GEORGE

See also:

• PALMER
• PALMER, EDWARD HENRY (1840-1882)
• PALMER, ERASTUS DOW (1817-1904)
• GEORGE PALMER (1818-1897)
• PALMER, JOHN
• PALMER, RAY (1808-1887)
• PALMER, SAMUEL (1805-1881)
• PALMER, SIR CHARLES MARK, BART

PALMER (1818-1897)  , British biscuit-manufacturer, was born on the 18th of January 1818, at Long Sutton, Somerset-shire, where his family had been yeomen-farmers for several generations . The Palmers were Quakers, and George Palmer was educated at the school of the Society of Friends at Sidcot, Somersetshire . About 1832 he was apprenticed to a miller and confectioner at Taunton, and in 1841, in conjunction with Thomas Huntley, set up as a biscuit-manufacturer at Reading . By the application of steam-machinery to biscuit-manufacture the firm of Huntley & Palmer in a comparatively short time built up a very large business, of which on the death of Huntley in 1857 George Palmer and his two brothers, Samuel and William Isaac Palmer, became proprietors . In the same year George Palmer was elected mayor of Reading, and from 1878-1885 he was Liberal member of Parliament for the town . He died at Reading, to which he had been a most generous benefactor, on the 19th of August 1897 . His sons, George William Palmer (b . 1851) and Sir Walter Palmer (b . 1858), displayed a like munificence, particularly in connexion with University College, Reading . George William Palmer, besides being mayor of Reading, represented the town in Parliament as a Liberal . Sir Walter Palmer, who was created a baronet in 1904, became Conservative member for Salisbury in 1900 .