Free Mysterious Wisdom by Rachel Campbell-Johnston Page B

James Fox in two minutes, beginning with the words “Sir Stephen Fox married so and so”,’ 1 Samuel would recall towards the end of his life, though the only evidence he could offer of this connection was the story of a Mr Barry who, standing in the same relation to Fox as Palmer’s father, had upon application been endowed with a valuable government appointment for life. As for the Palmers’ much-vaunted relationship to the Church of England’s principal primate, it was no closer than that effected through a marriage to an archiepiscopal niece.
    The family descended more directly from a line of rather humbler Anglican clergy. Palmer’s great-great-grandfather, Samuel, had left Ireland in the early eighteenth century and, having made an advantageous match with the aforementioned niece, was offered the living of Wylye in Wiltshire where his memorial slab can still be found inset in the church wall. His son, Edward, had followed in his clerical footsteps, becoming the rector of Ringmer in East Sussex. But towards the end of the century the family had moved into business as the rector’s son, Christopher, set himself up as a hatter, becoming a partner in the firm of Moxon, Palmer and Norman based in Cannon Street on the fringes of the City of London.
    Hat-making in England at this time was a lucrative business. In 1795, in order to raise money to fund a war against France, the government had imposed a tax on hair powder with the result that, almost immediately, the modishly puffed coiffeurs of the era had gone out of fashion to be replaced by a taste for millinery. Soon the British ‘topper’ would be reaching a foot in height. The unfortunate beavers whose pelts were required for these towering adornments did not prosper – the animal was rendered all but extinct – but members of the Worshipful Company of Feltmakers, the city livery company to which hatters belonged, flourished. Palmer’s paternal grandfather, Christopher, was of this thriving breed. He married the daughter of one of his business partners and, setting a precedent for the longevity which his son and his grandson would later enjoy, lived until the ripe old age of eighty-two. He had a ‘most excellent natural constitution’, Palmer later recorded, adding with what was to become an obsessive interest in digestive functions, that ‘he would have seen a hundred if he had minded his bowels’. 2
    Christopher Palmer had five children: three sons, Edward, Nathanial and Samuel, and two daughters, Sarah and Mary. Little is known of the girls. The eldest son, Edward, owned property in Ireland which, after he was killed in 1830 by an overturning hackney carriage, was sold out of the family. The second boy, Nathanial, became a corn factor at a time when a corn factor was a force to be reckoned with, for first the Napoleonic Wars had prevented cereals from being brought in from the continent and then, when foreign trade was finally resumed, the newly passed Corn Laws would place punitive tariffs on imported grain. The price of Britain’s staple food soared, not least in the wake of an appalling 1816 harvest. There were riots and, at the heart of the fray, stood the profiteering factor: the intermediary without whom no business could be carried out. The third son Samuel, Palmer’s father, would not prove so shrewd. Too squeamish to follow the surgeon’s career which he had initially contemplated, he had embarked on a career in the family hatting firm, purchasing his Freedom of the City of London as a feltmaker before, realising that he far preferred folios to animal furs, he had decided to set himself up as a bookseller instead. His family, considering trade a grave slur on its gentlemanly credentials, had tried to discourage him but he was of stubborn disposition and had remained resolute. Palmer’s father was always to put personal fulfilment above fiscal ambition or social