Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/125

 the most important strategical points between this chain and the coast by similar works, or clusters of works. What he proposed has since been partially carried out. In acknowledgment of his services he was made C.B. (civil) in 1868, and was knighted 21 Jan. 1873. In 1875 he received the cross of a commander of the crown of Italy. After unsuccessfully contesting Devonport and Dungarvan, he was returned to parliament in 1880 for Taunton as a conservative. He headed the poll, beating Sir Henry James, who was returned with him, by eighty-one votes. In 1868 he had married Anne, daughter of George Perham.

He died in London 4 Feb. 1882, and was buried in Brompton cemetery. Before his death he complained that he was ‘persecuted to the bitter end’ by officials in the war office, and this complaint has since been repeated by others, who have said that the treatment he received hastened his death. The grounds of it, as stated before the royal commission on warlike stores in 1887, are that, although his principles of gun construction were adopted for the conversion of old cast-iron guns, he could not get them applied to new guns; and that when he petitioned in 1877 for a prolongation of his patent for chilled shot, it was opposed by the war office and refused, although the war department had no interest in the question, direct or indirect, as it had the free use of the invention. The answer made to this charge was that the war office had not opposed the prolongation. It had only asked that, if granted, the rights of the crown should be reserved, as Palliser had already received 15,000l. as a reward for this invention. The prolongation was refused because the accounts rendered were not in sufficient detail, and because it was shown that there had already been a clear profit of 20,000l. from royalties on shot and shell made for foreign governments. The same course had been taken by the war office in regard to the prolongation of the patent for guns, for which Palliser had received 7,500l. from the war department.

(d. 1891), one of Sir William's elder brothers, became sub-lieutenant R.N. 13 May 1845, and lieutenant 28 Feb. 1847. He distinguished himself in 1854 in expeditions against Chinese pirates, being in command of the boats of her majesty's frigate Spartan, of which he was first lieutenant. He stormed three forts, mounting seventeen guns, and he boarded the chief vessel of a pirate fleet and rescued a French lady who was a prisoner in it. In the act of boarding he himself fell between his own boat and the other, and broke several ribs. For his gallantry in these actions he was made commander 6 Jan. 1855. In 1857 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Fitzgerald of Muckridge House, co. Cork. He was placed on the retired list as a captain 21 April 1870, and died in June 1891.

[Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, lxix. 418; Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, xiii. 128, xiv. 163, xvi. 125; Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on Warlike Stores in 1887, pars. 2402–7, 4157–60, 6775–87, 8612–23; Catalogues of the Patent Office; Times obituaries, 6 Feb. 1882, 16 June 1891.]  PALMARIUS, THOMAS (fl. 1410), divine. [See ]

 PALMER, ALICIA TINDAL (fl. 1810), novelist, is described as a native of Bath. Her first book, a novel in three volumes, ‘The Husband and Lover,’ was published in 1809. In the next year appeared ‘The Daughters of Isenberg: a Bavarian Romance,’ in four volumes. It was sharply ridiculed by Gifford in the ‘Quarterly’ (iv. 61–7). Miss Palmer had previously sent him three 1l. notes. Gifford did not return the money, but affected to assume that it was intended for charitable purposes, and wrote to Miss Palmer that, as she had not mentioned the objects of her bounty, he hoped the Lying-in Hospital would not disappoint her expectations (, Memoir and Correspondence, i. 180–1). In 1811 Miss Palmer published a third novel in three volumes, ‘The Sons of Altringham,’ written, so the preface states, to defray the expenses of the admission of a boy to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. All three books are written in a high-flown and inflated style, and are without literary importance. In 1815 appeared Miss Palmer's ‘Authentic Memoirs of Sobieski.’ Among the subscribers were Lord Byron and Edmund Kean.

[Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit. ii. 1492; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816.]  PALMER, ANTHONY (1618?–1679), ejected independent, son of Anthony Palmer, was born at Great Comberton, Worcestershire, about 1618. In 1634, at the age of sixteen, he became a student of Balliol College, Oxford, graduated B.A. on 7 April 1638, was admitted fellow on 29 Nov. 1640, and graduated M.A. on 16 Dec. 1641, taking orders shortly afterwards. He subscribed the league and covenant of 1643, but seems never to have been a presbyterian. In 1648 he signed the Gloucestershire ministers' testimony. In October 1649 he resigned the