A MEMOIR OF WILLIAM PALMER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 373, 31 May 1856, Page 4

A MEMOIR OF WILLIAM PALMER.

It appears that Mr. William Palmer is a member of a very wealthy Jamily, and is now in his 34th year-or thereabouts. He was educated for the medical profession, was a pupil at St. Bartholeniew's, received the diploma of the College o! Surgeons in 1846, and settled in Hugely, his native place. He seems, however, to have paid more attention to the "turf,'' and to what are commonly called sporting pursuits, than to his own profession, and to have confined his practice to his own family aud friends. His name appears in the London and Provincial Medical Directory of 1851, and again in 1855, as that of one of the persons who had neglected to inform the editor of that work of the nature of their qualifications ; hence it has been hoped that his claim to be considered one of ourselves was uot a just one. But his name appears in the list of the College of Surgeons ; and we may suggest in passing, that it will be necessary for the future to be cautious in assuming the existence of no qualification, merely because none is recorded in the Directory. He married, in 1547, Anne, the natural daughter of Colonel William Brookes and Mary Thornton, his housekeeper. Colonel Brookes who after quitting the East India service, took up his residence at Stafford, died iv 1834, leaving considerable property, and more than one natural child. To Anne Thornton he bequeathed by a will dated July 27, 1853, nine houses at Stafford, besides land, and the interest of 20,000 sicca rupees for herself and her children, and appointed Dr. Edward Knight, a highly respectable physician of Stafford, and a Mr. Dawson, her guardians and trustees. To Mary Thornton, the mother of Anne, the Colonel bequeathed certain property, which was to pass to the daughter at the decease of the mother. Mary Thornton departed this life, it is said, while a guest at Mr. Palmer's house, in 1848 or iS49.

Now, although the will of Colonel Brookes would seem clear enough to any one who was ignorant of law, and although, in the present state of the law, as we are informed, it would be sufficient, yet it was discovered by the legal fraternity some years since, that the language conveying tue bequest to Anne Thornton was not sufficiently forcible to convey it to her absolutely, but only to give her a life interest in it; inasmuch as at her decease it was liable to be clainisd by the heir-at-law to Colonel

Brookes

Under these circumstances, there was nothing unnatural or unusual in the idea that Palmer should insure his wife's life, in order to protect himself from the inevitable loss which must ensue in case of her decease. And since her property consisted of seventeen acres of laud, valued at between three and four hundred pounds per acre, besides nine lioupep, and the interest of the sicca rupees probably altogether worth at least £400 per annum, upon which he had borrowed largely from his mother—there could be no doubt of his having- such an interest in his wife's life as would justify insurance.

Accordingly, in January, 1854, he insured her life for £'3.000 in the Norwich Union, and in March, in the Sun for £5,000; there was also an insurance in the Scottish Equitnble for £5,000. It appears that proposals for insurance were made to ether offices : but there seems nothing unusual in this, for he might only have had in view to obtain the best terras, unless, indeed, sucii proposals were made after the full value of his wife's property h..id been covered.

To proceed. Mrs. P«tJnii;r died on September 29, 1854, under circnrastiinces which we shall proceed to examine, leaving onl}' one surviving child, a boy of seven years ; and, as if to justify tl»e husband in effecting an insurance, ar; action was brought within a month, by Colonel Brooke's heir-at-law, to obtain possession of Mrs. Palmer's property.

Palmer brought up the life policies on the Sun :uid Norwich Union, <>n the 16th October, 1854, and employed Mr. Pratt, the solicitor, to obtain the money from the offices. Mr. Pratt who seems to have acted with entire bona fide, and the caution usual among lawyers, required' to foe furnished with evidence of. the husband's pecuniary interest in his wife's life, took counsel's opinion in every step, and obtained the £8000 from the offices on ihe 6th February, JS-55 : strangely enough the £5000 from the

Scottish Equitable was paid through a banker, unknown to Pratt.— Medical Times and Gazette.

A correspondent of the " Illustrated News" who has visited Rugeley, says:—"William Palmer was popular with the poor and with the public generally ; for he had a pleasant manner, was never secretive of sporting news of value, and always glad to put money in the way of poor men eager for the excitement sans the risk of betting1. He thus obtained considerable influence in the town and in the sporting circles of the midland and northern counties. But he was never respected. Although young (about thirty-four), he has lived apparently an indefatigably mischievous life, and his character was tolerably well understood as a man who • would not stick :tt a trifle.' His companions were of a low class, and he only differed from them in his temperate habits and equable tact of manner. His wife was greatly beloved as a gentle, amiable, extemely ieminine woman; and his notorious unfaithfulness to her, his prolonged absences from her, and the extreme solitude in which she was left in that hideous house in that hideous town, induced dislike of him, originating in pity for her. Now that all the dreadful story is divulged, the daring character of the man is well understood. His attempt to bribe the postboy to smash the jars containing the viscera of Cook, as these jars were being carried to the station for transmission to London—his taking from the telegraph office the copy of the message—his hint to the weak postmaster to open and read a letter—his reckless misrepresentations to the insuranceoffices of the social positon of Bates, his stable help—his attempt to seduce his maid-servant the very night of his wife's death—all these facts are sufficiently suggestive. But stories of

that character have been rife for years about him. The day his wife died it was whispered by two or three persons in Kugeley that she had not been properly treated by him. We may infer from Cook's' dying hints that sporting nien had 'queer' ideas about ' the doctor ;' and when the insurance offices began to make inquiries so long ago as September—that is, long before Cook's death—they, of course, were influenced by the common talk about Palmer. In physique hepiesented none of the points of a man of finesse, either fora 'book' or for a ' poison.' He was clumsily built, with a coarse red face. This figure and"complexion, with the accompaniments in both cases of thin fair hair and sandy whiskers, have suggested the statement that 'Palmer is the image of Manning.' In strong, selfish, sensual natures there is probably a general resemblance. But Palmer looks, we are assured, more ' gentlemanly' tban Manning did.1'