Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/126

 fellowship, took the engagement, and was admitted to the rectory of Bourton-on-the Water, Gloucestershire. He was one of the assistant commissioners for Gloucestershire to the ‘expurgators’ (appointed by ordinance of 28 Aug. 1654). Wood says he was ‘anabaptistically inclin'd,’ which means that, in accordance with the terms of his commission, baptists (who abounded in Gloucestershire) were not as such excluded from the ministry. At the Restoration he was driven from his rectory by royalists, and his goods were plundered. He put in a curate to do duty for him, ‘but he being disturbed, they got one to read the common prayer’. He withdrew to London, and was ejected from his living by the Uniformity Act (1662). Wood says he was privy to the fanatical plot of November 1662, for which Thomas Tongue and others were tried on 11 Dec. and executed on 22 Dec.; but this is improbable. He gathered a congregational church at Pinners' Hall, Old Broad Street, where, on the indulgence of 1672, a joint lecture by presbyterian and congregational divines was established by London merchants. Palmer was not one of the lecturers. He was ‘of good ministerial abilities,’ according to Calamy. He died on 26 Jan. 1679, and was buried in the New Bethlehem graveyard, Moorfields (site in Liverpool Street, opposite the Broad Street railway station).

He published: 1. ‘The Saint's Posture in Dark Times,’ &c., 1650, 8vo. 2. ‘The Tempestuous Soul calmed,’ &c., 1653, 8vo; 1658, 8vo; 1673, 8vo. 3. ‘The Scripture Rail to the Lord's Table,’ &c., 1654, 8vo (against the ‘Humble Vindication,’ 1651, by John Humfrey [q. v.]) 4. ‘Memorials of Godliness and Christianity,’ &c., 12mo. 5. ‘The Christian's Freedom by Christ,’ &c., 12mo. 6. ‘The Gospel New Creature,’ &c., 1658, 8vo; 1674, 8vo.

Another (d. 1693) was admitted to the rectory of Bratton Fleming, Devonshire, about 1645, was ejected in 1662, and died in September 1693.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss) ii. 189, iii. 1192 sq., Fasti (Bliss), i. 500, ii. 3; Calamy's Abridgment, 1713 p. 305, Account, 1713 p. 316, Continuation, 1727, i. 53, 320 sq. 493; Wilson's Dissenting Churches of London, 1808, ii. 256 sq.]  PALMER, ANTHONY (1675?–1749), New England pioneer, probably born in England about 1675, went out at an early age to Barbados, and made there a considerable fortune as a merchant at Bridgetown. In 1707 he was induced to invest in land in Philadelphia, and, migrating thither, continued his mercantile ventures with success. In 1708 he was summoned to the provincial council of Pennsylvania, of which he remained a member till his death. In 1718 he became a justice of the peace, shortly afterwards a judge of the court of common pleas, and in 1720 one of the first masters in chancery. In 1747 he was president of the council, and in May, when Governor Thomas resigned, he assumed the administration of the colony, and governed it, for eighteen months, through a period of great anxiety. England was at war with France and Spain, whose privateers were making constant descents on the coast of Delaware. The assembly, controlled by quakers, declined to take measures of defence. Palmer induced his government to act independently, and was remarkably successful. About the same time he made treaties of friendship with several Indian tribes, especially those of the Six Nations.

In 1730 he purchased Fairman Mansion at Philadelphia, and, cutting up part of the grounds into building lots, became the founder of what is now the Kensington district of Philadelphia. Here he lived in great state till his death in May 1749.

His daughter Thomasine married the son and heir of Sir William Keith, governor of Pennsylvania.

[The collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.]  PALMER, BARBARA, (fl. 1675). [See ]  PALMER, CHARLES JOHN (1805–1882), historian of Great Yarmouth, only son of John Danby Palmer, esq., by Anne, daughter of Charles Beart, esq., of Gorleston, Suffolk, was born at Yarmouth on 1 Jan. 1805. The family had been settled in that town since the beginning of the sixteenth century. Charles was educated at a private school at Yarmouth, and in 1822 was articled to Robert Cory, F.S.A., an attorney, under whom he had previously served for two years, in order to qualify himself to become a notary public. He was admitted an attorney in June 1827, and practised at Yarmouth until physical infirmities necessitated his retirement. For many years he resided at No. 4 South Quay, in a house which his father had purchased in 1809, and which is a fine specimen of Elizabethan architecture. He became an alderman of the old corporation, and in August 1835 was elected mayor; but the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act prevented his taking the oath in the following September, and the new corporation elected Barth as chief