George Palmer (businessman)
| George Palmer | |
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Statue of George Palmer in Palmer Park, Reading
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| Born | 18 January 1818 |
| Died | 19 August 1897 (aged 79) |
| Occupation | MP; biscuit manufacturer |
George Palmer (18 January 1818 – 19 August 1897) was a proprietor of the Huntley & Palmers biscuit manufacturers of Reading in England.
Palmer was born in Long Sutton in Somerset, the eldest son of William Palmer and his wife, Mary, the daughter of William Isaac of Sturminster Newton in Dorset. Both were Quaker families. His wife was a first cousin of Cyrus Clark and James Clark who founded the shoemakers C. & J. Clark.
His father died in 1826, and he was educated at Sidcot School near Weston-super-Mare, before becoming an apprentice to his uncle, who was a miller and confectioner.
He married Elizabeth Sarah Meteyard in 1850. They had had six sons and four daughters. One daughter Emily married the evolutionary biologist Edward Bagnall Poulton, whilst his daughter Alice married the physiologist Augustus Desire Wallace.
His wife died in 1894, and he died of a stroke at home three years later.
Palmer went into business with a cousin Thomas Huntley in 1841, after Thomas's father Joseph Huntley, the founder of the business in 1822, was forced to retire through ill-health, and it became apparent that Thomas Huntley did not have his father's good sense of business. The firm was renamed Huntley & Palmers.
Whilst it was Joseph Huntley's innovation in the introduction of the biscuit tin and in the sale of biscuits to stage coach travellers that created the business, George Palmer is generally credited with making it a major Victorian success through industrial manufacturing techniques, and by using the railways for distribution. With the engineer William Exall, Palmer invented new machinery to manufacture biscuits on an industrial scale.
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