CAPTAIN, WHALER, SHIPOWNER and FATHER OF SIR CHARLES MARK PALMER
Situated in the Unconsecrated/East Section of Jesmond Old Cemetery
Captain George Palmer was born in Boston, Lincolnshire on 31st July 1789. George was a great -nephew of an earlier whaling captain of the same name (1720 – 1785) and the first son of a Master Mariner, also George (1759 – 1825), and Eleanor. Little is known of his apprenticeship or early voyages, but George junior may have taken command of his first whaling voyage in 1812, aged 23, before becoming Master of the Cove three years later. Unusually among Masters, he stayed with the Cove for the whole of his career as a whaling Captain, completing 21 voyages and becoming one of the most successful Tyneside whalers of his era.
The Cove was a square-sterned wooden ship of 313 tons and was built in Whitby in 1798. From 1815, her principal owners were Edward Hall Campbell and George Barrass, both prominent local brewers, with Barrass’s brewery being particularly remembered as going on to become the Newcastle Brewery. Captain Palmer’s command dates from 1815, after which he sailed every season to Davis Strait until 1833. The ship later gained renown when, following the unusually severe winter of 1835 – 36, she was commissioned by the Admiralty for a voyage commanded by Captain James Clark Ross RN, to relieve a group of whaling ships trapped by ice in Davis Strait.
Captain Palmer was one of over a dozen whaling masters who sailed annually from Newcastle to the Davis Strait whaling grounds, situated to the west of Greenland, during the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, and was one of the first British Masters to penetrate north into Baffin Bay
On 29th December 1813, George married Maria Taylor, daughter of Thomas Taylor of Monkwearmouth, himself a Master Mariner and whaling Captain. Maria’s brother, Thomas, became successfully Master of the Tyneside whaling ships Grenville Bay, Lively and Lord Gambier. George and Maria resided for many years at King Street, South Shields, later moving to Priors Terrace, Tynemouth. The 1851 Census records the couple living at 6, Ellison Place, Newcastle (Shipowner) and the1861 Census records George (71) and Maria (68) living at Belle Vue House, Gateshead – now a Grade II Listed Building.
Between whaling voyages, George diversified into general commercial activities. After his two final and profitable voyages of 1832 and 1833, he retired from whaling, aged 44, to invest what may well have been substantial capital, specifically to develop the firm of Palmer, Beckwith and Co., export merchants, timber merchants and sawmill owners, based in Dunston. In the years following, he built new ships, a 334 ton barque, named Palmer, and a 326 ton barque, named Cove, becoming the sole owner of the latter from 1841 to 1848. After Maria’s death in 1864, George remained a familiar figure in Tynemouth, strolling along the pier every morning, telescope in hand. He died on 6th December 1866, leaving effects of under £14000 in his will.
Captain George Palmer
The headstone is somewhat weathered now but the inscription reads:
‘The burial place of George and Maria Palmer of this town. The above Maria Palmer, died February 2nd 1864, in the 71st year of her age. The above George Palmer, died December 6th 1866, in the 77th year of his age. Thomas, their son, departed this life August 19th 1846, aged 28 years. Maria, their daughter, died April 23rd 1855, aged 26 years. William Henry, their son, died June 3rd 1857, aged 36 years.’
George and Maria raised a family of eight; seven sons, George (1814 – 1879), Thomas (1817 – 1845), William Henry (1820 – 1857), Charles Mark (1822 – 1907), John Brough (1825 – 1886), Henry Burton (1831 – 1910) and Alfred Septimus (1834 – 1910), and a daughter, Maria (1828 – 1855). Two of the sons, Thomas and William Henry were both, sadly, lost at sea. George’s prosperity gave his sons opportunities for education that enabled them to enter businesses or professions. Conspicuously successful was the fourth son, Charles Mark Palmer, who started in his father’s business at Dunston, but subsequently developed commercial interests in North Yorkshire’s iron mining, coking and shipbuilding. He eventually founded the integrated shipyards in Jarrow, represented the Jarrow constituency in Parliament and in 1886 was awarded a Baronetcy.
With grateful thanks to Mr. Robin Dickson for pointing us in the right direction to Captain Palmer’s gravestone.
Reference
The Arctic Whaling Logs of Captain George Palmer, 1820 – 33. Stonehouse B. & Gunn C. (2013) The Journal of the Hakluyt Society p. 1 – 10.