck-loads.11PP 1839 (333), ix. 224-30. After making a compelling case for the legislation, his timber ships bill passed its second reading, 17 July 1839, and arrived on the statute book as the 1839 Timber Ships, British North America Act (2 & 3 Vict. c. 44). He continued his work on improving ship safety in his second Parliament, chairing the 1843 select committee on shipwrecks, which recommended a better maritime law regarding the duties of masters and seamen on board merchant vessels.12PP 1843 (549), ix. 2-8. His main legislative triumph, however, was the 1845 Timber Ships Act (8 & 9 Vict. c. 45), which extended and settled the law prohibiting timber ships from carrying deck cargoes.

In addition to these legislative achievements, Palmer attended steadily, initially following Peel into the division lobbies on the major commercial and ecclesiastical questions of the day. His early contributions to debate reflected his fervent opposition to excessive centralisation and the removal of local authority. He felt poor law commissioners appointed under the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act had ‘invaded ... the constitutional rights and liberties of the people of this country’, but his motion for the release of correspondence between commissioners was defeated, 27 July 1838. After dismissing the poor law commission continuance bill as an ‘infringement upon the rights of the people’, he was in a hardcore minority of 35 Members who voted against it, 15 July 1839. His motion to delay the second reading of the poor rates collection bill was defeated by 51 votes to 16, 7 Aug. 1839. He also spoke out against giving ecclesiastical commissioners powers to distribute church property, 25 Feb. 1839. His background as an East Indian merchant came to the fore when he sharply condemned the Melbourne ministry’s lack of foresight regarding relations with China and the extent of the opium trade carried on by British ships, 8 Apr. 1840. In a lengthy intervention in a debate on the sugar duties, he attacked the free trade policies of the Whig government, 13 May 1841. Unsurprisingly, he voted for Peel’s motion of no confidence in Melbourne’s administration, 4 June 1841.

Addressing his constituents at the 1841 general election, Palmer launched a withering attack on the ‘delusive theories of the free traders’, claiming melodramatically that the repeal of the corn laws would make rural farmers like ‘serfs of Poland, who eat nothing but black bread, which you would hardly give to your pigs’.13Essex Standard, 9 July 1841. Although he initially backed Peel’s economic policies, voting for a sliding scale on corn duties, 9 Mar. 1842, and pairing off in favour of the reintroduction of income tax, 13 Apr. 1842, he became uneasy at what he saw as the gradual introduction of free trade measures, beginning with a lowering of custom duties on over 750 articles in the 1842 budget. Voicing his concern, he asserted that Peel’s reform of tariffs ‘gave reason to the agriculturalists to be alarmed’, adding that he ‘felt that alarm himself, for he did not know what the right hon. Baronet might not yet do’.14Hansard, 10 May 1842, vol. 63, cc. 397-400. He subsequently spoke out against the bonded corn bill, 20 July 1842, and the Canadian corn law bill, 9 June 1843, characterising both measures as ruinous to the agricultural interest and the country. Reflecting his high Anglican upbringing, he voted against the premier on the Dissenters’ chapels bill, 6 June 1844, before briefly rallying to Peel’s defence on the sugar duties, 17 June 1844.

His uneasiness with Peel’s leadership, however, continued to grow, and spilled over during a debate on the Maynooth grant in May 1845, when he openly questioned the premier’s attitude towards his own party, before voting against the college’s permanent endowment.15Ibid., 21 May 1845, vol. 80, c. 744. Unsurprisingly, he saw Peel’s decision to support the repeal of the corn laws as the ultimate act of treachery. Struggling to be heard in a raucous House, he declared that Peel ‘stood in the light of Ahab’s prophets of old. He would deceive himself, and bring down destruction upon a devoted people’.16Ibid., 2 Mar. 1846, vol. 84, cc. 1298-1300. He voted against repeal, 15 May 1846. His distaste for centralisation also remained undimmed. He criticised the power given to inspectors under the 1847 health of towns bill, describing it as ‘arbitrary and unconstitutional’, 18 June, and asserting that ‘he knew nobody to whom it was more safe to entrust the working of a measure of this kind than to local bodies’, 1 July. His amendment to delay the bill, however, was defeated by 117 votes to 126.17Ibid., 1 July 1847, vol. 93, cc. 1092-113.

With his health declining, Palmer retired from the Commons at the 1847 dissolution.18Morning Chronicle, 18 May 1853. He continued, though, to devote his energies to the Shipwreck Institution. He was instrumental in securing the services of the duke of Northumberland as its president and continued to chair meetings until his retirement in February 1853, whereupon he was awarded the gold medallion of the institution. In 1854 his model of lifeboat was replaced by the ‘self-righting’ boat designed by James Beeching (1788-1858).19Life-boat (1853), ii. 32.

Palmer died at Nazeing Park after a short illness in May 1853.20Morning Chronicle, 18 May 1853. For his services to the development of lifeboats, he was remembered as a great humanitarian.21The Times, 24 Oct. 1872. He was succeeded by his eldest son, George (1799-1883), who served as high sheriff of Essex in 1863. His correspondence is held by the Chamber of Shipping, London, and the Lloyd’s register of shipping archives, London. His brief correspondence with Peel, mainly concerning his timber ships legislation, is held by the British Library, London.22BL Add. 40497, ff. 211-3; 40501, f. 22; 40502, f. 82; 40532, f. 100; 40542, ff. 163-7.