Thomas Palmer

Slave-owner in Surinam, where he owned the Fairfield estate. He came from a loyalist American background, connected with the family of Isaac Royall (who was his uncle by marriage, and whose daughters were his main legatees), but moved to Britain, dying in London in 1820; he was an executor of the will of Joseph Royall (q.v.).

1. Will of Thomas Palmer Esq. of Berkeley Square Middlesex proved 28/08/1820. In the will he left the Fairfield estate including the enslaved people on it in trust for the benefit as to one-third of the Rev. Henry Hutton of Beaumont in Essex during the joint lives of himself and his wife Elizabeth Royal [sic, in fact Royall]; one-third of William Congreve of Aldermaston during the joint lives of himself and his wife Mary Hurst; and one-third of Sir Charles Thomas Palmer bart., of Wanlip in Leicestershire during the joint lives of himself and Harriet Lady Palmer his wife. He also left monetary legacies, including two mortgages securing loans he had made in Britain of £6000 and £5000; and he bequeathed his books except for his Biographia Britannia to 'the Corporation of the University of Cambridge of the province of Massachusetts Bay in North America.' He left his leasehold house in Berkeley Square to William Finch Palmer (d. c. 1828). In her own will proved 22/06/1839, Mary Hurst Congreve 'wife of Aldermaston Berkshire' left £2000 bequeathed to her under the will of Thomas Palmer to her husband William Congreve.

http://www.leics.gov.uk/the_palmer_family_of_wanlip_hall.pdf [accessed 11/10/2014]; http://www.leics.gov.uk/the_palmer_family_-_fairfield_plantation_paramaribo_surinam.pdf [accessed 11/10/2014]. The former site mentions slave-ownership by the Palmer family in Jamaica as well as Surinam, and details the grave of the former enslaved man Rasselas Morjan at Wanlip, where he died in 1839 aged 19.

1. PROB 11/1633/360; PROB 11/1912/8.