Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Palmer, George William
PALMER, GEORGE WILLIAM (1851–1913), biscuit manufacturer, the eldest son of George Palmer [q.v.], the founder of Huntley and Palmers' biscuit factory at Reading, by his wife, Elizabeth Sarah, daughter of Robert Meteyard, of Basingstoke, was born at Reading 23 May 1851. He was educated at Grove House, Tottenham, and from his early youth was associated with the firm of Huntley and Palmers', Ltd. In 1882 he was elected a member of the town council of the borough of Reading. He served as mayor in 1888–1889. He became an alderman in due course, and remained a member of the municipal body until his retirement. In 1892 Palmer was returned to parliament as member for Reading. He was a liberal in politics. In the general election of 1895 he was defeated, and he also contested unsuccessfully the Wokingham division of Berkshire in 1898; but he was re-elected for Reading at a by-election in the latter year and retained the seat until, owing to increasing deafness, he withdrew from public life in 1904. In 1902 the freedom of the borough of Reading was conferred upon him, the only previous person so honoured having been his father. In 1906 he was appointed a member of the Privy Council. Palmer married in 1879 Eleanor, eldest daughter of Henry Barrett, of Surbiton. There were no children of the marriage. During the early part of his life he lived chiefly in Reading. Later he lived at Marlston in Berkshire, rebuilding the house there, and devoting much attention to the development of his estate. He was a justice of the peace both for Reading and for Berkshire.
Palmer conferred many benefactions upon his native town. The most notable of these related to education. From the first he took an interest in the University College (now the university of Reading), which arose from small beginnings in 1892. This interest markedly increased after his retirement in 1904. In 1902 he had become a member of the college council, and from 1905 until his death he was also a vice-president of the college. In 1905, upon the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of the new college hall by Viscount Goschen, then chancellor of the university of Oxford, Palmer presented the college with an endowment of £50,000, to be known, in memory of his father, as ‘the George Palmer Endowment Fund’. This endowment was to enable the college to develop work of university standard. In 1909 he placed a fine recreation ground at the disposal of the college, and this benefaction was subsequently confirmed in his will. In 1910 he was associated with Harriet, Lady Wantage, in purchasing for the college five and a half acres of land with the object of preserving the amenities of her adjacent foundation of Wantage Hall, a hall of residence for men students at University College. In 1911 Palmer and his wife subscribed £100,000 towards an endowment fund of £200,000 raised with the object of enabling the college to become an independent university, the other donors being Lady Wantage and Palmer's brother, Alfred. These principal benefactions did not exhaust the list of his gifts to University College and to education. He founded a scholarship open to boys at Reading School and tenable at one of the halls of residence of University College, Reading. It is also understood that, in addition to gifts made from time to time to building and other funds of the college, he contributed anonymously large sums in order to free the college of accumulated debt.
George William Palmer died 8 October 1913. He bequeathed to University College, in addition to the recreation ground already mentioned, a sum of £10,000. In 1923 his brother Alfred, and other members of the Palmer family, presented to the college a fine library building, including an endowment, as a memorial to him. Apart from business, politics, and education, Palmer's main interests were in travel, agriculture, hunting, and shooting.
[Personal knowledge.]