Samuel Palmer, Sr., 2 Gifford Street, Hoxton, to Samuel Palmer, Jr., 4 Grove Street, Lisson Grove North, Marylebone, 24?/25? March 1840. 

Dear Samuel,

        I heard the will read & E. P. made memoranda which I copied. Date of Will Apl 9. 1834. 

  1st Codicil, 26 July 1837

2d do. – 25 Sep 1838.

The whole income to the widow during her life subject to 100£ a year to me, if, after purchasing an annuity of £1000 a year, the remainder should realize £1100. In other words if there be in all 2100£ a year, I am to have 100£ a year. The will is not proved because the affairs at Aldery are not finished. Mrs P. to have 1/3 at her disposal by will; if no will her relations are to have it. Out of the remaining 2/3 – 100£ each to 3 God children; two of Mr Francis’s children & one of Mr Bennett’s 1000£ to W Giles Jr. 1000£ to Albert. 4000£ originally left to C. Giles revoked & to be divided equally between the late E. P’s children & Mrs Giles’s children. Residue of 2/3 remaining to be equally divided between the other nephews & nieces, the sons & daughters of his late brother E. P. & his sister Sarah Giles.

         So that you & William, Mrs Giles & my sister Mary are passed by. Mr Francis will inform me when it is ascertained whether I am to have the £100 a year.

         Love to wife.

                     Dear Samuel

                                 Your affecte Father

                                             Samuel Palmer

I shall begin private teaching 1/6 an hour.

2 Gifford St

Hoxton

March 24th [?] 1840

Furniture, book, plate &c to Mra P.

Text:  MS 132-2000, Linnell Archive, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.  The date of the letter is difficult to ascertain. It has been altered but in a way to make it difficult to ascertain which date was entered first and which is the correct date. It was either entered as the 24th and the '4' altered to a '5' or it was entered originally as the 25th and the '5' changed to a '4.' It is difficult to know which change is the final version, the 24th or the 25th.

The above letter, which has surprisingly escaped the biographers of Samuel Palmer, concerns the reading of the will of Nathaniel Palmer (1774-1840), Samuel Palmer, Sr.'s brother, who died in 1840 and left a large estate to his wife, the former Joanna  Dunkin (c. 1777-1864), Mary Hays’s eldest niece and the “Mrs. P.” of the above letter (she and Nathaniel were childless). Nearly all the beneficiaries were cousins of Samuel Palmer the artist. “William Giles, Jr.” (1800-61), “Albert” (1818-c.1854); and “C. Giles” (Christopher, b. 1802) were sons of William (1776-1851) and Sarah Giles (1779-1859), in whose home in Surrey Square Samuel Palmer the artist had been born in 1805. “[T]he late E. P.’s children” is a reference to the children of Edward Palmer (1770-1831), the original Mr. Palmer who married Marianna Hays (c. 1772/97), the youngest sister of Mary Hays, in 1796 (an event witnessed by Joanna Dunkin and Sarah Giles) and who remarried in 1799. The notes were provided by Edward Palmer, Jr. (b. 1803), who owned a business in Newgate Street that specialized in “Chemical and Philosophical Apparatus, Microscopes, &c.” “Mrs. Giles’s children” refers to the other children of William and Sarah Giles (they had 17 in all).  “Mr. Francis,” one of the executors of Palmer’s will, is Henry Francis (1781-1857), who moved his family to Maze Hill in 1819 and who was still living there, with his numerous children, alongside Mary Hays’s nephew, William Hills (b. 1784), who served as the co-executor of Palmer’s will. “Mr. Bennett” is William Bennett, formerly of Faringdon House, Berkshire, who married Mary Hays’s niece, Marianne Dunkin (1795-1840?) and who also lived in Maze Hill for a time and who purchased some early drawings of Samuel Palmer (see Raymond Lister, Letters, vol. 1, p. 9). Of all the relations mentioned in the above letter, only Samuel Palmer the artist, his brother William (b. 1814), and his two aunts, Sarah Palmer Giles and Mary Palmer (the two surviving sisters of Nathaniel and Samuel Palmer, Sr.), were “passed by,” possibly the two most devastating words in a letter ever read by Samuel Palmer the artist. It appears that the £100 from the will that was to go Samuel Palmer, Sr., did not materialize.