Life

He was born at Bedford

Bedford

Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...

, was educated at Bedford grammar school, and then studied for the ministry (1758–62) at Daventry Academy

Daventry Academy

Daventry Academy was a dissenting academy, that is, a school or college set up by English Dissenters. It moved to many locations, but was most associated with Daventry, where its most famous pupil was Joseph Priestley...

 under Caleb Ashworth

Caleb Ashworth

-Life:Ashworth was born at Clough-Fold, Rossendale, Lancashire, in 1722. His father, Richard Ashworth, who died in 1751, aged eighty-four, was a lay preacher among the Particular Baptists; he had three sons—Thomas, Particular Baptist minister at Heckmondwike; Caleb; and John, General Baptist...

.

In 1762 he became afternoon preacher to the independent (originally presbyterian) congregation at Mare Street, Hackney, and was ordained on 21 November 1763. From 10 June 1763 he occasionally assisted William Langford, D.D. (1704–1755), at the Weigh-house Chapel, Little Eastcheap, and was the regular morning preacher there from 20 June 1765 to 28 December 1766. He then succeeded William Hunt as morning preacher at Mare Street, and remained in charge of the congregation, which moved in 1771 to St. Thomas's Square, till his death.

For some years, from about 1780, he had a boarding-school. He was a quiet preacher, his views being close to those of his friend, Job Orton

Job Orton

Job Orton was an English dissenting minister.-Life:He was born at Shrewsbury. He entered the academy of Dr Philip Doddridge at Northampton, became minister of a congregation formed by a fusion of Presbyterians and Independents at High Street Chapel, Shrewsbury , received Presbyterian ordination...

. He early adopted Sunday school

Sunday school

Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...

 for his church. Henry Forster Burder

Henry Forster Burder

-Life:The eldest son of the Rev. George Burder, and brother of Thomas Harrison Burder, he was born 27 November 1783, at Coventry. He was articled in 1798 to a wholesale firm based in Nottingham and London....

 was his assistant from October 1811; but Palmer remained active in his charge to the last, preaching on the Sunday before his death. He died on 28 November 1813, and was interred on 6 Dec. in the burial-ground at St. Thomas's Square. His funeral sermon was preached by Thomas N. Toller of Kettering

Kettering

Kettering is a market town in the Borough of Kettering, Northamptonshire, England. It is situated about from London. Kettering is mainly situated on the west side of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene which meets at Wellingborough...

, Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

.

He left a numerous family. His son Samuel entered Daventry Academy in 1786, and became a schoolmaster at Chigwell

Chigwell

Chigwell is a civil parish and town in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located 11.6 miles north east of Charing Cross. It is served by two London Underground stations and has a London area code.-Etymology:According to P. H...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

.

Works

Palmer is known for his ‘Protestant Dissenters' Catechism’ and his ‘Nonconformist's Memorial.’

The catechism was undertaken at the request of several ministers, who wanted a supplement to the Westminster Shorter Catechism

Westminster Shorter Catechism

The Westminster Shorter Catechism was written in the 1640s by English and Scottish divines. The assembly also produced the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Westminster Larger Catechism...

 giving the grounds of dissent. The manuscript was revised by Philip Furneaux

Philip Furneaux

-Early life:Furneaux was born in December 1726 at Totnes, Devon. At the grammar school there he formed a life-long friendship with Benjamin Kennicott. In 1742 or 1743 he came to London to study for the dissenting ministry under David Jennings, at the dissenting academy in Wellclose Square...

 and Job Orton, and published in 1772. Its two sections deal with the history and principles of nonconformity. It was immediately successful, reaching a third edition in 1773, and saw additions and revisions by various editors; the twenty-ninth edition was published in 1890. A translation into Welsh was first published in 1775. An edition adapted for Irish presbyterians was published at Belfast, 1824. It was too long for its original purpose, and Palmer issued ‘The Protestant Dissenters' Shorter Catechism … a Supplement to the Assembly's,’ 1783.

At Orton's suggestion Palmer undertook an abridgment of the ‘Account of the Ministers … Ejected,’ &c., 1713, by Edmund Calamy

Edmund Calamy (historian)

Edmund Calamy was an English Nonconformist churchman, divine and historian.-Life:A grandson of Edmund Calamy the Elder, he was born in the City of London, in the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury. He was sent to various schools, including Merchant Taylors', and in 1688 proceeded to the university of...

, incorporating the Continuation of 1727. The work was published in parts, as The Nonconformist's Memorial 1775–8, 2 vols.; an enlarged edition was published in 1802–3, 3 vols. It is considered somewhat careless. Projected additional volumes did not appear.

He published funeral sermons for Samuel Sanderson (1776), Caleb Ashworth (1775), Samuel Wilton, D.D. (1778), John Howard

John Howard (prison reformer)

John Howard was a philanthropist and the first English prison reformer.-Birth and early life:Howard was born in Lower Clapton, London. His father, also John, was a wealthy upholsterer at Smithfield Market in the city...

 (1790), Habakkuk Crabb (1795), and other sermons (1774–90); also:

• The Calvinism of the Protestant Dissenters asserted, 1786.
• A Vindication of the Modern Dissenters, 1790, against William Hawkins
  William Hawkins (clergyman)
  -Life:He was eldest son of William Hawkins, serjeant-at-law, by his first wife, a daughter of Sir Roger Jenyns and sister of Soame Jenyns. Through his grandmother he was descended from Thomas Tesdale, one of the founders of Pembroke College, Oxford, and he matriculated there on 12 November 1737. He...
  
   (1722–1801).
• An Apology for the Christian Sabbath, 1799.
• Memoirs of Hugh Farmer
  Hugh Farmer
  Hugh Farmer was an English Dissenter and theologian.He was educated at the Dissenting Academy in Northampton under Philip Doddridge, and became pastor of a congregation at Walthamstow, Essex. In 1701 he became preacher and one of the Tuesday lecturers at Salters' Hall, London...
  
  , 1804, (anon.)
• Memoirs of Matthew Henry
  Matthew Henry
  Matthew Henry was an English commentator on the Bible and Presbyterian minister.-Life:He was born at Broad Oak, a farmhouse on the borders of Flintshire and Shropshire. His father, Philip Henry, had just been ejected under the Act of Uniformity 1662...
  
  , 1809, prefixed to Henry's Miscellaneous Works; also separately.
• Dr. Watts no Socinian, &c., 1813.

He edited, with notes, Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

's Life of Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...

, 1785, and Orton's ‘Letters to Dissenting Ministers,’ &c., 1806, 2 vols., with memoir. He contributed to the Protestant Dissenter's Magazine and Monthly Repository

Monthly Repository

The Monthly Repository was a British monthly Unitarian periodical which ran between 1806 and 1838.The Monthly Repository was established when Robert Aspland bought William Vidler's Universal Theological Magazine and changed the name to the Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature...

. His life of Samuel Clark, the Daventry tutor, is in the Monthly Repository, 1806; that of Caleb Ashworth, is in the same magazine, 1813.