Thomas Fyshe Palmer

Thomas Fyshe Palmer (1747–1802) was an English Unitarian minister, political reformer and convict.

Early life and education Thomas Fyshe Palmer was born in 1747 in Ickwell, Bedfordshire, England, the son of Henry Fyshe, who assumed the added name of Palmer because of an inheritance, and Elizabeth, the daughter of James Ingram of Barnet.

Palmer was educated at Eton College and Queens' College, Cambridge from 1765 with the purpose of taking holy orders in the Church of England. He graduated B.A. in 1769, M.A. in 1772, and BD in 1781. He obtained a fellowship of Queens' in 1781 and officiated for a year as curate at Leatherhead, Surrey. While at Leatherhead, he was introduced to Samuel Johnson and dined with him in London; but he had become disillusioned with some aspects of the Church of England.

Unitarian Palmer then read in Joseph Priestley's works and became a Unitarian. For the next ten years, Palmer preached Unitarianism to congregations in Dundee and other Scottish towns. A Unitarian society had been founded by William Christie, a merchant, at Montrose, and Palmer offered his services as a preacher (14 July 1783). In November 1783, Palmer reached Montrose and remained as Christie's colleague till May 1785. He then moved to Dundee to become pastor of a new Unitarian society there, and he founded a Unitarian church. He preached also in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Arbroath and Forfar and formed further Unitarian societies. In 1789, he took temporary charge of the society at Newcastle. In 1792, his sermons in Edinburgh attracted attention, and pamphlets were published in refutation of his doctrines. He was buried by the seashore. Two years later, an American captain, Samuel W. Balch, arrived in Guam, found out where Palmer had been buried and had the remains exhumed and taken on board his vessel with the governor's permission. The remains were taken to Boston, Massachusetts, and reinterred on 2 February 1810 in the Trinity Church cemetery and reinterred again in the Mount Auburn Cemetery after the Great Boston Fire of 1872.

A monument was erected in the Old Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh, in 1844 to commemorate Palmer, Muir and the other Scottish Martyrs. In 1852 a second, smaller monument was erected at Nunhead Cemetery, London. thumb

Works Palmer's publications were mostly magazine articles and pamphlets. To the Theological Repository, he contributed regularly in 1789–90, as Anglo-Scotus. In 1792 he published a controversial pamphlet, An Attempt to refute a Sermon by H. D. Inglis on the Godhead of Jesus Christ, and to restore the long-lost Truth of the First Commandment, against Henry David Inglis (1757–1806). His Narrative of the Sufferings of T. F. Palmer and W. Skirving was published in 1797. Several of his letters were published in the biographies of contemporary Unitarians.

Family His nephew, Charles Fyshe Palmer, who visited his uncle in the prison hulk at Woolwich in 1794, was Member of Parliament for Reading from 1818 to 1834, when he retired.