Edward Henry Palmer

Edward Henry Palmer (7 August 1840 – August 1882)was an English orientalist.

A church ruin in El'Aujeh (present day Nitzana) in the NegevDesert as illustrated by Palmer (1872) in his The Desert of theExodus.

Palmer was born in Green Street, Cambridge the son of aprivate schoolmaster. He was orphaned at an early ageand brought up by an aunt. He was educated at ThePerse School, and as a schoolboy showed the characteris-tic bent of his mind by picking up the Romani languageand a great familiarity with the life of the Romani peo-ple. From school he was sent to London as a clerk in thecity. Palmer disliked this life, and varied it by learningFrench and Italian, mainly by frequenting the society offoreigners wherever he could find it.In 1859 he returned to Cambridge, almost dying oftuberculosis. He made a miraculous recovery, and in1860, while he was thinking of a new start in life, fellin with Sayyid Abdallah, teacher of Hindustani at Cam-bridge, under whose influence he began his Oriental stud-ies. He matriculated at St John’s College in November1863, and in 1867 was elected a fellow on account ofhis attainments as an orientalist, especially in Persian andHindustani.[1]

During his residence at St Johns he catalogued the Per-sian, Arabic and Turkish manuscripts in the university li-brary, and in the libraries of Kings and Trinity. In 1867he published a treatise on Oriental mysticism, based onthe Maksad-i-Aksa of Aziz ibn Mohammad Nafasi. Hewas engaged in 1869 to join the survey of Sinai, under-taken by the Palestine Exploration Fund, and followed upthis work in the next year by exploring the desert of El-Tih in company with Charles Drake. They completedthis journey on foot and without escort, making friendsamong the Bedouin, to whom Palmer was known as Ab-dallah Effendi.

Front page of Edward Palmer’s The Desert of the Exodus(1872).

After a visit to the Lebanon and to Damascus, wherehe made the acquaintance of Sir Richard Burton, thenconsul there, he returned to England in 1870 by way ofConstantinople and Vienna. At Vienna he met ArminiusVambéry. The results of this expedition appeared in theDesert of the Exodus (1871); in a report published in thejournal of the Palestine Exploration Fund (1871); and inan article on the “Secret Sects of Syria" in the QuarterlyReview (1873).In the close of the year 1871 he became Lord Almoner’sProfessor of Arabic at Cambridge University, married,and settled down to teaching. His salary was small, andhis affairs were further complicated by the long illnessof his wife, who died in 1878. In 1881, two years afterhis second marriage, he left Cambridge, and joined thestaff of the Standard to write on non-political subjects.

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He was called to the English bar in 1874, and early in1882 he was asked by the government to go to the Eastand assist the Egyptian expedition by his influence overthe Arabs of the desert El-Tih. He was instructed, appar-ently, to prevent the Arab sheikhs from joining the Egyp-tian rebels and to secure their non-interference with theSuez Canal. He went to Gaza without an escort; madehis way safely through the desert to Suez, an exploit ofsingular boldness; and was highly successful in his nego-tiations with the Bedouin. He was appointed interpreter-in-chief to the force in Egypt, and from Suez he was againsent into the desert with Captain William John Gill andFlag-Lieutenant Harold Charrington to procure camelsand gain the allegiance of the sheikhs by considerablepresents of money. On this journey he and his com-panions were led into an ambush and murdered (August1882). Their remains, recovered after the war by the ef-forts of Sir Charles (then Colonel) Warren, now lie in StPaul’s Cathedral.Palmer’s highest qualities appeared in his travels, espe-cially in the heroic adventures of his last journeys. Hisbrilliant scholarship is displayed rather in the works hewrote in Persian and other Eastern languages than in hisEnglish books, which were generally written under pres-sure. His scholarship was wholly Eastern in character,and lacked the critical qualities of the modern school ofOriental learning in Europe. All his works show a greatlinguistic range and very versatile talent; but he left nopermanent literary monument worthy of his powers. Hischief writings are The Desert of the Exodus (1871), Po-ems of Beha-ed-Din (Ar. and Eng., 1876–1877), Ara-bic Grammar (1874), Jerusalem, the city of Herod andSaladin (1871), by Walter Besant and Palmer (the latterwrote the part taken fromArabic sources), Persian Dictio-nary (1876) and English and Persian Dictionary (posthu-mous, 1883); translation of the Qur'an (1880) for theSacred Books of the East series, a spirited but not veryaccurate rendering. He also did good service in editingthe Name Lists of the Palestine Exploration.

1 Works

• Edward Henry Palmer (1881). The Arabic manual:Comprising a condensed grammar of both the clas-sical and modern Arabic; reading lessons and ex-ercises, with analyses; and a vocabulary of usefulwords. W.H. Allen & co. p. 315. Retrieved 2011-07-06.

• E H Palmer (1885). The Arabic manual: compris-ing a condensed grammar of both the classical andmodern Arabic, reading lessons and exercises, withanalyses, and a vocabulary of useful words (2 ed.).W. H. Allen. p. 315. Retrieved 2011-07-06.

• Edward Henry Palmer (1874). A grammar of theArabic language. W.H. Allen. p. 414. Retrieved

2011-07-06.

• Edward Henry Palmer (1874). A grammar of theArabic language. W.H. Allen & Co. p. 414. Re-trieved 2011-07-06.

• Edward Henry Palmer (1874). A grammar of theArabic language. Retrieved 2011-07-06.

• Edward Henry Palmer (1874). A grammar of theArabic language (Harvard University ed.). W.H.Allen & Co. p. 414. Retrieved 2011-07-06.

2 References[1] “Palmer, Edward Henry (PLMR863EH)". A Cambridge

Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.

• This article incorporates text from a publication nowin the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911).Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). CambridgeUniversity Press.

3 External links• Al-Quran project includes the Qur'an translation ofE. H. Palmer.

• Profile

• Jeffrey Bloomfield TheMaking of the Commissioner:1886, R.W. Stone, Q.P.M. (ed.), The Criminologist,Volume 12, No. 3 (Autumn 1988), p. 139-155; thearticle was reprinted: Paul Begg (Exec. ed.). TheRipperologist, No. 47, July 2003, p. 6-15.

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4 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

4.1 Text• Edward Henry Palmer Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward%20Henry%20Palmer?oldid=643235902 Contributors: CharlesMatthews, Eugene van der Pijll, Dimadick, CALR, Bender235, Wiki-uk, FeanorStar7, Jacobolus, Striver, Ryoung122, BD2412, Rjwilmsi,Pilchard, CarolGray, Jaraalbe, RussBot, DanMS, Gaius Cornelius, K.C. Tang, Robertvan1, Wolfling, Deville, SmackBot, HeartofaDog,Bluebot, Dreadstar, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, Dl2000, The--dud, Clarityfiend, Cydebot, Lunarian, Richhoncho, ChrisEich, Dsp13, Ma-gioladitis, Waacstats, Kiwimandy, STBot, Matt57, James627, Omegastar, YonaBot, Kernel Saunters, Wilson44691, Shadygrove2007,SamuelTheGhost, Elmo2007, Mhockey, MystBot, Good Olfactory, Addbot, Leszek Jańczuk, Imdkzmaa, Lightbot, ,55דוד Luckas-bot,Tuesdaily, J04n, Omnipaedista, FrescoBot, Trappist the monk, RjwilmsiBot, Boxears, Suslindisambiguator, Labnoor, Xhmee, VIAFbot,Aloneinthewild, Zumoarirodoka, Tullebox and Anonymous: 6

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