Edward Henry Palmer (7 August 1840 – 10 August 1882), known asE. H. Palmer, was anEnglishorientalist and explorer.
Palmer was born in Green Street,Cambridge, the son of a private schoolmaster. He was orphaned at an early age and brought up by an aunt. He was educated atThe Perse School, and as a schoolboy showed the characteristic bent of his mind by picking up theRomani language and a great familiarity with the life of theRomani people. From school he was sent toLondon as a clerk in the city. Palmer disliked this life, and varied it by learningFrench andItalian, mainly by frequenting the society of foreigners wherever he could find it.[1]
In 1859 he returned to Cambridge, almost dying oftuberculosis. He made a miraculous recovery, and in 1860, while he was thinking of a new start in life, fell in with Sayyid Abdallah, teacher ofHindustani at Cambridge, under whose influence he began his Oriental studies. He matriculated atSt John's College, Cambridge in November 1863, and in 1867 was elected a fellow on account of his attainments as an orientalist, especially inPersian and Hindustani.[1][2]
During his residence at St John's he catalogued the Persian,Arabic andTurkish manuscripts in the university library and the libraries ofKing's andTrinity. In 1867 he published a treatise on Oriental mysticism based on theMaqsad-i-aqsa ofAziz ad-Din Nasafi. He was engaged in 1869 to join the survey ofSinai Peninsula undertaken by thePalestine Exploration Fund. He followed up this work in the next year by exploring the desert of El-Tih in company withCharles Francis Tyrwhitt-Drake. They completed this journey on foot and without escort, making friends among theBedouin, to whom Palmer was known as Abdallah Effendi.[1]
After a visit to theLebanon and toDamascus, where he made the acquaintance of SirRichard Burton, thenconsul there, he returned to England in 1870 by way ofConstantinople andVienna. At Vienna he metArminius Vambéry. The results of this expedition appeared in theDesert of the Exodus (1871); in a report published in the journal of the Palestine Exploration Fund (1871); and in an article on the "Secret Sects ofSyria" in theQuarterly Review (1873).[1]
In the close of the year 1871 he becameLord Almoner's Professor of Arabic atCambridge University, married, and settled down to teaching. His salary was small, and his affairs were further complicated by his wife's long illness, who died in 1878. In 1881, two years after his second marriage, he left Cambridge and joined the staff of theStandard to write on non-political subjects. He was called to the Englishbar in 1874.[citation needed]
Early in 1882, Palmer was asked by the government to go to the East and assist theEgyptian expedition by his influence over the Arabs of the El-Tih desert (for definition seehere). He was instructed, apparently, to prevent the Arabsheikhs from joining the Egyptian rebels and to secure their non-interference with theSuez Canal. He went toGaza without an escort; made his way safely through the desert to Suez, an exploit of singular boldness; and was highly successful in his negotiations with the Bedouin. He was appointed interpreter-in-chief to the force in Egypt, and from Suez he was again sent into the desert with CaptainWilliam Gill and Flag-Lieutenant Harold Charrington to procurecamels and gain the allegiance of thesheikhs by considerable presents of money. On this journey he and his companions were led into an ambush and murdered (August 1882). Their remains, recovered after the war by the efforts ofSir Charles (then Colonel) Warren, now lie inSt Paul's Cathedral.[1]
According to theEncyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "Palmer's highest qualities appeared in his travels, especially in the heroic adventures of his last journeys. His brilliant scholarship is displayed rather in the works he wrote in Persian and other Eastern languages than in his English books, which were generally written under pressure. His scholarship was wholly Eastern in character, and lacked the critical qualities of the modern school of Oriental learning in Europe. All his works show a great linguistic range and very versatile talent; but he left no permanent literary monument worthy of his powers."[1]
His chief writings are
He was also an editor ofName Lists of the Palestine Exploration.
Several articles in theEncyclopædia Britannica, 9th edition (1875–89) and 10th edition (1902–03), including onFirdowsi,Hafiz,Ibn Khaldun andLegerdemain.[3]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Palmer, Edward Henry".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 644.
