The Honourable Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer (26 September 1888 – 21 January 1916) was a British Army officer, barrister and poet.

He was the son of William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne, grandson of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, and cousin to Sir Edward Grey.

Palmer was educated at Colet Court and Winchester College and developed an interest in the Church of England and law at an early age.

In between studies he volunteered at the Oxford House Church of England settlement and campaigned in support of the Liberal Unionist Party.

[1] This was the house of his grandfather Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, who was at that time the Conservative Party prime minister of the United Kingdom.

[4] Palmer aspired to a career in law from the age of six, though he maintained an interest in nature, collecting butterflies and birds' eggs.

[2]: 25  Palmer did well at Winchester, becoming senior commoner prefect in 1907, in which role he banned most corporal punishment, and head of his house.

[5] At the school he authored his first published work, an article titled "The Labour Problem in South Africa" which appeared in the July 1906 National Review.

[2]: 41  He volunteered at Oxford House, a Church of England settlement in East London, where he provided legal advice to the poor.

He did not canvass at Newton-le-Willows for his brother Roundell Palmer, in case he was mistaken for him, but did so at Bradford West where his brother-in-law Ernest Flower was defeated.

Palmer was posted to command a detachment of 1.5 companies sent to Agra and while there implemented a reform to the catering provided for the men.

[9] In August 1915 Palmer was sent to Mesopotamia in command of a draft of men for service with the regiment's 4th Battalion which was serving in the Mesopotamian campaign.

Despite his best efforts to join the march he was left in medical care when half of the battalion, including his company, was sent to fight in the Battle of Ctesiphon, the next step on an offensive towards Baghdad.

[2]: 172  He spent the time giving lectures, including one on 22 December about the rise of Germany as a world power that was attended by a general.

[2]: 198–199  He was reported to be the only officer of the battalion to proceed beyond the trench where he was hit again whilst trying to rally his men to defend against a counterattack.

[2]: 199 [10] Writer and naval division soldier A. P. Herbert wrote to Palmer's parents in May 1916 to relate the events around his death.

He said Palmer had been badly wounded in the chest and was attended by doctors and visited by a colonel but died four hours after arriving at the prisoner-of-war camp hospital.

The piece depicts a soldier and his mother and was erected to also commemorate Lieutenant Wilmot Babington Parker-Smith, son of James Parker Smith.

[2]: 1 The poem is thought to have been composed in Mesopotamia in 1915 and a copy was sent by Palmer's mother to American peace activist Jane Addams.

From sodden plains in West and East the blood Of kindly men streams up in mists of hate, Polluting Thy clean air: and nations great In reputation of the arts that bind The world with hopes of Heaven, sink to the state Of brute barbarianism whose ferocious mind Gloats o’er the bloody havoc of their kind, Not knowing love or mercy.