PALMER, William. - Anglican theologian, later converted, b. 12 July 1811 at Mixbury, d. 4 Apr. 1879 at Rome. He studied at Rugby and Oxford and then became a lecturer at the Universities of Dublin and Oxford. He was closely associated with the Tractarian movement.
In 1840 he made a journey to Russia with the intention of promoting the union of that Church with the Anglican. His mission failed, but two years later he returned to St. Petersburg with the same aim. His request to be admitted into the Russian Church was not granted. On his return home, he published a work in favor of the union of the two Churches on the harmony between Anglican and Greek doctrine (*Harmony of Anglican Doctrine with the Doctrine of the Eastern Church*, Aberdeen 1846). In 1853 he published *Dissertations on Subjects Relating to the Orthodox or Eastern-Catholic Communion*. During the Crimean War he took an interest in the question of the Holy Places. In Rome he converted to the Catholic faith and was baptized on 28 Feb. 1855 in the chapel of the Roman College. From then on he devoted himself, besides current issues (*Remarks on the Turkish Question*, London 1858), especially to Christian antiquities. On this subject his *Introduction to Early Christian Symbolism* (London 1859) is noteworthy.
---
PALMER, William. - Anglican theologian, later converted, b. in Dublin on 14 Feb. 1803, d. in London in 1885. Graduated from Trinity College, he was ordained in Dublin in 1829. From 1828 to 1831 he was at Magdalen College, Oxford, and from 1831 to 1846 at Worcester College. Some studies on the origins of liturgy soon brought him into contact with leading figures of the Oxford Movement (Newman, Keble, Froude).
Though a very active member of this movement, he nevertheless harbored strong prejudices against Rome, as appears from *A Letter to N. Wiseman* (2 vols., Oxford 1841), as well as from his attacks on the Papacy, published under the pseudonym Umbra Oxoniensis with the title *Results of the Expostulation of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone in their Relation to the Unity of Roman Catholicism* (London 1875).
He was considered by Fr. G. Perrone himself one of the most distinguished theologians of Oxford. This esteem is based on his numerous works, among which it is necessary to recall: *Remarks on Dr. Arnold's Principles of Church Reform* (Oxford 1833); *The Apostolical Jurisdiction and Succession of the Episcopacy in the British Churches* (London 1840); *The Book of Church History* (ibid. 1841); *An Enquiry into the Possibility of Obtaining Means for Church Extension, without Parliamentary Grants* (ibid. 1841); *A Renewed Enquiry...* (ibid. 1848). His conversion to Catholicism dates from 28 Feb. 1855, after which time he devoted himself to archaeological research and published: *An Introduction to Early Christian Symbolism* (ibid. 1859); *Egyptian Chronology* (ibid. 1861), etc.