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Description: | Alfred Palmer (1852-1936) was the second son of George Palmer and a director of Huntley & Palmers from 1878-1936. Alfred married Alice, daughter of William Exall of Reading - a junior partner in the iron foundry of Barrett, Exall and Andrewes. Alfred Palmer was in charge of the engineering department at the factory which made nearly all the biscuit machinery. Between 1882 and 1908 he installed three large generating engines, which he touchingly named after his wife Alice, his daughter Phyllis and his granddaughter Betty. In the 1880s, Alfred collaborated with Walter Palmer to produce new products like the Breakfast biscuit. Both scientific and mechanical problems had to be overcome to use yeast in this biscuit. It proved an immediate success as a palatable substitute for the baker's roll that in high circles was usually consumed with early morning tea or coffee. In 1911 Alfred, along with George William Palmer and Lady Wantage, established the University Endowment fund of £200,000 to set up a University College in Reading. During the First World War Alfred agreed to make shell cases as subcontractors of the Pulsometer Co. in Reading. He also arranged for the company's railway system to be used as a marshalling yard for munitions made in the town, to provide easy despatch to the Ordnance depot at Bristol. When Alfred Palmer died in 1936, he bequeathed four houses in Portland Place which housed St Andrew's Hall, part of Wessex Hall and the headquarters of the Advisory Officers of the Southern Agricultural Province. | Format: | image/jpeg | License: | http://www.sopse.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.exe?a=query&p=gateway&f=generic_sitetext%2ehtm&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&cms_con_core_subtype%3acms_con_text_what=copyright&%3acms_sys_group=%22sopse%22 | Publisher: | Reading Corporation | Rights holder: | Reading Borough Council (Reading Museum Service) | Subjects: | commemoratives government, local J.P.1934) Alfred Palmer (DSc social history heraldry | Temporal: | start=1934-01-01; end=1934-12-31; | Source: | Sense of place SE | Identifier: | http://www.sopse.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | image/jpeg | Go to resource |
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