The Palgraves: A Victorian Chronology

NOTE: what you are reading is a trial version for a page to accompany a special issue on Palgrave of the journal Victorian Poetry. It has not been updated or properly edited, but may still be useful given the lack of on-line resources for the Palgraves.

The Palgraves were an extraordinary family--four brothers who in widely separate fields each earned recognition. This chronology records their accomplishments, with a focus on Francis Turner Palgrave, the friend of Tennyson, editor of The Golden Treasury and the twenty-first Professor of Poetry at Oxford.

The cast of characters includes Sir Francis Palgrave, his wife Elizabeth, her father Dawson Turner (banker, botanist, antiquary, art collector), and the four sons: Francis Turner (poet, editor, man of letters, known as Frank); William Gifford (travel writer, Jesuit missionary, diplomat; known as Gifford or Giffy); Robert Harry Inglis (economist, known by Inglis); Reginald F. D. (Clerk to the House of Commons).

Major sources for the chronology:

• The Dictionary of National Biography entries for Francis, Gifford, and Sir Reginald, their father Sir Francis, and their maternal grandfather Dawson Turner. (Sir R. H. Inglis Palgrave is unaccountably omitted from the DNB.)
• Allen, Mea. Palgrave of Arabia: The Life of William Gifford Palgrave, 1826-1888. London: Macmillan, 1972.
• Nelson, Megan Jane. Francis Turner Palgrave and The Golden Treasury. PhD dissertation, The University of British Columbia, 1985.
• Palgrave, Gwenllian F. Francis Turner Palgrave: His Journals and Memories of His Life. 1899. NY: AMS Press, 1971.
• The entry by Murray Milgate for "Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave" in the New Palgrave Dictionary of Political Economy .

• 1775 Dawson Turner born at Great Yarmouth, the eldest son of James Turner, head of the Yarmouth Bank.
• 1788 Francis Cohen born, son of Meyer Cohen (Member of London Stock Exchange, d. 1831) and Rachel Levien Cohen (d. 1815), of Green Street, Kentish Town.

• 1793 Dawson Turner enters Pembroke College, Cambridge.
• 1796 Dawson Turner weds Mary Palgrave, second daughter of William Palgrave of Coltishall, Norfolk, and joins the family bank at Yarmouth (Gurney & Co.).
• 1797 Meyer Cohen publishes son Francis's translation of the "Battle of the Frogs and Mice" from a Latin version into French.
  ---- Dawson Turner elected Fellow of the Linnean Society.

• 1802 Dawson Turner publishes Synopsis of the British Fuci, 2 vol. botanical work at Yarmouth, and is elected member of the Royal Society.
• 1803 Francis Cohen articled to Loggin & Smith, Soliciters, of 83 Basinghall Street, London. Remains as chief clerk until 1822 (salary £250).
  ---- Dawson Turner is elected member of the Society of Antiquaries.
• 1805 Dawson Turner and Lewis Weston Dillwyn publish The Botanist's Guide through England and Wales, 2 vols., London.

• 1810 Meyer Cohen financially ruined by market crash; Francis becomes responsible for parents.
• 1812 Mary and Dawson Turner induce watercolourist John Sell Cotman to settle in Yarmouth and give lessons to their daughters.
• 1814 Francis Cohen begins contributing to the Edinburgh Review.
• 1815 Maria Turner, Dawson and Mary's eldest daughter, marries Sir William Jackson Hooker (botanist). Dawson William Turner, their only surviving son, is born in December (dies 1885, B.A. and M.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, headmaster of the Royal Institution school, Liverpool, and author of numerous school history texts).
• 1819 Francis Cohen meets Elizabeth Turner at the home of Hudson Gurney (the Quaker banking family with whom the Turners were partners), where she has been introduced by Mrs. Philips, wife of Thomas Philips, R.A. Francis offers to correct the proofs of Dawson Turner's forthcoming book on Normandy.
  ---- Dawson Turner completes publication of The Natural History of Fuci, 4 quarto volumes, with coloured plates.

• 1820 Dawson Turner and Hudson Gurney purchase the "Macro manuscripts" collection of British history, etc. (in part sold to British Museum in 1853).
• 1821 Francis Cohen admitted into Fellowship of the Royal Society 22 November, sponsored by twelve members, including William Sotheby, William Tooke, and Dawson Turner.
  ---- Francis Cohen puts forward plan to the Record Commission for the compilation in digests and abstracts of the national records.
• 1822 Francis Cohen takes chambers at No. 1 King's Bench Walk, Temple.
  ---- Francis Cohen appointed to Record Commission.
• 1823 (?) Francis Cohen converts to Christianity (private baptism by the Rev. William Henry Rowlatt, librarian of the Temple)--exact date undiscovered.
  ---- Francis Cohen marries Elizabeth Turner of Great Yarmouth, Suffolk, on 13 October, at the Church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth. (Elizabeth's great-uncle the Rev. Richard Turner officiates). He takes by Royal License "Palgrave" as his family name, being the maiden name of his wife's mother. Dawson Turner settles £3000 on the couple, and pays for the expenses of the name change. They settle into a large house at 22 Parliament Street, Westminster.
• 1824 Francis Turner Palgrave born September 28, at home of grandparents, Bank House, Great Yarmouth (d. 1897). Baptised by great-uncle Richard Turner.
• 1825 Thomas Philips' portrait of Elizabeth Palgrave and her sister Mary is hung at the Royal Academy exhibition at Somerset House.
• 1826 William Gifford Palgrave born on 24 January at 22 Parliament Street, Westminster (d. 1888). He is named for the father's friend William Gifford, editor of the Quarterly, who is named godfather. He is baptised by the Rev. M. Wale, curate of St. Margaret's Chapel, Westminster.
• 1827 Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave born (d. 1919).
• 1828 Family moves to Duke Street [Delahay Street], Westminster. Elizabeth's description in letter to sister Mary.
  
• 1829 Reginald Francis Douce Palgrave born on 28 June at Westminster (d. 1904).

• 1832 Francis Palgrave knighted.
• 1836 Eleanor Jane Turner, youngest sister of Elizabeth Palgrave, marries William Jacobson, Vice Principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Chester.
• 1837 Sir Francis Palgrave publishes Truths and Fictions of the Middle Ages. The Merchant and the Friar..
• 1838 Sir Francis, Francis and Gifford travel to Wales in Summer.
  ---- Sir Francis Palgrave appointed deputy keeper of Her Majesty's Records.
  ---- Gifford and Francis enter Charterhouse School (Francis placed in fourth form). Gifford wins gold medal for classical verse and becomes captain of the school. Letter to Grandfather Turner.
  ---- Publication of Specimens of Architectural Remains in Various Counties, etched by J. S. Cotman, with Descriptive Notices by Dawson Turner and Architectural Observations by T. Rickman, 2 vols, folio.
  
• 1839 Sir Francis, Elizabeth, Francis and Gifford travel to Italy.

• 1840 Sir Francis produces the first of his 22 annual reports as Deputy-Keeper of Her Majesty's records.
  
• 1841 Sir Francis's "huge blue book" recommends consolidation of the national records--the instigator for the foundation of the Public Record Office.
  ---- Reginald enters Charterhouse School.
• 1842 Sir Francis publishes his Handbook for Travellers to Northern Italy (reprinted through 1877).
  ---- Francis wins scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford.
• 1843 Francis becomes Head of Charterhouse School; after visiting Italy with his father, he enters Balliol, where Jowett is his tutor.
  ---- Inglis leaves Charterhouse on 11 December to work in London at Deacon, Williams & Co., of Birchin Lane. He is groomed to replace Dawson Turner at the bank in Great Yarmouth.
• 1844 Sir Francis publishes The Lord and the Vassal: a Familiar Exposition of the Feudal System in the Middle Ages
  ---- Gifford leaves Charterhouse and enrolls at Trinity College, Oxford on an open scholarship.
  
• 1845 Inglis enters the Turner Bank at Yarmouth.
  ---- Reginald leaves Charterhouse and is articled to Bailey, Janson & Richardson, solicitors.
• 1846 Francis appointed assistant private secretary to William Gladstone, along with Sir Stafford Northcote; takes term off from Oxford.
  ---- Dawson Turner publishes Narrative of the Visit of King Charles II to Norwich in 1671, in Yarmouth.
• 1847 Francis takes his degree with a first in Classics; elected Fellow of Exeter College; close friendships with Froude and Clough. Publishes first articles, on Michaelangelo and Dante, in Sharpe's London Magazine
  ---- Gifford, after only two and half years, takes a first in literÊ humaniores and a second in mathematics. Immediately takes lieutenant's commission in the 8th Bombay regiment of native infantry.
• 1848 In April, Francis and Jowett visit Paris and witness the revolution.
  ---- Gifford converts to Roman Catholicism.
  ---- Gifford qualifies as interpretor of Hindustani (19 October).
• 1849 Francis first meets Alfred Tennyson (March 31) at the house of W.H. Brookfield in Portman Street.
  ----On 19 March, at the end of the second Sikh war, Gifford resigns from the Army. On 22 April becomes noviciate of the Company of Jesus and enrolls in the Jesuit college at Negapatam in Madras.

• 1850 Francis becomes Vice Principal of the Education Department's training college for schoolmasters at Kneller Hall.
• 1851 Reginald is admitted solicitor and enters the office of Sharp & Field.
• 1852 Francis travels with Max Muller to Germany in early summer.
  ---- Francis's Preciosa: A Tale published anonymously by Chapman & Hall.
  ---- The forger of the Shelley letters plaigerizes Sir Francis Palgrave's "Fine Arts in Florence," which appeared in the Quarterly Review for June, 1840.
  ---- Elizabeth Turner Palgrave dies, August.
  
• 1853 Francis visits Scotland with Tennyson.
  ---- In June, Gifford arrives in Rome from missionary work in South India, to study at the Collegio Romano.
  ---- Reginald, through the help of Sir Robert Harry Inglis, takes a clerkship in the House of Commons.
  ---- Dawson Turner auctions off much of his library of 8,000 volumes, including 150 volumes of manuscripts and letters.
• 1854 Francis's Idyls and Songs, 1848-1854 published in London by Parker.
• 1855 Francis begins work with the Education Department (Privy Council) in Whitehall, after the closure of Kneller Hall.
  ---- Gifford leaves Rome for missionary work in Syria, first receiving the Apostolic Benediction from the Pope, and permission to go under the name "Michel Sohail."
• 1856 Gifford's translation of the Reverend Antonio Periera's The Devotions of the Seven Sorrows of Our Blessed Lady printed in Bombey.
• 1857 Marriage of Francis's early love, Georgina Alderson, to Sir Robert Cecil.
  ---- On 29 March, Gifford celebrates his first Mass, at a Jesuit Mission near Beirut; in the Autumn he visits Baalbek, and settles among the Druses.
  ---- Reginald marries Grace Battley, daughter of Richard Battley.
  
• 1858 Francis publishes The Passionate Pilgrim. Or, Eros and Anteros under the pseudonym of "Henry J. Thurstan" (London: Chapman and Hall).
  ---- Dawson Turner dies on 20 June at Old Brompton, London, and is buried in Brompton Cemetary.
• 1859 Francis visits Portugal with Tennyson.
  ---- Inglis marries Sarah Maria Brightwen, daughter of George Brightwen of Saffron Walden.
  ---- Dawson Turner's library, including 40,000 letters, sold at auction in June, and realizes £6,500.
  

• 1860 Francis spends the summer holidays in Cornwall with Tennyson, and conceives of the "Golden Treasury." Extended visit with Tennyson over Christmas (Mrs. Tennyson's journal account).
  ---- Francis's "W.M. Thackeray as Novelist and Photographer" appears in Westminster Review.
  ---- In June, Gifford barely escapes massacre of Maronite Christians in Damascus. Massacres continue. He lands in France on 3 August, proceeds to Paris, and turns up in Arab garb at home in Hampstead before proceeding to Ireland to lecture about the massacres and raise relief monies. He returns to Paris and the Notre Dame de Liesse, and unfolds a missionary scheme to central Arabia to Napoleon III. Secretly receives, under the name "Pere Michael Cohen," 10,000 francs to cover expenses.
  ---- Reginald's A Hand-book to Reigate and the Adjoining Parishes of Gatton, Merstham, Chipstead, Betchworth and Leigh is published in Dorking (reprinted 1973).
  
• 1861 Francis publishes in July The Golden Treasury of Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language, which also inaugurates his long relationship with the publisher Macmillan (total of twenty books, mostly editions).
  ---- Gifford publishes Four Lectures on the Massacres of the Christians in Syria; he visits family, then travels to Rome for Jesuit approval of his mission and audience with the Pope Pius IX, and then to Egypt on Suez Canal business for Napoleon III.
  ---- July 6, death of Sir Francis Palgrave.
• 1862 Francis writes the Official Catalog of the Fine Art Department of the International Exhibition of 1862, which is attacked in the correspondence column of the Times, withdrawn, and then republished by Macmillan.
  ---- Francis edits his friend Arthur Hugh Clough's posthumous Poems with a memoir.
  ---- While staying with Lord Houghton, Francis first meets Cecil Grenville Milnes, elder daughter of Mary and James Milnes-Gaskell (M.P. for Much Wenlock for thirty-six years, Milnes-Gaskell was at Eton with Gladstone, and Mary was a cousin of Mrs. Gladstone's). They become engaged shortly thereafter (letter to Emily Tennyson) and were married at St. Thomas's Church, Orchard Street, by Dr. Hook, Dean of Chichester, on 30 December.
  ---- Gifford sets out from Jaffa as the itinerant physician and merchant "Seleem Abou Mahmood-el-'Eys" (the Quiet One), stopping first at Gaza, and then on into the central Arabian desert for Riad.
• 1863 Francis becomes art critic for the Saturday Review, and begins publishing poems in Fraser's.
  ---- In March, having made it through the the Persian Gulf, Gifford is shipwrecked en route to Muscat. After swimming ashore, he catches Typhus on the steamer up the Tigris to Baghdad.
  
• 1864 On 22 February, Gifford delivers electrifying lecture at the Royal Geographic Society at Burlington House about his travels in Arabia. He stays with Francis and Cecy at their house at 5 York Gate near Regent's Park, where he meets Tennyson, Browning, Gladstone and other notables.
  ---- In March, Gifford goes to Germany, having yet to finish his third year in Jesuit College, and to write a book about his adventures. The Propaganda in Rome, however, denies his requests to set up large-scale missions in the Near East.
• 1865 Francis's two part "Women and the Fine Arts" appears in Macmillan's Magazine. He selects for Macmillan an edition of Tennyson's Lyrical Poems, a Moxon Miniature Poets selection of Wordsworth, and an somewhat censored version of Shakespeare's sonnets.
  ---- Francis ceases to write art criticism for the Saturday Review.
  ---- Gifford publishes Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia (2 vols.); it is translated into French in 1866.
  ---- Gifford leaves the Jesuits and the Catholic Church, and accepts the appoint of Consul to Mosul (in Iraq) for the Government of Prussia (Times notice).
  ---- In July, Gifford is instead sent on special mission by the British Government to Abyssinia to negotiate the release of British consul and other captives. Afterwards, stays in Egypt until June 1866.
  
• 1866 Francis publishes Essays on Art. London: Macmillan. (Published in 1867 in NY by Hurd & Houghton.) Macmillan also publishes his edition of Walter Scott's poems, with a memoir.
  ---- Gifford returns to England and is appointed Consul at Soukhoum Kale.
  ---- Reginald becomes examiner of petitions for private bills in the House of Commons.
• 1867 Francis publishes Hymns. London: Macmillan. Enlarged in 1868 and published in London by Macmillan and New York by Randolph.
  ---- Francis withdraws his name from consideration for the Oxford Professor of Poetry.
  ---- Gifford becomes consul at Trebizond. Writes "Report on the Anatolian Provinces of Trebizond, Sivas, Kastemouni, and Part of Angora" for the Foreign Office while he is there.
  
• 1868 Francis publishes his children's stories, The Five Days Entertainments at Wentworth Grange with Macmillan, and in the Boston with Roberts Brothers.
  ---- Reginald promoted to second clerk assistant in House of Commons.
  
• 1869 Gems of English Art in This Century published by Francis with Routledge (London and New York).
  ---- Reginald publishes The House of Commons. Illustrations of its History and Practice, lectures delivered 2, 9, and 16 December, 1868, to the Reigate South Park Working Men's Club (Revised edition in 1878).

• 1870 Gifford moves to the Turkish part of Georgia; his "Mahometanism in the Levant" begins appearing in Fraser's Magazine.
  ---- Inglis receives the Statistical Society's Taylor Prize for an essay on local taxation in Britain and Ireland.
  ---- Reginald appointed clerk assistant in House of Commons; he moves into his official residence in the Palace of Westminster where he lives until 1900.
  
• 1871 Francis publishes his third book of verse, Lyrical Poems, with Macmillan.
• 1872 Gifford moves to Upper Euphrates post, still within Ottoman Empire. The second edition of his romance Hermann Agha appears in London, and he publishes Essays on Eastern Questions with Macmillan.
• 1873 Gifford appointed British consul at St. Thomas in the West Indies.
• 1875 Francis publishes The Children's Treasury of English Song.
  ---- Inglis testifies in Parliament before the Select Committee on Banks of Issue, representing the Country Bankers' Association.
  
• 1876 Gifford transferred to Manila, and publishes Dutch Guiana with Macmillan.
• 1877 Francis again withdraws from consideration for the Oxford Professor of Poetry. He publishes his selection of Robert Herrick's poetry, Chrysomela.
  ---- Inglis becomes financial editor of the Economist, and publishes "The Influence of a Note Circulation in the Conduct of the Banking Business" in the Journal of the Manchester Statistical Society (March).
  ---- Reginald publishes The Chairman's Handbook. Suggestions and Rules for the Conduct of Chairmen of Public and Other Meetings, which reaches 13 editions by 1900, and was reprinted in 1964.
  
• 1878 Francis receives honorary LL.D. from Edinburgh University.
  ---- Gifford for a short time appointed consul-general in Bulgaria; becomes Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.
  
• 1879 Gifford transferred by Foreign Office to Bangkok. Burton attacks him in the "Preface" to the third edition of his Narrative

• 1881 Francis publishes The Visions of England, a volume of poems on historical subjects.
• 1882 Inglis elected Member of the Royal Society.
• 1883 Francis publishes a Macmillan edition of Walter Scott's The Lay of the Last Minstrel and The Lady of the Lake
• 1884 Macmillan publishes Francis's edition of the poems of Keats, and the Golden Treasury appears in a second edition.
  ---- Francis retires from the Education Office after thirty-five years service.
  ---- Gifford becomes minister to Uruguay.
  
• 1885 Francis appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford.
  ---- Francis publishes The Life of Jesus Christ, Illustrated from the Italian Painters. London: National Society, and edits a selection of the poetry of Tennyson for the "Golden Treasury" series.
  ---- Inglis appointed member of the Royal Commission on Depression of Trade and Industry.
• 1886 Reginald appointed Clerk to the House of Commons.
• 1887 Francis publishes his Jubilee "Ode" for Queen Victoria, and brings out a new edition of the poems of Herrick with Macmillan.
  ---- Gifford publishes Ulysses: or, Scenes and Studies in Many Lands, a collection of essays from Fraser's, Cornhill and other periodicals.
  ---- Reginald made C.B.
  
• 1888 Francis gives the Creweian Oration at Oxford (in Latin) in memory of Matthew Arnold.
  ---- On September 30, Gifford dies in Monte Video, and is buried in Fulham Cemetary in London. Obituary in AthenÊum.
  ---- Tennyson writes poem about Gifford, "Ulysses."
• 1889 Francis publishes The Treasury of Sacred Song from the English Lyrical Poetry of Four Centuries at the Clarendon Press, Oxford.

• 1890 Francis publishes the third edition of the Golden Treasury.
  ---- Death of Cecil Palgrave, Francis's wife.
  ---- Reginald publishes Oliver Cromwell, the Protector.
• 1891 Francis brings out the first substantially revised and enlarged edition of the Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language.
  ---- Gifford's long religious/mystical poem A Vision of Life: Semblance and Reality is posthumously published, edited by Francis.
  ---- Inglis publishes entries for "Abatement" to "Bede" in the prospective Dictionary of Political Economy.
  
• 1892 Amenophis and Other Poems, Sacred and Secular, Francis's last book of poems, is published by Macmillan.
  Reginald made K.C.B.
  
• 1894 Appearance of the first full volume of Inglis's Dictionary of Political Economy, published by Macmillan.
• 1895 End of Francis's tenure as Professor of Poetry at Oxford.
• 1896 Second volume of Inglis's Dictionary.
• 1897 Francis publishes Landscape in Poetry from Homer to Tennyson; with many illustrative examples. London: Macmillan, 1897; also the Golden Treasury "Second Series", which includes living poets.
  ----24 October, Francis Turner Palgrave dies.
• 1899 Third and final volume of Inglis's Dictionary appears.

• 1902 Sir Reginald ends term as Clerk to the House of Commons.
• 1903 Inglis publishes Bank Rate and the Money Market in England, France, Germany, Belgium and Holland: 1844-1900 with John Murray.
• 1904 Death of Sir Reginald Palgrave on 13 July at his home East Mount, Salisbury, and is buried in the cemetary there.
• 1908 Final appendix to Inglis's Dictionary published.
• 1909 Inglis knighted for his work on the Dictionary.
• 1919 Death of Sir Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave.