Frederick Christian Palmer

Lord Mayor of London's parade, Herne Bay 1910

Palmer was born at 31 Union Street, East Stonehouse, Plymouth on 9 January 1866, the son of Royal Navy bandsman William Eastman Palmer who had by then become a journeyman photographer.[1] The name "Christian" came from the boy's grandmother Christian Branton Eastman Lewis,[nb 1] who married his grandfather Henry Palmer, a shoemaker,[2] in Okehampton, Devon in 1826. Fred C's father W.E. Palmer married Maria Louisa Eales on 13 March 1860[3] and they were living in James Street, Stoke Damerel, in 1861[4] and ten years later at 13 Frances Street at St Andrew's in Plymouth.[5] She was a "photographic artist", which could mean that she tinted or drew on prints from glass negatives or somehow enhanced daguerreotypes, and it was probably her influence which brought the profession of photography into the family. So W.E. Palmer became a photographer in the mid-1860s, and had twelve children including seven sons, at least five of whom were trained as photographers. The business was named William Eastman Palmer & Sons, and Frederick Christian was the third son. His brothers who trained as photographers were William George, John Eastman, Ernest Charles and Henry Reginald.[nb 2][6][7] In 1881 in East Barnet Fred C. was 15 years old and had started his photographic apprenticeship.[8] In 1891 when Frederick Christian was 25 years old, he was still living at home and the family was at Hopetown Villa, Leicester Road, East Barnet. At that time his father William Eastman Palmer was still described as a journeyman photographer.[9]

Church at Minster, Thanet, 1903–1904

In 1894 Frederick Christian Palmer was married in the parish of St George Hanover Square to Eleanor Florence M. Maltby, who had been born in Highbury in 1873. They had three children: Leslie Reginald, born 1896; Muriel Audrey, born in 1902; and Joyce Selwyn, born in 1905. The first two were born in Barnet, and the third in Herne Bay. In 1901 Frederick was practising as a photographer and the family was living at Gresham Cottage in Plantagenet Road in New Barnet.[10] In 1911 they were all at Palmer's Tower Studio in Herne Bay; Frederick was again listed in the census as a photographer and Eleanor was assisting in the business. He may possibly have been related to Fred T. Palmer (fl.1890–1899), photographer of Ramsgate and Croydon.[11]

Palmer may have moved to Watford around 1936–1937 but did not die there;[nb 3] his daughter Muriel Audrey had married Charles William Raysbrook in 1925 in Strood and then had three children in Watford.[12] He died on 14 March 1941, aged 75 years, of old age at The Grey Cottage, formerly Prospect House, at 1 Prospect Road, Hungerford.[13] His death certificate gives his occupation as master photographer, retired.[14] The term, master, in this context at that time implied that he had photographers working under him in a studio, and did not refer to a specific qualification. His son Leslie Reginald was present at the death, but it is not known whether The Grey Cottage was the residence of either father or son.

World War I soldiers

Although photographic film was available,[15] it is probable that Fred C. Palmer used large−format glass negatives and that the postcards and portraits were direct prints from these, because of their fine detail. From 1892 to 1903 he was working for the family firm, William Eastman Palmer & Sons, at Bloom House, Leicester Road, New Barnet. From 1903 to 1922 he was working as a photographer and picture-frame maker in Herne Bay,[16] at 21 High Street from 1903 to 1905 (where Kent Kebab is, as of 2011), and at Telford Villa, 6 Tower Parade from 1907 to 1922.[17][18] Between 1910 and 1916,[nb 4] Fred C. Palmer was a freelance Herne Bay Press newspaper photographer,[19] who worked from Tower Studio in Tower Parade on the Sea Front where he took portraits.[20][21] He had a small shop or kiosk called The Art Gallery on the sea front, separate from the studio, where he sold postcards and portrait prints.[nb 5] He produced postcards of important town events, such as the grand opening of Herne Bay Pier's Grand Pier Pavilion by the Lord Mayor of London on 3 August 1910, and the grand opening of the King Edward VII Memorial Hall[nb 6] by Princess Beatrice on 13 July 1913. His name was usually given as Fred C. Palmer in newspaper photograph credits and on the backs of his picture postcards.

Swindon 1920s

During World War I there are no written records of Fred C. Palmer, but he did produce postcards of war-wounded Belgians recuperating in Canterbury and Herne Bay, of a possible 1914 recruitment rally and of soldiers larking about.[nb 7] There was a shortage of silver for use on photographic plates,[22] so this may be why he appears to have been limited to photographing the troops and war-wounded and perhaps other work until 1920.

Around 1920–1921 Palmer took over the studio of the established photographer William Hooper at 6 Cromwell Street, Swindon. Street directories state that he was there between 1923 and 1936.[18] The building is now demolished.[23] He published postcards and portraits and was freelance photographer for local newspapers; the same professional pattern as in Herne Bay before the war. Swindon Council used his photographs. He retired around 1936–1937 at the age of approximately 70 years, and died in 1941.[24][25]

Scan of an original print by Palmer of the Grand Pier Pavilion Illuminated

Palmer's 1910 photograph of the illuminated Grand Pier Pavilion was incorporated as found object art in an artwork by Marcel Duchamp following the latter's visit to Herne Bay in 1913.[26][27][28] Duchamp cut out Palmer's photo from a leaflet and attached it to Note 78 in The Green Box describing his plans for a work called The Large Glass (1915–1923).[29] The notes including Palmer's photograph were published in two limited editions, and were considered part of, and not just an adjunct to, the Large Glass artwork.[30]

In August 2013 a "Duchamp in Herne Bay 1913–2013" festival was organised in the town to celebrate and explore Duchamp's 1913 visit to Herne Bay and the relationship between that experience and his artwork. Palmer's postcard of the Grand Pier Pavilion, illuminated, was used to promote that festival.[31][32][33]

Edmund Reid by Palmer, 1912

In 1910–1912 Palmer photographed Edmund Reid who had been head of the Metropolitan Police Service CID at the time of the Whitechapel murders. Reid had retired to Hampton-on-Sea, a settlement which was fast sinking into the Thames Estuary prompting the old man to make attempts at publicity and to demand assistance from the Council. Palmer photographed this eccentric character amid the progressing disaster and gave or sold the images to Reid in the form of postcards. The old man retailed Palmer's photographs from a kiosk, calling the collection an art gallery.[34] Reid was mocked for selling postcards of himself and calling it art, but when Duchamp chose to take another Palmer photograph home in 1913 and made an artwork of it,[26] Reid's insight was validated.