Richard Palmer who died 20th June 1908

Richard Palmer was my Great Grandfather (on my English side!). He was born in Lambourn on 5th March 1856 son of a Farm Bailiff and at the 1871 Census he is shown as a plough boy working at Henley Farm, Shefford. He must have enjoyed working with horses as he next appears in the 1881 Census as a Groom working in a big house at 32 Winchcombe Place, Newbury where he met his first wife, my Great Grandmother, Elizabeth Greenaway who also worked there as a Domestic, She came originally from Peasmore. They married on 4th June 1881 and they had three children, two daughters and my Grandfather, another Richard Palmer, who was born in 1889. Elizabeth, died on 1st March 1891 of Phthisis, probably in the Newbury Workhouse (as the death informant was Wm Hawkes the Master of the Union Workhouse and was buried in St Nicholas' Church in Newbury. The burial index for Berkshire says St Nicholas church whereas many of the Workhouse dead seems to have been buried in the Newbury Cemetery, not sure why she as buried there unless her employer paid? At that point unable to look after my Grandfather who was only 2, it appears that he packed him off to his maternal Grandfather back in Peasmore. Later that same year he married his second wife Elizabeth Whiteman who survived him and, after his death, remarried in 1909. She lived lived to ripe old age of 85! My Grandfather, Richard Palmer, became a policeman in East London and died in 1930 after being involved in a road accident whilst on traffic duty.

Anthony Makosinski

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