His early education was at Coleshill Grammar School, and at Harrow, under Joseph Drury.
He died on 11 November 1852, at Tamworth, and was buried in the new churchyard, which had once formed part of his garden.
He married, on 29 September 1813, Marie Josephine Minette Breheault, a French refugee of good family.
[3] Palmer published: Palmer edited the New Medical and Physical Journal, along with William Shearman and James Johnson, from 1815 to 1819; the London Medical Repository, along with D. Uwins and Samuel Frederick Gray, from 1819 to 1821.
To both periodicals he contributed largely, as well as to the Lichfield Mercury while John Woolrich was editor, and to the first five volumes of the Analyst.