British biscuit-manufacturer, born on the 18th of January 1818, at Long Sutton, Somersetshire, 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 son, Sir Walter Palmer, 1st Bart. (1858–1910), English manufacturer, was born at Reading on the 4th of February 1858, and educated at University College, London, and also at the Sorbonne, Paris. He became a director of the firm and was also the first chairman of University College, Reading. He sat in the House of Commons for Salisbury during 1900–6. In 1904 he was created a baronet, and he died at Newbury on the 16th of April 1910. His elder brother. George William Palmer (1851–1913), was chairman of the firm and sat in the House of Commons for Reading from 1892 to 1895 and from 1898 to 1904. He was made a privy councillor in 1906. He died near Newbury on the 8th of October 1913.
