In Palmer’s case there is available evidence of both kinds bearing on abnormality. It may not amount to insanity. It may be only the “wickedness” of which Sir James Stephen speaks in a quotation given below. Whatever it may be called, it is traceable in Palmer throughout his life.
Palmer’s father was a wealthy man who died worth £70,000, at Rugeley, in Staffordshire, Palmer’s birthplace. The origin of this fortune began with his maternal grandfather, who had been associated with a woman in Derby whom he deserted, taking with him some hundreds of pounds said to belong to her. In Lichfield he became prosperous and respectable. His daughter married the elder Palmer, who was at the time a sawyer, a rude, uneducated man. A previous suitor of Mrs. Palmer had been the steward of the Marquis of Anglesea. The two men were intimate after the marriage, and associated in dealings with the Anglesea timber; and to these dealings, and similar ones with stewards of other estates, the elder Palmer’s wealth was attributed by the country tradition. After her husband’s death Mrs. Palmer used her freedom in several love affairs that caused scandal. One of these was with Jeremiah Smith, the attorney, Palmer’s associate in many nefarious transactions, who was called for the defence, and was cross-examined mercilessly by the Attorney-General on his relations with Mrs. Palmer.
William, the Palmer of this trial, was the second son in a family of five sons and two daughters. Of these, William, his brother Walter, and a sister lived badly and died miserably. Walter would have died from drink if his brother William had not hurried him away by poison for his insurance money. Other members of the family were reputable citizens.
William Palmer was first apprenticed to a firm of wholesale druggists in Liverpool. After a time considerable amounts of money sent through the post by customers to the firm were lost, and, after much inquiry, Palmer confessed he had stolen them, and his indentures were cancelled. His mother then for the first time began to cover up her son’s misdeeds by advances of money. This story runs throughout the trial, and Palmer fleeced his mother without compunction.
At the age of eighteen he was next apprenticed to Mr. Tylecote, a surgeon, near Rugeley. In consequence of discreditable conduct with women, and in money matters, Palmer left, and Mr. Tylecote refused to take him back. He was then admitted into the Stafford Infirmary as “a walking pupil.” Four years after, in 1846, he was back at Rugeley, and there, at an inquest held on a man named Abley, it was proved that Palmer had incited the man to drink large quantities of brandy. There was talk of Palmer’s connection with Abley’s wife, and a suspicion that the affair was something more than a “lark.”