Francis Turner Palgrave

Francis Turner Palgrave (28 September 1824 – 24 October 1897) was a British critic, anthologist and poet.

Life

He was born at Great Yarmouth, the eldest son of Sir Francis Palgrave, the (born Jewish) historian to his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the banker Dawson Turner. His brothers were William Gifford Palgrave, Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave and Reginald Palgrave. His childhood was spent at Yarmouth and at his father's house in Hampstead. At fourteen he was sent as a day-boy to Charterhouse; and in 1843, having in the meanwhile travelled extensively in Italy and other parts of the continent, he won a scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1846 he interrupted his university career to serve as assistant private secretary to Gladstone, but returned, to Oxford the next year, and took a first class in Literae Humaniores. From 1847 to 1862 he was fellow of Exeter College, and in 1849 entered the Education Department at Whitehall.

In 1850 Palgrave accepted the vice-principalship of Kneller Hall Training College at Twickenham. The Principal of the College was Frederick Temple, a friend from his Oxford days. There he also came into contact with Alfred Tennyson, with whom he laid the foundation of another lifelong friendship. When the training college was abandoned, Palgrave returned to Whitehall in 1855, becoming examiner in the Education Department, and eventually assistant secretary.

He lived at the Hampstead home with his widowed father until on 30 December 1862, he married Cecil Grenville Milnes, daughter of James Milnes-Gaskell, MP for Much Wenlock and a friend of Gladstone. Temple, the Gladstones, who invited the couple to Hawarden Castle, and Tennyson were among the liberal-minded guests who attended the wedding. When they visited Hawarden again, her father had died, and Gladstone lost a good friend, for Cis accompanied her husband everywhere; to Aldworth and Farringford, Tennyson's houses, and to the Grosvenor family at the Duke of Westminster's house. Yet one of his greatest friends was Charles Alderson, with whose family he travelled to Grenoble, and whose familial Norfolk connections included the aesthete and doyenne, Lady Eastlake. Palgrave's flirtation with Liberalism came to an abrupt halt, when in 1885, he diverged with Gladstone over the Home Rule debate. While they lived at 5 York Gate, a mansion located in Regents Park, they took a holiday home, called Little Park, in 'Royalist' Lyme Regis, with a more Conservative inference; it belonged to his parents. Throughout 1870s the Palgraves paid repeated visits and stays at Hatfield House, the home of the future Conservative Prime Minister, Lord and Lady Salisbury. He was hugely impressed by the artistic beauty of the mansion, its objets d'arts, fine art, and furniture being of national significance.