Perdita woman: Julia Palmer

Biography

Julia Palmer, the author and scribe of William Andrews Clark Memorial Library MS P1745 M1 P744 1671-3 Bound may have been an orphan, as poem 70 (msItem 70) in the "First Century", lines 11-12 suggests: ""Yet thou didst shew, thy self most kinnd/ unto the fatherlese"". Clues about Palmer's biography come from the prominent men to whom she bequeathed her manuscript, Joseph Biscoe and James Pitson, both active in the Society of Apothecaries. The Biscoe family appears in the records of St. Margaret's, Westminster-in those parish registers is listed the baptism of a Samuel Palmer on 17 June 1667, son of Nicholas and Julia Palmer (Herbert F. Westlake and Lawrence E. Tanner, eds., The Registers of St. Margaret's Westminster London 1660-1675, Harleian Society vol. 64, Register Section (London: Harleian Society, 1935) 64). A Julia Hungerford had married a Nicholas Palmer on 12 May 1664 at All Hallows, London Wall (International Genealogical Index (http://www.familysearch.org); Guildhall Library, All Hallows London Wall parish registers, MS 5085, fol. 55v). This may be the Julia Palmer of this manuscript given the rarity of the name Julia until the eighteenth century (E.G. Withycombe, The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 3rd edition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), 183). Julia Palmer's absence from later Anglican records suggests that she became a Nonconformist, something supported by her poetry with its specifically Presbyterian use of language such as ""duties"" (set services such as holy communion) and ""ordinances"".

In the Court Minutes of the Society of Apothecaries on 7 July 1682, Samuel Palmer, bound as an apprentice to the apothecary Edward Baker for eight years, is listed as the son of the deceased Nicholas Palmer of New Windsor in Berkshire (Guildhall Library, Court Minutes of the Society of Apothecaries 1680-1694, MS 8200/3, fol. 64.). Presumably Samuel Palmer never completed his eight-year apprenticeship because he is not listed as having been freed. That this Samuel is Julia and Nicholas's son is made more likely by the fact that the Nicholas Palmer buried at New Windsor on 28 February 1681 (Berkshire Record Office, New Windsor parish registers, MS D/P149/1/1 (no foliation)) was a Presbyterian preacher, a very plausible occupation for the husband of the Julia Palmer whose Presbyterian sympathies are displayed so clearly in the manuscript. ""Mr Palmer of London"" preached at New Windsor in 1669: on 24 May 1672 a licence was requested for ""Nicholas Palmer, Presbyterian, at Mrs. Jane Price's new house, Frogmore, New Windsor, Berkshire,"" which was granted on 10 June (A.G. Matthews, Calamy Revised: Being a Revision of Edmund Calamy's Account of the Ministers and Others Ejected and Silenced 1660-1662 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1934), 380; M.A.E. Green et al., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series of the Reign of Charles II...1672 , vol. 13, pp. 55, 196 and 216.) The move to New Windsor was probably part of a Presbyterian outreach made possible by the Declaration of Indulgence. Julia Palmer and her son may have moved back to Westminster after Nicholas's death. See Victoria Burke's and Elizabeth Clarke's articles and edition listed in the bibliography for more biographical details about Julia Palmer.


William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: MS P1745 M1 P744 1671-3 Bound
Two "Centuries" of Devotional Verse, 1671-1673 (1671-1673)
Julia Palmer (author, scribe)


William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: MS P1745 M1 P744 1671-3 Bound
Two "Centuries" of Devotional Verse, 1671-1673 (1671-1673)
Julia Palmer (author, scribe)