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Photo. Elliot & Fry
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Aged Twenty-three, 1911.
THE LIFE OF
ROBERT PALMER
1888-1916
BY
THE LADY LAURA RIDDING
AUTHOR OF
'SOPHIA MATILDA PALMER, COMTESSE UE FRANQUEVILLE " ETC.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LIMITED LONDON
"Ir is only when men are drawn out of self
by love of those near and dear to them that
their souls are turned to catch the finer
appeal to a wider and more arduous self-
sacrifice, and so become able to rise succes-
sively by stepping-stones of their dead selves
to higher things."
R. S. A. PALMER.
FOREWORD
THIS record of a life full of promise of noble service
to God and man has been written at the desire of the
family and friends of Robert Palmer, my nephew. If it
brings inspiration to a wider circle, those who love him
will rejoice that his longing to help others continues to
fructify although he is no longer with us.
They and I join in grateful recognition of the assistance
given to me by all whose reminiscences of him have added
shape and distinctness to this slight sketch.
LAURA ELIZABETH RIDDING.
August 1921.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD, 1888-1902 ..... 1
CHAPTER II
WINCHESTER, 1902-1907 . . . . .14
CHAPTER III
OXFORD, 1907-1909 . . . .39
CHAPTER IV
OXFORD, 1909-191 1 ...... 56
CHAPTER V
INDIA, 1911-1912 ...... 83
CHAPTER VI
INTERIM, 1912-1914 . . . . . .94
CHAPTER VII
INDIA, 1914-1915 . . . . . .118
CHAPTER VIII
MESOPOTAMIA, 1915 . . . . . .149
CHAPTER IX
THE END, 1916 . . . , . . .180
INDEX 202
ILLUSTRATIONS
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER . . . Frontispiece
Aged twenty-three, 1911.
FACING PAGE
TOP (aged six and a half) AND BOBBY (aged five), 1893 . 8
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER . . ^. . 96
Aged twenty-five, 1913.
CAPTAIN THE HON. R. S. A. PALMER . . .128
6th Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment (India).
Aged twenty-seven, 1915.
VJI
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD, 1888-1902
IN poignant contrast with its tragic end, the life of Robert
Stafford Arthur Palmer began in a period of world-
prevailing peace, when the echoes of the celebration of
Queen Victoria's first Jubilee still reverberated through
the British Empire and when that Empire lay steeped
in the sunshine of peace, plenty, and prosperity.
Bobby (to call him by the name by which he was
always known to his family and friends), the third child
of my brother and his wife, Lord and Lady Maud Wolmer, 1
was born at 20 Arlington Street, London (the house of
his grandfather, Lord Salisbury), on 26th September
1888. His baptismal names, reminiscent of politicians,
were given him as those of his maternal grandfather and
of his godfathers, Mr. Arthur Balfour and Sir Henry
Stafford Northcote.
The years of Bobby's childhood coincided with those
of the greatest period of Lord Salisbury's premiership ; a
circumstance which, from the first, brought statecraft
prominently before the mind of his little grandson.
Bobby's earliest thoughts were mingled indistinctly with
scraps of political, philosophical, and religious discussions
1 Their family consists of :
1. Mabel Laura Georgina, born 6th October 1884. Married The
Viscount Howick, i6th June 1906.
2. Roundell Cecil, born isth April 1887. Married The Hon. Grace
Ridley, gth June 1910.
3. Robert Stafford Arthur, born 26th September 1888. Killed in the
battle of Umm-Al-Hannah, 2ist January 1916.
4. William Jocelyn Lewis, born isth September 1894.
I
2 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
overheard in the conversations of his elders during meals
and walks. This talk on matters concerning the Govern-
ment of the Commonwealth fascinated him and his elder
brother, and aroused their keen interest in our national
leaders and the questions of the day, at an age when
most children are unaware of the existence of either the
men or the movements.
In the early childhood of every life there are certain
traits which indicate future marked characteristics of the
personality. Two such I recollect of Bobby : one, as
showing that tendency to morbid self-consciousness
which appeared to some of us to be the only flaw in his
singularly white character ; the other, as foreshadowing
his dogged determination to fulfil his religious duty in
the face of all obstacles.
It was always a perilous adventure to take little
Bobby out to luncheon. All enjoyment might be
poisoned by potatoes. He could not endure being helped
to them by anybody ; and, when they were handed to
him, if he delayed to help himself, too often a friendly
hostess or footman would unwittingly do the fatal act
and place them on his plate. Tragic tears at once began
to trickle down his cheeks, ending in a collapse of sobs.
When Bobby was an Oxford scholar, at a time when he
was staying with uncongenial companions, he wrote to
his father : " You used to laugh at me for weeping when
I was offered potatoes. I wept because the footman
wouldn't understand, and it all felt so helpless and un-
avoidable. And now I often have exactly the same feeling
here. There are hundreds of thoughts and hopes in my
heart. I ask for sympathy they don't understand, they
offer me potatoes ! It is a feeling of hopeless impotence."
Notwithstanding, he never allowed this sensation of
hopeless impotence to paralyse his action when duty
required service of him. Once when Bobby was six
years old, he was sitting in a seat at the farther end of a
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 3
large London church. He was taken unawares by the
alms-bag being handed to him, and it occupied some time
for him to extract a penny from his purse ; meanwhile, the
sidesman passed on and left him untithed. He quietly
slipped out of the seat and marched up the length of the
nave into the chancel at the moment when the alms were
being delivered to the clergy. He tugged at the sidesman's
coat-tails so vehemently that he turned ; Bobby then
made the offering of his penny and solemnly marched
back again in the face of the congregation.
Few of his experiences and fewer of his thoughts at
this period were unshared with his elder brother. He
professed his belief in a plurality of devils by assuring us
that, " I know there must be, because Top and I always
think of things at exactly the same moment ! " The two
little boys were devoted to each other and were in-
separable companions in their alarums and excursions,
whether in their London home at 49 Mount Street or on
visits to their grandparents at Blackmoor or at Hatfield.
Top (as Wolmer was nicknamed) was a year and a half
older than Bobby, whom he strongly resembled in figure
and colouring. They were both very fair-skinned,
flaxen-haired, and vigorous in movement, though Top's
eager, pugnacious expression contrasted sharply with
Bobby's meditative, often intent, perplexed gaze. Their
faces reflected the differences in their characters supple-
mentary, not antagonistic, differences, which made each
of them regard the other with understanding, toleration
and admiration.
While Top's nature was combative, ardent, imagina-
tive, Bobby's was conciliatory, calm, judicial. While
Top worked by starts and rushes, Bobby steadily ground
away with an extraordinary power of concentration
and method. While Top crashed through all obstacles
that blocked his path, like an irresistible Tank, Bobby
faced them with acute anxiety. "There is Bobby with
4 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
another of his insurmountable difficulties ! " was a
frequent comment of Top's. It was not surprising that
the latter's fearless optimism made him appear like a
royal leader to the admiring eyes of a younger brother,
not endowed with his gifts for organization or with his
practical efficiency in solving unexpected problems.
When the boys were seven and eight years old, their
elder sister, aged ten, wrote an account of her brothers,
which they fitly considered as more frank than flattering.
After describing their faults in forcible language she
explained that when they were out walking in Hyde Park,
" I am quite ashamed of them and try to look as if I did
not belong to them. Bobby sometimes behaves very
nicely indeed, sometimes badly. Bobby will ask such a
lot of questions, he quite aggravates me. Bobby is very
silly sometimes and needs a lot of explanations to be told
a thing, and he takes an interest in some of the things.
He does what I tell him and runs messages for me. . . .
They are both on the whole rather funny, though some-
times vulgar. They both play with fire. At a first
meeting, I think Top and Bobby would be very nice
indeed for strangers, but though I love them very much I
do not think any stranger would care to live with them."
Mabel's complaint that Bobby " needed a lot of
explanations " was an unconscious tribute to his engrained
determination to master whatever subject was occupying
his mind. When quite a little boy, his teachers were
struck by his persistency in getting to the bottom of
statements and by his power of close reasoning, which
they considered to be very exceptional in one so young.
He gripped the essential points in an argument in a mature
way, and gave his opinion on them in a clear, solemn
voice, in sentences enriched with very long words and
delivered to the end, undeterred by laughter and interrup-
tions. His grandmother, Lady Salisbury, always called
him " Little Lord Selborne," because he had the Chan-
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 5
cellorian air when an infant. At six years old he an-
nounced his choice of his future profession : " I will be
a lawyer who shoots on Saturdays." He pondered early
on the problems presented by experience as well as those
presented by study. " Mamma," said he one day on
returning home after his dancing lesson, " I cannot
understand how it is that with a pretty dancing mistress
one is never so tired ! " " It is always so," replied his
oracle.
For Bobby, his mother was always his oracle, guardian
saint and wellhead of love, sympathy and wisdom
Undoubtedly the perfect understanding which existed
between them was a happy result of her educational
system. In training her children to be useful Christian
citizens, my sister-in-law was incessantly careful to
avoid confusing their immature minds with false standards
of morals and conduct. While abhorrent of selfishness,
cruelty and hard judgments, she was placidly lenient to
lapses of forgetfulness, unpunctuality and carelessness,
and to the torn clothes, grime and untidiness which are
the inevitable accompaniments of the frolics of adven-
turous childhood.
In consequence, while, for a short period of their lives,
Top's and Bobby's faces and general appearance were
probably more streaky and dirty than those of any
other little boys in Hampshire, their minds were free
from clouded calculations of the relative guilt of breaches
of the moral law and those of use and custom, and their
lives flourished in the sunshine of full trust and confidence
in their parents.
Another matter, on which their mother laid stress,
was the development of her children's independence and
capability. They were accordingly taught to dress
themselves, light the fire, pack their luggage, travel
alone, keep accounts of their expenditure and do sundry
offices, at an age much earlier than that at which the
6 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
majority of their young friends learnt these arts. Un-
doubtedly, they owed much of their healthy independence
of judgment and action to these two special points of
their upbringing.
When Bobby was eight years old, he and Top were
placed as day-scholars under Mr. Bewsher's care in St.
Paul's preparatory school at Colet Court, Hammersmith.
They went to and from school every day on the top of
the Hammersmith omnibus. These journeys brought
them many delightful experiences. They tried at first
to beguile the tedium by pea-shooting at the outside
passengers on other omnibuses, but their driver promptly
stopped that pastime. Occasionally they " economized "
by spending their fare-money on cocoanuts and walking
home. One morning they fell into conversation with a
fellow-passenger, a policeman. When they told him that
they had just begun to go to school, he solemnly advised
them " Whatever you do, mind you fight ! Whenever
you get a chance, mind you fight ! " a recommendation
which it was quite unnecessary to urge upon Top.
Another day their mother, returning home from a
walk, perceived two extremely grubby figures, adorned
with book satchels, standing motionless on the pilasters
on either side of the flight of doorsteps, with the steep
area yawning below them. " We are statues ! " explained
the breathing decorations. They had just been initiated
into the glories of Greek art.
Tea was always followed by preparation work for
the morrow's class. Bobby, after devouring enormous
teas, used to stand on his head in an arm-chair, with his
feet resting on the top. " It clears my brain for prep ! "
he declared. All his life he elaborated curious attitudes
in which to perform his mental exercises.
He adored his work as a lover adores his mistress, and
he was miserable if some ailment kept him away from
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 7
school. Once in the holidays he informed his mother
that, " I like being in the country very much, but I'm
rather school-sick ! "
He was already showing the scholar's delight in
branches of learning that ordinary boys regard with
dreary dislike. I recollect how an outburst of enthusiasm
for grammar struck Archbishop Temple : " It's so interest-
ing to see what slight changes make so many different
meanings." At the end of the first year Bobby was
already ahead of his brother. He was always top of
his class and carried away piles of prize-books.
His Headmaster considered him to be one of the ablest
boys that he had ever had in the school. He credited
him with great intellectual power and quickness in
grasping new ideas and in retaining what he so readily
acquired. He valued his accuracy and powers of memory
as remarkable for his age.
Happily for Bobby, his early thirst for knowledge
was coupled with an equally keen thirst for fun, which
saved him from any danger of becoming a prig. Nobody
could feel apprehension on that score who had ever
catered for his craving for jokes or who had enjoyed
the delight of witnessing the sudden transformation of
his intent expression into one of over-brimming gleaming
laughter, when something mirthful or ridiculous tickled
his fancy. This ready appreciation was very captivating.
Once, when he was taken to see a play called A Little Ray
of Sunshine, his seat was in the front row of the stalls,
and his hilarious laughter delighted and amused the
actors. They found themselves playing to the merry
little boy and continually gave him their special glances
and smiles.
Bobby was a born naturalist and began early the
collection of butterflies and birds' eggs to which he
assiduously continued to add during the rest of his life.
8 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
His eyesight was splendid. I never met anyone who had
his power of seeing moths' eyes shine with white light
through the darkness or the tragic change to red " glow-
ing like fire " which came upon them as death overtook
them in the collecting-box. In 1899 Bobby spent part
of his holidays at Lord Salisbury's villa at Beaulieu on
the Riviera ; he went out daily in quest of a Camberwell
Beauty, and every day his grandfather anxiously asked
him " if he had yet met the lady ? " Eventually his per-
severance was rewarded beyond his utmost dreams, and
his father received an ecstatic letter from the collector.
It began : " I am happy ! What do you think : I'VE
GOT a SCARCE SWALLOWTAIL, only been caught twice
in England. If I get a claret-coloured Swallowtail I shall
have all the kinds of Swallowtails. The Common Brim-
stone is so rare here that it is only seen once in five or six
years, but nevertheless I've caught two."
Bobby visited us in the Midlands during the summer,
from whence he wrote the following letter to his mother :
"THURGARTON PRIORY, SOUTHWELL,
July 31, 1899.
*' Tell Pa that I have only got one butterfly here, i.e.
Whiteletter Hairstreak (a rare one), but I have got twenty-
one moths through the process known as * sugaring,'
which is to spread on trees a mixture made of equal
quantities of dark treacle and coarse brown sugar and
a small quantity of stale beer and three tablespoons of
strongest rhum. As we had not got any in the house, I,
Mr. Bax (Uncle George's l secretary), and Dommy 2 went
to a ' pub ' in the village and got some ' for the Bishop.' "
I have a vivid recollection of the concoction of that
witches' brew and of the boy's insistence on the purchase
1 Dr. Ridding, Bishop of Southwell.
- Our Aberdeen terrier.
TOP (Aged Six-and-a-half) and BOBBY (Aged Five), 1893.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 9
of nine pennyworth of rum at "the lowest public-house
in the village, because the rum there will be the coarsest."
I suggested that he should consider Mr. Bax's reputation,
on which he at once replied : " We will preserve his
character and ask for the rum for Uncle George ! "
One Sunday we discovered him seated on the library
floor, surrounded by volumes of the new Encyclopedia
Britannica. " I can't find what I want ! " he complained.
" I wish to understand why women wear hats in church,
and I have looked under Hats, Church, Women, and cannot
find the reason." We introduced him to Bingham's
Antiquities, where his curiosity was satisfied, but without
convincing him of the reasonableness of the rule.
My brother's children were fond of playing at the
game of Twenty Questions. One day, when it was
Bobby's turn to discover the thing thought of, he gave
a striking instance of his critical discernment in subjecting
his uncle, Lord Hugh Cecil, to a cross-questioning con-
ducted with such mastery of method that in four minutes
he had turned him inside out, to the profound astonish-
ment of the victim, whose eyebrows were seen to rise
higher and higher under the process, like a thermometer
mounting to fever height.
Bobby was very methodical in his habits ; his powers
of observation were always alert. It was about this
time that, fired by the example of Sherlock Holmes, he
began to make a practice of mentally noting everything,
such as the number of steps in every flight of stairs
which he ascended or descended. He could tell us the
number of steps in every staircase in every house he had
ever visited.
When Lord Salisbury formed his last ministry in the
November of 1900, my brother was transferred from his
office of Under- Secretary for the Colonies to that of First
Lord of the Admiralty. His children's satisfaction with
their new home was enhanced by the building operations
2
io ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
and excavation of ancient foundations which were then
being carried on at the Admiralty, and which caused
ominous cracks to yawn across the whole length of the
staircase walls. When the Venetian Campanile fell in
1902, Bobby reminded the household of the uncertainties
of life by sticking across a gaping crack a piece of paper
bearing the words : " Remember Venice ! "
I have not spoken of Bobby's spiritual growth. I
believe that the love of God was implanted in his heart
from infancy, and that he took its existence as naturally
and unconsciously as living and breathing. Unlike
Wolmer, who, from the first, had always shown keen
interest in theology, Bobby was not given to discussing
religious subjects in boyish days. Once, as a little boy,
he asked his mother during a Bible-lesson : " How do we
know it's true ? " She gave him such answer as occurred
to her at the moment. This he considered for some time,
and then said : " Well, I believe it because you believe
it ! " This appeared to satisfy him, and he asked no more.
As he got older, he decided to stay for the sermons in
church, " because he was often interested in them."
In November 1901, Bobby was confirmed by the
Bishop of Rochester. 1 He was deeply in earnest about
his confirmation, and no candidate ever resolved more
steadfastly to give himself wholly to the service of God
than did Bobby on that day. Thenceforth, throughout
his whole life, his faith in God was the lodestar which he
unswervingly followed.
His elder brother said of him : " Bobby was the
goodest little boy I have ever known or heard of. He
was always in intimate relation with God. He had no
other thought than to do God's will. He never returned
a cross answer, never teased, never quarrelled. I know,
1 Dr. Edward Talbot, afterwards Bishop of Southwark and subsequently
of Winchester.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER n
because we were the closest companions, sharing the same
room till I went to Winchester. You could not make
him lose his temper except by unmitigated bullying;
then he only dissolved into tears. The sin of others
was a mystery and a grief to him. He put tremendous
earnestness into his prayers, private and in church.
This grew every year till he attained a great power of
prayer. At Winchester he was never absent from the
early Celebration in Chapel. All his life he was always
as harmless as a dove and as wise as a serpent, innocent
of the wickedness of the world, a laughing angel."
In the May of 1902, Queen Alexandra selected Bobby
and the Prince of Wales chose Top to be their respective
pages at the coming Coronation. " I can't imagine why
the Queen chose you, Bobby ! " remarked his mother.
" We met five years ago," calmly explained the future
page. The Duke of Norfolk, at the rehearsal of the
ceremony, told Bobby that he was the only one of the
pages who had replied to the invitation. On his sister's
asking him how he had answered, he said : " I wrote :
' MY DEAR DUKE OF NORFOLK, It is needless for me to
inform you that I shall be delighted to have the honour
of obeying the Queen's command. Your obedient servant,
ROBERT PALMER.' "
The postponement of the Coronation on account of
the King's sudden illness bereft the pages (as well as
thousands of other holiday folk) of the much anticipated
pageant. I remember that I helped to escort the children
and their cousins to Earl's Court, where we spent several
noisy, dusty hours, full of enjoyment for them, but of
terrible anxiety for their elders. The waterchute especi-
ally had overpowering attractions for Bobby, and he
described its charms to his governess thus : " You
feel as if you were launching into eternity and very
pleasantly, too ! "
12 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
The manner in which the Queen's page acquitted
himself of his duties when, at last, the Coronation took
place on the 9th August, may be gathered from the
following letter written soon after : " I went to four
rehearsals before the postponement, and they were
extremely comic and indescribably confusing. Of course,
the first one was the worst. No one knew where anybody
ought to be, and the poor dummy King (Lord Churchill)
had a bad time of it, as everyone told him different
and the Duke of Norfolk lost his temper.
" The second and third were not so bad (though they
were quite different from the first and from each other),
the only thing odd being the substitutions for all the
important persons and things. For instance :
The KING was personated by Sir S. Ponsonby.
The QUEEN , Lady Mary Howard.
The ARCHBISHOP
The CROWN
The ROBES
The SCEPTRE
The IVORY ROD
CORONETS
The QUEEN'S TRAIN
Canon Robertson.
A coronet with most of the spikes off.
A sheet and a lady's dressing-gown.
, A poker.
, A curtain rod.
, Top hats.
, Mourning cloth for the late Queen.
After the postponement we had three more rehearsals,
but I shirked one and only attended the first and third.
At the third (dress), the Lord Chancellor x had to put
on his coronet over his wig, so he looked exactly like the
King in Alice in Wonderland. The coronet nearly slipped
off several times.
"The actual ceremony was very impressive, and the
rows of peers and peeresses on either side, in their velvet
robes and (later on) their coronets, presented a fine
spectacle. The Bishops were even smarter as they were,
nearly all, in copes of white and gold. The Archbishop 2
1 The Earl of Halsbury.
* Archbishop Temple.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 13
and Dean 1 came out of it with only one fall each, and
even then they were prevented from tumbling right down,
as on each occasion a couple of Bishops caught them.
The choir, I thought, was very good indeed.
44 1 was to have been photographed on Monday, but the
Queen sent for me to go to the Palace, where she was
photographed in a group with all the pages. I then had
lunch at the Palace and was sent back in a Royal carriage."
Bobby returned home from his morning at Buckingham
Palace, full of enjoyment of his experiences and of admir-
ing devotion to the charming Queen whose train-bearer
he had been. It was poignant to remember his happy
chatter over that day's doings fourteen years later when,
on hearing the news of his being among the " Missing "
after the battle of Umm-Al -Hannah, Queen Alexandra
sent a touching message of sympathy to his parents, in
which she assured them that she " had always taken the
greatest interest in her Coronation pages and that she
liked their boy particularly."
1 Dean Bradley.
CHAPTER H
WINCHESTER, 1902-1907
BOBBY began his adventures as a public-school boy and a
Wykehamist at the beginning of Short Hatt, 21th Septem-
ber 1902, two days before he entered his fifteenth year.
As late Head of the School at Colet Court, he naturally
took a creditable place in Middle-Division at Winchester.
His eider brother had already been there two years when
Bobby became an inmate of his father's old house.
Southgate Hill, under the house-mastership of Mr. A. K.
Cook.
His cousin, James Palmer, 1 said that his four and a
half years at Winchester had developed in Bobby, "in
full measure the most typical characteristics of the true
Wykehamist, the spirit which finds artistic expression in
William of Wykeham's buildings, the spirit of sobriety
and modesty, ujpe* ayo* might almost be said to be
the motto which their silent influence impresses on aD
of us who can receive their influence.** Bobby's deep
admiration for austere beauty was fired by the glories
of the grey Cathedral and College and of the time-frosted
city of antique gates. Castle, and streets, with her feet set
on a base of ancient flower-dappled walls and waterways,
and her head crowned with emerald downs; but she
never captured his heart as she did that of another
Wykehamist, the poet, Lionel Johnson, who professed
homage to her as to the " Fairest, Noblest, Dearest
Mother, more than Mother.* 9
> Sow Bishop of Bombay.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 15
To his home-mother was Bobby's sole
given, and no rival claims ever existed for him. As one
of his friends observed in later years: "Most children
give their hearts, but few give their minds to their own
nearest and dearest, as Bobby did." This was true of
him from his earnest schooldays. During his years at
Winchester he poured out his heart to her in copious
letters foil OK n?^ "wyyrpT- fmy %MPU ffcE i io .if^- oy cy?ti^?iiPfTiiP off
books, politics, the public-school system and everybody
connected therewith, and his innermost secret thoughts.
As was inevitable for a boy of his character, who had
gone straight to Winchester from a home in which his
life had always been ideally happy, he suffered at first
acutely from nostalgia. Happily the presence of his
elder brother provided him, to a large degree, with support
anH consolation in the unaccustomed loneliness of his
new life.
When Bobby had been a few weeks at Winchester
he wrote home saying: "Papa is quite right. Top is
quite as good as a second GnVnor to me here. I find
that knowing a lot of the * notions ' is a huge advan-
tage. I must be very tike Top, as a gentleman has stopped
me in the street, and another said at once he thought I
must be Lord Wolmer's brother! Besides this, men*
are constantly saying that they 'know my face,* or that
I am 'exactly like a man in Buckland's called Wolmer."*
Top's fatherly care of his younger brother extended
to every department of school life. He gave him sage
advice on the desirability of in^Hi^ friends in his own
house and of working for a remove. Bobby quickly shot
ahead of Top, to the fetter's proud satisfaction. In 1905,
when Bobby was made Senior Commoner Prefect, he said :
"I should never have been where I am if it wasn't for
Top. At the end of February 1903 I was 8th in a certain
16 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
division where only six removes were expected. I had
almost decided not to try for a remove so as to be able to
take it easy in the summer, but when I asked for Top's
advice he said it was always worth while trying for a
remove, so I did, and got it ! "
Mr. Carter, his Division Don during his first year at
Winchester, considered Bobby "to be one of the most
brilliant boys he had ever had under him, and the most
certain to make his mark in public life afterwards : his
personality shone through everything he did."
The following extracts from letters to his mother
show the keenness with which this fourteen-year-old boy
studied public questions and politics :
" I never realized before what a lot of facts one gets
from back numbers of Punch ; but this week's task was :
' Write out all you know about a number of people '
and among them were : Sir Robert Peel, Palmerston,
Garibaldi, Disraeli and Cecil Rhodes, and practically all
I know of these comes from back columns of Punch."
"May 1, 1903. Write and tell me all about the
Deceased Wife's Sister Bill." (Bobby was deeply inter-
ested in this hardy annual. I recollect how in the previous
year, in the midst of a game of lawn-tennis with the sons
of Mrs. Arthur Lyttelton, he amused them greatly by
apologizing for missing a stroke by explaining : " Excuse
me ! I was thinking about the Deceased Wife's Sister.")
" September 20, 1903. I was so abnormally busy yester-
day with work, arranging my toys, 1 playing fives, and going
to the school mission address, that I omitted to write to
you to thank you for sending me Arthur Balfour's pam-
phlet, which I have finished and passed on ; it is already
engaged four deep. Some parts of it are rather hard to
understand. Cook wants to talk the subject over with
1 Notion for Combination desk and bookcase.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 17
me (not controversially), as he thinks he can explain some
things I don't understand. Most of the House are Free
Traders on the grounds (1) that Protection will raise the
price of food ; (2) that we have done very well for fifty
years on Free Trade. Pretty conclusive arguments ! !
But their idea of Protection is a mixed nightmare of
Retaliation, Preferential Tariffs, Fiscal Systems, Zoll-
vereinism, Corn Laws, etc., etc."
" October 15, 1903. At present I have read Joe's,
Arthur's, Asquith's, Austen's, and most of Rosebery's
speeches, of which Joe the elder's and Asquith's are
the best. I quite see that Retaliation will do more good
than harm, but as to taxes, Joe seems to have hardly
impressed the fact that all the revenue from these taxes
will lessen other taxes in proportion. It is true he said
that nothing can be wasted that goes into the Exchequer ;
and again, that he will reduce the taxes on tea, sugar,
etc., but he hasn't even mentioned the income-tax, which
is, after all, the most unpopular, and is, at this moment,
exorbitant for peaceful times."
" December 15, 1903. I have read papa's speech ; I
think he must have welshed some of it off one of my essays,
since he says exactly what I want to say, exactly how I
want to say it."
" July 27, 1904. Going down the street to-day, I saw
a hand-cart piled with empty packing-cases. The word
Holland caught my eye, and I examined the cases to see
where they came from. There were several from Den-
mark, two from Holland, three or four from France, some
from Chicago, one from New South Wales, and not A
SINGLE ONE from England. Some of the cases were ear-
marked as to contents, the others were labelled to contain
widely different things ; none were earmarked as to their
native land ! ! My only doubt about Joe's scheme is
that, if England is really decadent (which I begin to fear),
nothing can save her, though Protection may delay her
3
iS ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
fall ; for a decadent nation seems to lose spirit unaccount-
ably, and, under precisely similar conditions as those
which prevailed in former generations, fails to make that
use of its opportunities as it would have done a hundred
or two hundred years before. But decadence is slow, and I
don't think we turned the corner as much as forty years ago,
so we ought to hold our place for some time to come yet."
Bobby made his maiden speech at the Debating Society
on 23rd March 1904. Here is his account of the debate :
" At the debate last night, Carter (the Colonial Don)
made a speech against Chinese Labour, but entirely on
the grounds that Chinamen were such awful pests in
California 1 1 Young Cook proposed the motion, and,
when I was speaking, he tried to squash me three times ;
I scored off him twice. Had I gone through all the
glaring contradictions of the proposer's and seconder's
speeches, I should have spoken for nearly twenty minutes ;
I spoke for about eight minutes. As I expected, the
motion against Chinese Labour was carried 24 to 17.
D went to the debate. Afterwards I asked him what
was his opinion. He said that he was quite bewildered
by the number of arguments on both sides, but with an
impartial mind he could not help feeling that Chinamen
were and must be villains. I expect this is just the view
of the man in the street."
Half a year later Bobby wrote to his father for " some
tips," as he had rashly promised under pressure " to
defend the Government against a motion of censure to be
moved at the next meeting of the Debating Society.
The chief points of attack will be l Licensing, Welsh
Education, Army Reform, and Budget.' I know nothing
about Welsh Education and very little about Army
Reform." Eventually Bobby developed into one of the
best speakers at the School Debating Society, contributing
forcible, sincere speeches, shot with tinges of racy humour.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 19
These extracts from letters written during his first
years at Winchester mark the early stage of the develop-
ment of Bobby's political ardour. Before he was twelve
years old he had determined to be a " statesman as well
as a lawyer," and, as his correspondence shows, he was
already studying political problems not usually magnetic
to Middle-Part schoolboys. He was a great reader, and
much of his reading contributed to this end.
To HIS FATHER
"SOUTHGATE HlLL,
July 17, 1904.
" I should like you to explain to me how the Americans
elect their President and their Parliament ; from remarks
in the papers it appears to be different from any election
I know.
" I have read very little this Half, as is natural, but
I have read two books which are well worth reading.
One is Martin Chuzzlewit, which has given me a greater
warning against selfishness than any book or sermon I
have ever come across. I am afraid that I need it, too,
very badly. The other book is a history of The Liberation
of Italy, 1 the best- written and most interesting history
from a woman's pen that I have ever read. Its four
hundred pages are very well worth reading, not only for
the thrilling history and unquenchable patriotism of
Italy's struggle for freedom, but also for the lesson which
it conveys of the value of unity, of how useless is mere
disorganized devotion to a cause and how irresistible when
united and orderly. The book is probably partial and
perhaps overstates the grievances and understates the
faults of the Italians ; but how much they must have
suffered is proved by the fact that each rebellion was
1 The Liberation of Italy, by the Countess Evelyn Martinengo
Cesaresco.
20 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
punished more severely than the last, and yet each
rebellion was in no way deterred by the fate of its pre-
decessors.'*
To HIS MOTHER
" October 6, 1904.
" Gladstone's Life I call quite one of the most charming
books I have ever read ; and, curiously enough, I have
been specially struck this Half by the 1809 trio. In
Memoriam is simply marvellous, chiefly because its
diction is marvellously simple. Thirdly, Darwin is very
fascinating ; and so, in one fortnight, I have quite separ-
ately read and appreciated this trio : Darwin, Gladstone,
and Tennyson, all born in 1809."
To HIS MOTHER
" SOUTHGATE HlLL,
November 9, 1904.
" You had quite an exciting adventure yesterday.
Now you know the charms of launching a cruiser ! If you
launched a battleship, you might have yet further plea-
sure, waiting one and a half hours, and drenching a tee-
total Archbishop in cherry-brandy ! As it is, I see no
prospect of finishing my reading by the end of the Half ;
and, unfortunately, it is always Gladstone who goes to
the wall. My present books have amounted to :
Gladstone . . . . \
Darwin . . . I Bills to t^ carried.
Maine s Ancient Law . .
Carlyle's History of Heroes . >
ENGLISH -I Matthew Arnold's Essays. . \
Leslie Stephen's Half-Hours in I Bills probably to be
a Library . . . j dropped.
Morley's Rousseau ; . . J
.Selections from Ruskin Bill carried.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 21
(Rousseau's Contrat Sooiale . . \
L'Aiglon . . . I Bills to be passed.
Lettres de mon Moulin . ; I
Corneille's Le Cid . ' * . J
" I've determined to do a lot of reading in the holidays
when it is too dark or wet to go out even at the expense
of Solo billiards plus Bridge !
" I have begun Rousseau, and he strikes me as being
able to build up a very plausible argument by careful
steps, but he always spoils it by suddenly drawing an
absurd inference or ignoring an obvious and fatal objec-
tion."
The benefit of his literary studies carried on in school
work and leisure hours showed itself in the lucid, effective
style which gave character and charm to Bobby's later
writings. They did not, however, monopolize all his
attention as a schoolboy. Detective stories, thrillers, and
comic verses met with full appreciation from him. He
began to train his Pegasus for future flights by gentle
ambles along the road to Limerick, whence he returned
adorned with gaudy gems like the following :
" There was an old man of this latitude,
Who assumed a theatrical attitude.
When they said : ' Make a speech I '
He gave biscuits to each,
And on all he pronounced a beatitude."
" A young person in Constantinople
Said : ' I do hope that Leo the Pope 'ull
Let me marry my niece,
Who lives down in Greece,
For I've bought her a ring with an opal I "
Bobby's political and literary interests had a formid-
able competitor for the possession of his spare hours in
the " insatiable enthusiasm for birds " which had fired
him from the days of his infancy. Inspired by the
22 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
examples of Gilbert White and of our cousin, Sir Edward
Grey, 1 he kept a careful list of every bird which came
within his lynx-eyed observation, and at one time took
a yearly census of all the nests in Blackmoor garden.
(One year he counted seventy different kinds.) He began
a live collection of the ducks of the British Isles on the
moat at Blackmoor. His large library of bird books was
begun to be made when he was quite young.
He observed a strict rule in his egg-collecting which
he enforced on other youthful collectors whenever he
got the chance. The rule permitted him to take one egg
only from each nest, and required that the rest should be
left undisturbed. He hated wanton destruction of life.
One day, in his first year at Winchester, he was bicycling
along a country road and accidentally dashed over two
sparrows quarrelling on the ground, and killed them
both. He burst into floods of tears at the catastrophe,
and was miserable for days after. With a strange touch
of inconsistency he loved shooting, like many other
English naturalists ; and he enjoyed wild-game shooting
because of the skill and adventure which it involved.
He tried to preserve a code of honour in his shooting
expeditions. " I always feel some compunction in killing
a big animal. A small target at a hundred yards is much
more satisfactory to hit than a large one at three hundred,"
he remarked once when describing a shooting expedition
in South Africa.
The following are some of Bobby's bird-letters from
Winchester :
To THE LADY LAURA RIDDING
"SOUTHGATE HlLL,
May 28, 1903.
" To-day I found a butcher-bird's nest in a thorn tree
with one egg in. I also saw the female butcher-bird very
1 Afterwards Viscount Grev of Failed en.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 23
well. I did not take the egg, of course. I shall go back
there in about three weeks when they are hatched, to see
if I can see their larder round the nest. Quite close, I
found a hedge-sparrow with three eggs and one cuckoo's
egg (which I removed). I also found a white-throat's
nest and a linnet's. Not bad for one piece of gorse about
sixty yards by forty 1 There must have been lots of
nests I didn't find; I am sure that there is a yellow-
hammer's nest somewhere about, as I have seen the old
birds twice, but I hadn't time to watch them. I wonder
if yellow-hammers build in gorse (as they nearly always
do) on account of their colour, which I noticed matched
the gorse wonderfully well. I have persuaded all the
egg-collecting grandchildren l to conform to rules about
taking, which is a great blessing, as some of them used to
be very unprincipled."
To HIS FATHER
" May 14, 1904
" When I was returning from bird-nesting yesterday,
I was crossing a field when I heard a noise, and, looking
up, saw a plover flying straight at me. When it was
about ten yards from, and seven above, me, it ceased
swooping and flew straight over me with a loud swishirig.
It hovered about twenty yards away, but directly I moved
on (still watching it) it again charged over me. I at once
saw that there must be a nest quite close to me, but
directly I looked down to search for it, the bird started
shrieking and screaming so loud that I looked up; it
stopped at once and tried to draw me off by flopping about.
Whenever I looked down, it started screaming and dashing
about, almost to the ground, then high into the air (like
their ordinary wheeling more violently and oftener done),
whenever I started walking. After a few repetitions of
1 Grandchildren of Lord Salisbury.
24 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
this performance, I refused to look up when she screamed ;
and she then mounted high above me and called loudly,
upon which her mate quickly joined her and they both
wheeled round me peewitting and, at intervals, charging,
though not quite so near as at first. I had not got much
time, so I walked on. Both plovers at once got in front
of me, leading me on by flops and cries. As we went
farther, the plovers rose higher and cried less often and less
anxiously. They escorted me to the edge of the field,
where they suddenly left me and flew right away. I
must have almost trodden on the nest, but I think they
deserved that I should not find it."
To HIS FATHER
"May 22, 1904.
" On Tuesday two nests which I was watching con-
tained one egg each, so to-day I went up to look at them.
On the way, I met two very small boys and entered into
conversation with them, and the eldest (aged about seven)
informed me that he had found a skylark's nest. I
promptly asked him to show it to me, but on the way he
so impressed upon me the wickedness of taking eggs that
I had to abandon all idea of procuring one of them. I
have never seen such a well and simply concealed nest.
In a field of young corn I was led to a small plant, like a
good-sized greyish dandelion, which looked as though it
could not conceal a hairpin. Under the shade of this
were three eggs in a nest of no more pretensions than a
plover's. The old bird, by the way, flew up from about
fifteen yards beyond, but almost in a line with the nest.
Of the nests which I intended to visit, the most interesting
had been robbed and the other proved to be a yellow-
hammer. I had to hurry back as it was beginning to
rain ; and, on my way, my eye was suddenly caught by a
hole in the bank of the road. Putting my hand in, I
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 25
found six robins' eggs, one of which had such exceedingly
curious markings that I kept it. In crossing the field I
was mobbed by six or eight plovers. It started with one
which rose high and quickly summoned a dozen more, and
these continued to wheel round me noisily till I left the
field ! "
The year 1905 brought great sorrow to my brother's
elder sons, inasmuch as his appointment to the High
Commissionership of South Africa caused an inevitable
separation between them and their parents, which lasted
through all Wolmer's Oxford years and the latter half
of Bobby's School and the earlier half of his University
career.
A very strong family affection bound them all closely
together, deepened by their common religious belief and
exhilarated by a happy fellowship of interests, tastes,
fun, and general youthfulness, very delightful to witness.
A lively recollection of the last days before my brother's
departure flashes around a wrestling match between him
and his three sons in the central hall at Blackmoor. Their
contortions were those of a happy Laocoon group. Four
blonde heads, four writhing bodies, eight grey trousers
shooting out in all directions. " It comes cheaper to
buy it in the piece 1 " observed Maud placidly, as we
watched the struggling legs.
Occasional glimpses of their parents somewhat re-
lieved Top's and Bobby's home-sickness. Bobby's first
vision of South Africa was in the winter of 1905 to 1906,
when he spent some months there. During his absence
from Winchester he kept up a correspondence with his
House-master on questions of House-government and
other School matters, gilded with graphic descriptions of
his treks, adventures and enjoyment of the glorious
country. From one of these letters describing the wonder
of the Victoria Falls I quote the final words, as they
26 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
show Bobby's careful observation of the constituents of
beauty :
" It is chiefly the tropical colouring which makes the
whole scene so indescribably beautiful. The water,
deep yellow at the edge of the Fall, brilliant creamy white
when falling, the wet black rocks, the bright green of the
profuse vegetation around, the dark green of the distant
unending forest dimly seen through the all-pervading mist
of spray, the troubled brown waters in the gorge below,
the red rocks farther down the river, the huge cloud of
white spray, and, above all, the brilliant rainbow always
to be seen there all combine to form a picture which could
never be painted, but which, once seen, could never be
forgotten. Really, I feel that if I stayed here long enough
I should turn into a poet or something dreadful."
This appreciation of the brilliancy of colour was
characteristic of Bobby. He delighted in the hues of
gems, beautiful textures, and, above all, in the rich glories
of the paintings of the Old Masters. He described the
influence which Art had over him thus : " The effect of a
first-class picture is not so strong at the moment as that
of music, but with me lasts much longer and becomes a
part of me. The process is very queer and subtle, and I
can't explain it."
His mother has a vivid recollection of a Spanish tour
in 1902, on which he accompanied her, when his enormous
appetite for breakfast was only rivalled by his insatiable
enjoyment of the cathedrals and picture galleries.
Bobby returned to England from South Africa with
his sister and her fiance, Lord Howick, in the spring of
1906, to take up the responsibilities of Senior Commoner
Prefect and Head of his House at Winchester, with which
he had been entrusted before his visit to South Africa.
(He had been made House Prefect eighteen months before.)
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 27
" Bobby grows more old-gentlemanly every day. He
can't read without his head being supported and his book
at the right angle, etc., etc.," wrote Mabel on board ship.
Whether this satirical description were true or not, there
was no doubt that South Africa saw his transition from
the schoolboy phase into one of older development.
That Dr. Burge, 1 his Headmaster, fully recognized this
change, is shown in his character-sketch of my nephew.
" On the surface and a good way down," he says,
" Bobby was a serious, industrious boy, rather critical
and distinctly intellectual, sensitive to what seemed
childish, and, like all sensitive natures, apt to get things
and people on his nerves. He had an extremely alert
and receptive mind ; his heart was full of loyalty and
the desire to play his part in the common life ; he was
of a nature that won real attachment and affection.
The truth is that Bobby's boyhood was very brief. His
mind began to mature very rapidly and his intellectual
powers kept pace, so he became unusually well balanced.
He never passed through the stage which is common to
young boys of expanding intellectual powers, of letting
himself go, of ' slinging ink,' of being superbly emphatic ;
a natural thoughtfulness and reserve helped to restrain
him.
" He was hesitating and rather nervous ' up to
Books,' 2 but a most delightful boy to teach, very re-
ceptive, very sure of his grasp, and full of appreciation of
the right things. An interesting sign of this was the
remarkable way in which he developed the taste and
abilities of a good classical scholar. His Greek Prose
task, which won the Warden and Fellow's Prize, was the
first on a list of formidable competitors.
" As his intellectual powers matured, so too his out-
look ; and at a comparatively early age he was ready for
1 Afterwards Bishop of Sonthwark, now of Oxford.
* Notion for In Class.
28 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
the University ; this meant that he had outgrown School
life and ways. I think the close quarters and confined
competition chafed him ; the uncongenial in surroundings
and persons struck him forcibly, and it was always an
effort to subordinate the uncongenial to something good
and attractive which is generally to be found beneath or
with it ; he made the effort, though, loyally enough, and
later at the University, with more elbow-room, he seemed
to overcome the difficulty with more success. At the
same time, it would be a mistake to suppose that he held
aloof from his contemporaries at School or ' was out of it '
far from it. He was always included in the reckoning
and just as ready himself to take his share in all activities
and responsibilities. There was something very lovable
about him ; one can't describe it. I always felt that
with the sudden spring to manhood he still kept the heart
of a child. I think it was because home and home-ties
meant ever so much more to him than anything else."
As was natural in a boy of Bobby's earnestness of
mind, he accepted very seriously the responsibilities of
leadership. " I know I can only fulfil them by God's
grace," he said, " but I am sanguine of success. In my
last year, when I shall have had experience, I should like
to try the thankless role of reformer and make myself
thoroughly unpopular in the process ! " He took un-
flagging trouble over all the duties, small and great,
attached to his office ; he faced unpleasant situations
with quiet courage ; and in his personal relations with
difficult rowdy boys he always tried to bear in mind their
peculiar code of honour and to deal justly with them.
Whatever few affinities existed between him and some of
his companions, he made valiant efforts to understand
their points of view, as was shown in the cases of boys
with no religious beliefs or with immoral tendencies.
In speaking of one of the former, he said : " I am awfully
sorry for him. It is this gap in a man's character that
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 29
makes him so difficult to deal with. One can't use
arguments which would and must appeal to any Christian.
I feel how awful beyond thought his position is, with
every opportunity to enjoy life, but that side of life just
a blank. It makes me shudder to think of it. ' What
profits it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his
own soul ? ' "
Of the latter he wrote to his father : "If you want
anyone to keep straight at a public school you must
interest him either in his work or his play. Boredom is
responsible for half the mischief of every description at a
public school. There are only three ways of relieving it,
besides games : the first is mere noise, which is the least
harmful, but also the least diverting and the most easily
interfered with by a quiet-loving master ; the second
is to be quarrelsome if a prefect, tyrannical, if an
inferior, insubordinate but it is a gloomy form of excite-
ment ; and so, the third, self-indulgence, is the favourite.
It takes the forms of gluttony and immorality, of which
the latter is at once the cheapest and the most reputable.
In the boy-mind, defiance compels admiration ; and it is
a secondary consideration (such minds are incapable of
holding more than one consideration at a time) whether
the principle defied was formulated in Heaven or in Dons'
Common-Room. The two places are often confused,
though no Don would like to be told so."
His efforts at patient self-control were impervious to all
provocations save those of offenders who menaced younger
boys with contamination. Then they were swept aside
by the stream of his wrath. " I can recall," said his
House-master, Mr. Cook, " the very look of his face when-
ever any moral questions were discussed between us. In
his work as a prefect this love of duty was made effective,
not by compromise between right and wrong, but by
a most sympathetic understanding of other people's
natures. Lacking, as he did, some of the advantages
30 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
which make for influence and popularity among young
people, he won the universal respect of the boys in his
House, often their gratitude and affection, by unobstrusive
real service."
There is no doubt that Bobby's " atmosphere of
earnestness " impressed other boys, and convinced many
of them that he was a man who demanded realities of
them and who never minded what they believed, so long
as they really believed it. But, along with this im-
pression, he gave to some of the boys a feeling of aloof-
ness as if he was unable sufficiently to sympathize with
the point of view of an average person ; and this con-
ception certainly detracted from his ascendancy.
Mr. A. P. Herbert, who was a junior in the same House,
recognized this aloofness, but acknowledges that, " In
spite of the gap, I know that, with my contemporaries,
I thought of Bobby Palmer as a singularly upright and
incorruptible person, genuinely respected prefect, and a
fine Head of the House. He played his games with the
same energy which he put into everything he did foot-
ball, I remember especially, with a keen and effective
vigour."
Major Drage, his contemporary, writes to me : " All
I can do is to tell you of the qualities in Bobby which
struck me most at the time and which have remained in
my mind most characteristic of him.
" (a) Religious devotion. One of the first things I
remember about him was his habit, when quite a small
boy, of reading the Bible every night in bed after lights
were out. His method of doing this was to put the
bedclothes over his head and use an electric torch under-
neath them. It must have required some considerable
nerve to start doing this. You know how potently the
forces of School are apt to be mobilized against anything
unusual. No Covenanter was more rigid in religious
observance than Bobby ; and this, coupled with the next
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 31
characteristic, was, I think, one indication of the strength
of his character. This was (b) love of personal comfort.
He had quite a mania for surrounding himself with masses
of sofa cushions, as many and as soft as possible. It
sounds a trivial thing now, but it sticks in my mind
connected with (a), which completely overruled it when
necessary.
" (c) I remember his showing a pretty strong sense
of righteous indignation on various occasions ; the one
which I remember curiously clearly, being a petty act of
selfishness on my part, for which he dealt me a remarkably
rapid and shrewd blow in a whirlwind of indignation
which surprised me considerably !
" (d) He had a remarkable breadth of view and very
liberal ideas. I remember disagreeing with him strongly,
though amiably, on the question of corporal punishment.
He was dead against it and, if my memory serves me
correctly, scarcely ever allowed anyone to be ' cut into '
whilst he was Senior Prefect of C House. The fact that
he was able to do without corporal punishment showed
the strength of his convictions.
" (e) The quality which I like to think of most was
a curious child-likeness, if such a word exists. He could
always get anything he liked out of me and, I expect,
out of everyone, by adopting a child-like persuasiveness
which was most attractive and quite irresistible. I
remember watching him do exactly the same thing at
Blackmoor, so I expect you know just what I mean better
than I can express it.
" It is out of place for me to tell you what he was to
me personally, but I cannot finish this meagre sidelight
without saying, quite simply, that the news of his death
was a staggering blow to me, in spite of the fact that I
can hardly have seen him since he left Winchester in 1907.
It at once defined a feeling that I had had for years that
one day he would be a great leader in England and that,
32 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
in any case and whatever his call, I would follow him
blindly with supreme confidence. . . . He was not to me
what I should have called a leader of men. I have known
great soldiers who were more magnetic and whose claims
on one's allegiance were more insistent without bringing
one's reason into play. With Bobby I simply felt that
he trusted and believed in God, that God had given him
both inspiration and a wonderfully cool and capacious
brain, and that he would be a beacon light to many
struggling dimly in this difficult and perplexing modern
state of ours. I honestly believe that England has
sustained in him a loss which only a very few can in any
way estimate."
As Senior Commoner Prefect every moment of Bobby's
time, not devoted to work for his Oxford Scholarship
and Medal tasks, was occupied by various duties connected
with his office : school- work, football, golf, rackets,
various committees, fives-court management, the Debating
Society, Shakespeare Society all these he enumerates
in a letter to his mother in the autumn of 1906, adding :
"I have promised to read a paper for XIII. Club on
South Africa. 1 Next term I shall have to manage steeple-
chase and fives competitions, which will be a dreadful
nuisance."
Bobby's convictions with regard to football were
frankly heretical :
" I have been playing football hard this week. I am
coming to the conclusion that I actively dislike football,
especially our game. Roughness is like anchovy sauce :
when once introduced, it pervades the whole of a game
and spoils it completely to my taste, but some people
like the added zest. No one can play our game well,
1 The National Review of July 1906 contained an eight-page article
entitled " The Labour Problem in South Africa," which was Bobby's
maiden publication.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 33
unless they can command a loss of temper at a moment's
notice and then keep in a state of maniacal fury for an hour.
I find it difficult to do this over Clemenceau, but quite
impossible over football. Why public opinion has care-
fully selected two of the least attractive outdoor games
that I know, and has labelled them outdoor occupations
for winter and summer respectively, and then has pro-
ceeded to enforce all mankind (or boykind) to accept and
worship these ready-made images is more than I can
guess."
Bobby's independence of thought made him always
contemptuous of popular idols. It also led him to the
conclusion that his " tastes were certainly very different
from those of most boys." In this he was undoubtedly
right, for he belonged to that small minority in every
school, the goodly company of intellectual boys.
He rose rapidly from division to division and passed
early into Sixth Book, the highest division. He brought
home books * and reports monotonously excellent. The
testimony of his masters bore witness to the brilliance
and steadiness of his gifts : the sharp, keen mind of fine
literary quality and large intellectual sympathies, scrupu-
lously honest in its independence of thought, yet entirely
untainted by intellectual pride and cynicism ; the ex-
ceptional power of hard work, unusually thorough ; and
the wise humility, simplicity, and sincerity of his white
character and high purpose which together made
Bobby one of the most attractive and ablest of their
pupils.
It was under these masters and during his time at
Winchester that Bobby gained that love for the Classics
which grew into a passion at Oxford.
No description of Bobby in his latter School and
early Oxford days would be complete which did not
include the recollections of the brother who watched his
1 Notion for School-prizes.
34 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
career throughout his life with intimate love and under-
standing. Wolmer says :
" He had an innate love of good and hatred of evil.
At school his small circle of friends was always the boys
of really high character, and to outsiders he might have
appeared exclusive. But there was nothing of pride
about him. His modesty was, in fact, an obsession.
Sensitive, yet reserved as to his feelings, he could not
believe his friends cared for him as much as they did.
If it had not been for this perfectly natural humility,
combined with his never-failing sense of humour and
delight in the ridiculous, he would have been a prig.
He had not the gift of tact and would frequently blurt
out inconvenient truths. He could never dissemble his
opinion, and if he held his tongue, his thoughts were
transparent in his face.
" School -work came easy to him. Though not quick,
he had a penetrating mind and learning was no difficulty.
His strongest intellectual characteristics were his great
mental grasp and deliberate methods. He never let
anything go. From boyhood, he had a remarkable
power of concentration ; he could turn from one thing to
another instantly : three hours' work without a pause,
then at once twenty minutes (by the clock) of patience
or billiards by himself (right hand against left), then work
again, and so on. This showed his mental and nervous
strength ; he did not tire easily. These powers enabled
him to get twice as much into a day as could most other
people. In examinations, in debates at Winchester and
at Oxford, he outdistanced other people because he had
covered all the ground first. His conscientiousness pre-
vented his ever doing things by halves. For these reasons,
had he lived, he would have been Lord Chancellor or
Archbishop of Canterbury and a very good one too, as
excellent judgment was part of his gifts.
" He loved most games and brought to them all the
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 35
assiduity that he brought to everything. He never gave
the impression of playing a game as a relaxation, but
just as if it was a pleasant piece of work on hand. He
was a wide reader of every kind of literature : novels,
poetry, history, classics. One can generally learn some-
thing of a man's nature by glancing at his books. Bobby
would emerge from such a test as a man of wide sympathies
and very varied interests. His literary horizon extended
from Homer to Punch, from Dante to Darwin, from Piers
the Plowman to Rupert Brooke, from Genesis to Founda-
tions, 1 from Locke to Jerome K. Jerome, from Jane
Austen to Conan Doyle.
" He had a carefully-mapped-out reading programme
for every day ; and after he had read the thirty or forty
allotted pages of one book, would at once turn to the
next.
" Bobby was intensely human in his love for nature
and for his fellow-creatures. He was a zealous bird-
lover, as all his friends know. His love for Hampshire,
for the beautiful old villages, for Blackmoor, and, above
all, for the woods is pathetically recorded in the un-
finished novel which he began to write away from home
while stationed in India in 1915. It gives a glimpse of
the home-hunger from which he suffered. Here is the
passage :
" ' To return from the far flat countries of other
continents and find the gorse in bloom on the heathy
hills of Hampshire was in itself a draught of pure delight.
Every fold of the familiar landscape came forward like
a welcoming friend ; every tint of the forest (and where
in the world are such delightful harmonies of colour as
in the woods of South England in spring ?) was a voice
as of music. The birds on domestic cares intent, the
ridiculous rabbits that scuttled perfunctorily from the
leisurely cross-country train's approach, and the unpre-
1 Foundations. By seven Oxford men.
36 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
tentious homely butterflies that fluttered past, all touched
the thousand chords of childish reminiscences and affec-
tion which make this glorious and motherly south country
an inexpressibly sweet symphony to those who have
dwelt therein.' l
" But Bobby was no recluse. He loved human
society. His social side did not develop much till he
was about fifteen, but it became very pronounced as
he grew to manhood. He said he was never bored by
anyone provided they said what they thought. ' That
is the sine qua non of conversation,' he once remarked.
He had great conversational gifts, a great power of
sympathy in entering into the mind of the person with
whom he was talking, and an unlimited capacity for being
interested in everything except what was not good,
wholesome or clean. His conversation throughout was
illumined by flashes of humour, wit, epigram. He
always saw the comic side of everything, and his sense
of the ridiculous bubbled through all his talk and writings.
He had a genius for letter-writing. Word-pictures
flowed from his pen as tints from an artist's brush. Yet,
with all his social gifts, he could always retire at the exact
moment he had planned out to do work or play a game
or go to bed, which he always did at a quarter paststen,
except on very rare occasions."
Bobby left Winchester with a sheaf of laurels in his
hands : the Duncan Prize for an essay on the Reform
Bill, the Greek Prose Prize for a translation of one of
W. S. Lander's Dialogues, and the English Verse Prize
for a poem on " Letizia Mother of Napoleon."
In January 1907 he won a University College Scholar-
ship at Oxford, heading the list as Senior Scholar out
of one hundred and fifty-seven candidates.
In the intervals of Latin Unseen he composed the
1 From Wentworth's Reform.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 37
following masterpiece on the death of the Shah, the
notice of which was in that day's (10th January)
papers :
" Said the Czar : ' I wish I were the Shah ! '
Said his Ma : ' Why not stay as you are ? '
The Czar said : ' But he's dead
In his bed, not by lead.
How I envy the Shah ! ' said the Czar."
With Oxford beckoning to him, Bobby became
ardently desirous to leave Winchester. Quite mistakenly,
he imagined that he had proved a failure as the Head
of his House, because the reforms which he had tried
to carry out had fallen short of his aims. He could not
fail to see that the whole tone of the House was raised
and purified, but its defects and shortcomings irritated
him to an inordinate degree, while its atmosphere op-
pressed him as that of " an overgrown nursery, popu-
lated by a barbarously infantile company." The truth
was that his home-sickness, sense of isolation, and restraint
were merely symptoms of his having outgrown the
routine and limitations of school life symptoms clearly
visible to his masters. Dr. Burge advised him to leave
at the end of Common Time. 1 " It is no good trying
to keep a watch going when the spring has been taken
out," he told him ; " staying on will not only do you
no good, but your morbid disposition might infect others."
At the same time Dr. Burge wrote to my brother to
say that " Bobby had served his generation at Winchester
right well, and that he had the reward of feeling that
he had done his best for the place which had done for
him what no other place could do."
Bobby's last letter from Winchester showed that he
had begun to realize the truth of the last words.
1 Notion for January-to-Easler Term.
38 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
To ms FATHER
"SOUTHGATE HlLL, WINCHESTER,
April 5, 1907.
" This is the last letter I shall write you from this
address ; and in spite of our present incompatibility of
temperament, I feel that I owe a great deal to Winchester,
to its blemishes as well as to its excellencies. It is rather
a gruff introduction to the world and its ways, but I
think it is more instructive to see everything in its
crude and naked barbarism. It makes it much easier
to tell good and evil apart when one meets them later
dressed up. But the process is not pleasant. . . .
" Self -consciousness I feel to be my curse and my
danger. It leads me, especially among unsensitive
people (who make no allowances, such as boys), to self-
absorption, which is a dangerous form of selfishness,
since it comes in a hypocritical cloak of priggishness and
is altogether very bad for me. I am very glad to be
able to think I am leaving a House so much better than
the one I came to five years ago."
Bobby left Winchester on 5th April 1907, and shortly
afterwards he started on his second visit to South Africa.
CHAPTER III
OXFORD, 1907-1909
AFTER a delightful holiday in South Africa, Bobby re-
turned to England in the autumn of 1907. At the be-
ginning of the Michaelmas Term he went into residence
at Oxford as a Scholar of University College, and took
possession of his " watch-tower," as his friends called his
housetop rooms, the attractive, austere simplicity of
which was characteristic of their occupant. The aspect
of the keeper of the watch-tower beamed with peace and
goodwill. I think what most struck observers was the
pure serenity of his face. His complexion was pale and
clear ; he had light hair, a broad forehead, straight
marked eyebrows, from beneath which deep-set grey
eyes, with a delicately curved outward droop of the
eyelids, looked forth on the world with calm discerning
friendliness. His nose was straight and his mouth smiled
in beautiful curves above a firm, rounded chin. His head
was well set upon his broad shoulders and his body finely
formed ; he was always carelessly clothed, generally in
rather untidy loose grey tweeds.
Such was Bobby's appearance when he was first
introduced to the ardent company of Wolmer's Oxford
political friends. They had been warned of his approach-
ing advent by his elder brother in the cryptic announce-
ment : " He is a great person, is Bobby ! "
The studious Bobby was somewhat alarmed by his first
impressions of Oxford.
" There is no doubt," he wrote, " that Oxford is a
40 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
most attractive place, but it is also extremely distracting,
and, for a fresher especially, it is very difficult to work
here. It is not politics that takes the time. They only
employ two evenings a week, but it is the amount of
society one sees. But one must suffer it to be so, as the
object of Oxford is almost as much to get to know people
as it is to do some work."
Wolmer reported in October to South Africa that :
" Bobby has made maiden speeches at both the Canning
and the Union. They were both very good. I am glad
to say he likes the Canning, but he is very unsociable in
other matters I find that conversation does not interest
him at all."
Possibly, because of incompatibility of hours. Wolmer
could only discuss after ten at night, Bobby, only before
ten in the morning ! So they both affirmed at that time.
In the beginning of November, Lady Salisbury and
her young daughters, with Lord Hugh and Lady Gwen-
dolen Cecil, descended on the boys at Oxford and under-
went a strenuous lionizing of its Colleges. Lady Gwen-
dolen wrote to Maud, saying :
*' I need hardly tell you that Bobby, though he has
only been three weeks at Oxford, has already settled
down to a methodical scheme of work, never misses a
lecture, and has his eyes firmly fixed upon his c Honours
Mods ' a year and a half hence. He was very serene and,
I think, very happy. Rather quieter than when I saw
him at Winchester, more observant, fitting himself, I
think, to the stupendous change of position between a
Senior Prefect's and a Freshman's."
At the Oxford Canning Club, at the Union, and in his
own College, Bobby made friends who quickly learnt to
love and appreciate him. One of them, the Rev. E.
Priestley Swain, described how " Bobby at once found his
place at Oxford. His success was intimate and personal.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 41
Words cannot describe his charm, and very few could
resist it. He was always happier in smaller gatherings
than in big ones, and I fancy that usually he preferred to
be with one friend than with more than one. His thought-
fulness and deep seriousness, combined with his natural-
ness and sense of humour, made him a companion of rare
distinction." 1
One of Bobby's most intimate College friends, the
Rev. N. Micklem, 2 has sent me a character-sketch of him,
which may fitly find its place here :
" Bobby Palmer and I were very much together in
Oxford, and I think we must have discussed most subjects
in heaven and earth ; he was almost always saying the
most delicious things about persons and problems. I
remember the quizzical way in which he would say them,
and then how he would laugh ; but his epigrams and
sayings were part of our daily bread, and I wish I had
treasured them up in my memory.
" We went on a reading party to a farm near Prince-
town on Dartmoor ; it was Easter and very cold, and we
enjoyed our peat fires and cream. He and I, at least, had
gone with the intention of reading for Greats, but the
reading-party tended to develop into a ' theological
scrap,' for we were of all denominations and heresies.
Bobby was the most silent of the party in these exciting
discussions ; he would make pleasant sallies against every
position more readily than he would reveal his own.
But he did not leave us in much doubt where he stood.
I think it is true to say that in technical theology
Bobby had no great interest ; again, he was not in
any narrow sense an ' ecclesiastically minded layman ' ;
you could not label him high or low or broad ; but the
whole bent of his mind and temper was Christian, and
1 From article on " Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer" in The Common-
wealth, May 1916.
* Now Chaplain and Tutor of Mansfield College.
6
42 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
religion was in all his actions and is manifest in his
photographs.
" He was very sympathetic towards c Nonconformity,'
but the Church of England met his needs and claimed his
entire devotion. I was with him once at the Summer
Conference of the Students' Christian Union ; I think he
felt at home there, but his religion was of a very intimate
and personal kind, and he did not speak of it easily even
to his friends.
" I think that the Confessional stood in his eyes as the
symbol of that complete surrender which Christianity
requires ; I know it had a great appeal for him along that
line, though I do not know what was his own practice in
regard to it. I remember but once hearing him give a
religious address, but I remember it as profoundly religious
and delightfully free from the religious jargon familiar on
such occasions.
" Everybody liked him ; but he was shy and reserved,
and I think he had not many undergraduate friends.
But I think that the few men who did know him loved
and honoured him as few are loved and honoured ; he
was so simple and unassuming and absolutely without
affectation. I think he really kept the heart of a little
child ; he was always laughing ; it seems so characteristic
of him that I can hear his laugh when I think of him. He
was one of the most lovable of men."
No words could be more emphatic than these ; yet
Bobby, obsessed by his sensitiveness, remained sceptical
of the possibility of his ever winning the affection of his
friends.
He wrote to his mother in his first term at Oxford :
" I know I am blessed or afflicted (and I suppose some
other people are, too) with an almost ridiculously sensitive
set of feelings, and so, when someone without imagina-
tion comes stamping round on them, it hurts too much
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 43
to allow me really to like them ever. I often resolve not
to stand such nonsense and argue with myself that if I
could only get over this prejudice I should find So-and-so
very nice. But, next time I meet him, down comes the
hobnailed boot and I retreat into myself as instinctively
as a snail when you pinch it. It may, perhaps, prevent
one making what would otherwise be pleasant friendships ;
but if there are, as there must be, other people of the
same sort, it is only by knowing how easily my own
sensitiveness is wounded that I can avoid wounding
theirs ; and when I do meet exactly the right friend,
our power of friendship and sympathy will be twice as
great through our being so tender over-tender if you
like. I have not found this friend yet, but I hope to do
so here. I should have been a far better prefect at
Winchester if I could have been in close sympathy and
touch with all the men. I was often tempted to envy
them for the easiness with which they were contented
in their friendships and their horny souls on which no
corns grew, so that they kicked each other all day without
feeling it. But I comfort myself with the reflection that,
when I am satisfied, it will be something really worth
having. I only hope I shan't have to go on 4 yearning
for the unattainable ' like the man in Patience. . . . The
greatest penalty in being like a sea-anemone is the amount
of energy I have to expend in screwing up my courage
to meet a possible (often wholly imaginary) rebuff. I
am more afraid of meeting with a rebuff from a friend
(and I suppose I want to regard too many people as
friends) than I should be of fighting in a battle (and I'm
sure that would frighten me more than I cared). I tell
you all this because it relieves me and because I know
that, however silly you think me, you will never laugh
at me. But I am so much happier here, I feel as if I
should find my friend here and then I ask nothing
more."
44 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Two and a half years passed and Bobby was still on
the search. " I find it impossible to see enough of my
friends to make them real friends. Consequently I pick
up a great many acquaintances, but there is nobody
that 1 know will be glad to see me at any time. This is,
no doubt, mostly my fault, because I can't get on quickly
with people I care about."
The boon of a perfect friendship for which Bobby
craved so ardently all his life was, strangely enough,
withheld from him until a year before his death. It was
the sole trophy won by him on the field of war.
Bobby's first Oxford vacation was spent at Hatfield
One of the Christmas frolics there was a fancy-dress
evening, at which Wolmer and Bobby appeared as copies
of TenniePs drawing of Tweedledum and Tweedledee in
Through the Looking Glass. Their sister acted as dresser ;
and with white calico trousers, pillow stuffing, paper
collars, cricketing caps, and a very slight making up of
their faces, she turned them out exactly alike. The
mystification was complete. " How papa would have
enjoyed it ! " sighed the triumphant artist towards the
antipodes. Other festivities, in the shape of balls, Bobby
shirked, because he said that the late hours interfered
with his work. When someone asked Wolmer why
Bobby was working so hard with no examination in
immediate prospect, Wolmer replied with immense scorn :
** For the love of it ! the mere love of it ! "
It is possible that work was not the sole cause of
Bobby's abstinence from dances. At that period of his
life he suffered intense depression from the platitudes of
ballroom conversations, and complained that : " Those
of ordinary partners are degradingly futile, while the
brighter people make their conversation a stream of bites
at the back of the ninth commandment." This may,
however, be an unfair inference on my part, for he was
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 45
beginning to work for his Moderations Examination, the
Hertford Scholarship and the Newdigate, and had
therefore sufficient reason for wise husbandry of his time.
The sole diversions he allowed himself were his evenings
at the Canning l and the Union.
His deep interest in politics increased with years.
** He was at once singularly mature and perfectly fresh
in his outlook on political questions," was Mr. J. A. R.
Marriott's judgment concerning his papers and speeches
at the Canning. His friends defined his attitude as that
of an advanced Social reformer who remained a Con-
servative from the conviction that legislation should
follow, not precede, public opinion ; and this view agrees
with his own vindication of the position of the Tory party.
" The Tory party stands for common sense, as opposed
to fads ; that is to say, it keeps its ideals in perspective
and prefers to compromise on the maximum of the
attainable good under present conditions, as opposed to
the doctrinaires who will sacrifice possible good to the
impossible better." 2
Bobby spoke frequently at the meetings of the Canning
Club. Its older members, who had watched many genera-
tions of the most brilliant young men, Conservatives by
profession, pass through Oxford, were greatly impressed
by his exceptional seriousness of purpose, his strong, well-
defined views and the charming modesty with which he
expressed them in admirable speeches delivered without
any attempt at ornament or rhetoric.
Mr. A. P. Herbert admired the way in which he always
seemed to be " trying to tear out the heart of the future,
really getting to the bottom of things. Of all the
clever and able men," he said, " who used to speak in the
1 The Oxford Canning Club was a Conservative Club for the guardian-
ship and preservation of the British Constitution as established in Church
and State.
* From his unfinished novel, Wentworth's Reform.
46 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Canning, two men, Bobby Palmer and Gilbert Talbot,
impressed me by the statesmanlike quality of their
utterances. Bobby was a man of far greater intellectual
attainments than Gilbert, but, politically, those two stood
almost alone. Bobby had foresight, imagination, con-
structiveness. He was also admirably lucid, and the rare
flashes of humour rarer than Gilbert's were always a
delight. Further he had an abundant forbearance for
the more inarticulate and foolish among us, and dealt
with our blurted observations with a grave courtesy
which they did not always deserve."
Bobby used to like to deliver his speeches from the
rostrum of the hearthrug, generally speaking towards
the end of a debate. Churchwarden pipes and mulled
claret were part of the prescribed rites, but Bobby was
almost the only member who appreciated the first of these
dainties. He would puff at his pipe between his sentences,
and obviously drew inspiration from it. He used to speak
with his eyes fixed on the opposite wall looming dimly
through the haze of the tobacco smoke. Now and then
he would pause with a slight hesitation in the choice of
a word, but with no uncertainty as to the substance of his
remarks. Most of the debates in which he took part
were concerned with the Home policy of the Government
and the political position of the moment.
Bobby's intense desire that " the maximum of attain-
able good " should be acquired by all citizens of the
Empire led him to study the different methods, advocated
by Tory Democrats and Socialists, for reaching that end.
To ms FATHER
" OXFORD,
January 23, 1908.
" I thoroughly agree with what you say about the
true function of the Tory party, but I don't think the
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 47
Young England section go quite as far in a Radical
direction as you seem to think. I have never heard any
of them propose to interfere with the rights of property
in the sphere of practical politics. Many of them are
taken with the ideal of Socialism in which nobody should
own anything ; but the Radical preliminary of taking
away what the rich have doesn't find favour. Really,
I don't think that I disagree with them. Socialism is
the highest ideal ; but, because I am perfectly certain
it could not be realized and that the attempt to realize
it would be disastrous, I don't go about saying what a
magnificent ideal it is, as they do, because it seems to
me (a) a waste of time and (b) an expression of opinion
that is liable to be misinterpreted in a dangerous
way. I don't think it quite fair to say that this new-
born zeal for social reform is a hypocritical attempt to
outbid the Radicals. No Unionist principle is sacrificed,
and they are really anxious to make life easier for the
working classes. I think they sometimes adopt a more
pro-Socialist tone than their real opinions represent, out
of antagonism to the absolute dogma of Individualism
which flourished in the fifties and still survives in Harold
Cox. A great many of the Oxford Tories can't keep in
mind the difference between Trade Unionism and Socialism.
They either condemn Socialism in theory because of
Keir-Hardie, or urge alliance with the Labour party
because of their theoretical approval of the ideal of
Socialism. They all impress me as knowing singularly
little about it all, though I can't judge, being as ignorant
as anyone myself."
The Oxford University Settlement in East London
provided Bobby with a valuable school for the study of
Labour problems. He eagerly enrolled himself as one of
its disciples, and spent many days there in the Lent
of 1908, being instructed in its work and methods.
48 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Eventually he became one of its most useful members,
and rendered valuable service as Poor Man's Lawyer.
East London was not alone in receiving help from
my nephew. In the autumn of 1908 he, with forty-four
other undergraduates and five graduates (under the
leadership of the Bishop of Bombay), 1 joined in an
organized missionary campaign in the environs of South
London. Greenwich, Deptford, Woolwich, and Lewisham
were the field of action. For ten days the fifty pleaded
the cause of Foreign Missions in churches, Sunday schools,
mothers' meetings, clubs, bible classes, and anywhere
where anyone would give them a hearing.
" Some of us spoke very well. Others couldn't speak
at all ! " Bobby told us afterwards, but he added :
44 1 think we stirred up a lot of real interest, which will
lead, I trust, to a certain amount of definite action.
I think the fact that the forty-five could be collected
at all was a tribute to the great powers of prayer."
He sent his father a detailed account of his personal
share in the venture.
"BLACKHEATH, S.E.,
October 1, 1908.
" I got here on Saturday evening for the campaign.
I am quartered with Foss Prior of University on a church-
warden of St. Alphege, the big Greenwich church, a
very nice man with a very nice wife. The campaign
began that evening with an intercession service at St.
Alphege, with an address from Jimmy Bombay, followed
by a huge ' business meeting ' at which we were all
given marching orders for Sunday. My first job was
to address a men's Bible class in St. James Church,
Hatcham, a fine large church holding twelve hundred;
it had just been painted inside under the vicar's personal
superintendence. He had removed the frontal cloth of
1 His cousin, the Right Rev. Dr. E. J. Palmer.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 49
the communion table, as he expressed it, because he
didn't want his church to look ' like an overdressed
female.' I felt tempted to remark that under-dressed
females who showed their legs were almost as improper,
but happily refrained. In the church were fifteen men,
one in each pew for fifteen rows. The church appeared
to be about the size of Winchester Cathedral. After
two hymns (Moody and Sankey) and some extempore
prayers by the churchwarden, I talked to the fifteen
men. I'm afraid I wasn't inspiring, but the circumstances
weren't. After speaking, I had to offer up extemporary
prayers and the class dispersed at 4.15. I was to give
an address after Evensong at Forest Hill. I reached the
station at 5.40 or so, feeling depressed and alarmed.
I walked about a bit, trying to frame a speech, and then
set out to find the vicarage. The door was open ;
tobacco emanated from a study door and a cheery voice
called out : ' Is that you. Palmer ? Come in ; that's
capital. Sit down. Have a cigarette,' and I knew I had
struck high ground again. What a relief ! A jolly-faced,
athletic, middle-aged man smoking, in a cassock (which
I hailed as a sign of grace), with another campaigner in
an arm-chair, was the comforting sight that met my eyes.
The Rev. C. W. Bailey was distinctly ' high,' an Oxford
man, and great fun to talk to. His church was big,
holding a thousand, and was very full. After a full
service, the choir processed out, and those who wished
to, left. When we returned I found that fully five
hundred had stayed to hear me. I felt queer, but
excited rather than nervous. After one hymn I went
to the chancel steps and spoke from there. Once started,
I found it infinitely easier to speak to five hundred than
to fifteen. The effect of the five hundred was to give
me an intense, electrical concentration. I had not
thought out my speech thoroughly, but every argument
I wanted presented itself at the right moment, and the
7
5 o ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
power to select it and express it as forcibly as I could.
How much was the effect of the audience and how much
the result of my own and other people's prayers I don't
know, but I do think I came through that address far
better than I ever should have thought possible.
** Since Sunday I have only had evening meetings.
On Monday I went to St. Lawrence, Catford, dined
with a * moderate high ' parson, and spoke to a missionary
meeting, i.e. forty old ladies and half a dozen men
in a parish room. Sunday night seems to have cured
me of nervousness. I have not felt a trace since ; though
I must admit I have tackled nothing very alarming.
I got on quite well at Catford, and the vicar started an
organization on the spot and induced people to take
boxes, etc. At this meeting another campaigner spoke
too. On Tuesday I addressed a temperance meeting
in the parish of St. Peter's, Greenwich, the incumbent
of which was a dear little old man, the kindest, gentlest,
most saintly, and charitable person imaginable. He told
me he had been there thirty-eight years. His parish
is twenty-two acres in extent, and comprises five thousand
inhabitants, not one of whom keeps a domestic servant
a very poor district, the only part I have yet seen here
that at all resembles Bethnal Green. I spoke to some
thirty women and children, with a few men. I didn't
speak well, but I wasn't hopelessly bad.
" Last night Prior and I went to St. Hilda's, Crofton
Park and spoke to a missionary meeting of forty to fifty
in a little room. We both spoke quite to our satisfaction,
and the people seemed interested.
" If my campaigning does nothing else, it will certainly
improve my speaking, I think. But I feel it is doing a
good deal more than that."
Bobby was one of the six undergraduates selected as
speakers at the final meeting, which he described as
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 51
"packed. It was in the Blackheath Concert Hall. A
thousand people present and some of the speeches
astonishingly impressive. Jem's was as perfect as any-
thing human could be, and the Bishop of Southwark l was
Al, but three of the campaigners were, in a way, more
wonderful still."
In the autumn of 1908 Bobby's mother spent three
months in England, to the delight of all her family. She
stayed long enough to see the beginning of her youngest
son's public-school life at Winchester. After her de-
parture, Bobby constituted himself her deputy, and was
never too busy to allow of his paying constant visits to
Winchester during the inevitably difficult first months of
initiation. He seemed to us to combine the understand-
ing of a sympathetic woman with the wise counsel of a
middle-aged man in his watchful care over Luly, whose
deep admiration and love he won unreservedly.
His unselfish efforts brought Bobby an unexpected
reward. Up to this time he had shrunk from visiting
Winchester, which appeared to him to be haunted by the
shades of his failures. He was convinced that, though as
Senior Prefect he had had " an intense desire to do good
to his House before he left," he had only achieved disas-
trous blunders ; that, " instead of his millennium " he
had strengthened the forces of evil and had earned a
vehement unpopularity by his mismanaged attempts to
reform. All his recollections were poisoned by this
miserable belief ; and it was only on the occasion of one
of his fatherly visits to Luly that he nerved himself to
visit Southgate Hill once more.
He had forgotten the difference which two years
makes in the personality of a school. To his intense
surprise, when he entered the prefects' library he was
greeted with enthusiasm. The reigning prefects of that
1 Dr. E. Talbot, afterwards Bishop of Winchester.
52 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
day had been the juniors whose battles he had fought two
years before ; they poured out their appreciation of his
championship, of his valiant crusade against tyrannies
and abuses ; they told him of the change that his efforts
had wrought ; and they declared that his period of office
had become a great tradition, with him as its hero. He
returned from his visit with a face glowing with happiness.
A few questions made him relate his experience, with
the comment : " And all this time I have been think-
ing that what I did was an entire failure perhaps a
mistake ! "
Bobby's saying that " Hills look steep in the distance "
described truly the piles of work which he had to surmount
in 1909. Nevertheless, he succeeded in reaching the peak,
and was placed third in order of merit for his Newdigate
poem on " Michael Angelo," sixth in the competition
for the Hertford Scholarship, and was Honourably Men-
tioned in that for the Ireland. He was among the five
University College men who won " Firsts " in the
Moderations Examination that year, his work in the
Examination having won for him the rare number of
twelve alphas out of a possible fourteen. This success
justified the quaintly methodical system by which he
" divided the term into weeks and the needful work into
corresponding blocks, with no theatres or dinners and
refusal of all speechifying outside the Union and Canning,
and of all meetings except those of the Oxford House."
The vacations were also utilized for study. He arrived at
Falloden (lent to the Howicks by Sir Edward Grey),
according to his sister's description, " with packing-cases
of books and reams of foolscap, and he has entrenched
himself in the library behind piles of books. I trust,"
she added, " that the results will one day show them-
selves to an astonished world I " While Bobby was there,
the only outside inhabitants allowed to intrude upon him
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 53
were Sir Edward's tame squirrels, who flippantly climbed
in and out of the windows.
Just before his Moderations Examination Bobby
made the welcome discovery that " the quicker he worked,
the better he did it, which was odd, but which showed
that with him it was all a question of concentration."
His triumph was followed immediately by the Easter
Vacation, a welcome interlude of " unalloyed joy " spent
by Bobby in Paris and Rome as the guest of his uncle and
aunt, the Comte and Comtesse de Franqueville, the latter
of whom lionized him to his heart's content. Among
other sights described by him in a letter to Wolmer, he
mentioned a visit to the Chambre des D&puUs.
" The rules of procedure in debate are odd : Number 1
seems to be that any deputy shall talk incessantly at the
top of his voice throughout the sitting, excepting only the
President, who (like the Speaker) does not speak, but is
provided with a bell, by the continual ringing of which
he may prevent himself from feeling out of it. It is, on
the whole, less effective than the Opera, though the
volume of sound compares not unfavourably."
The special object for which the De Franquevilles,
with multitudes of other devout French pilgrims, visited
Rome that Easter was to attend the Services for the
Beatification of Jeanne d'Arc. No traveller appreciated
more keenly than Bobby the peculiar privileges open to
him as a companion of a camtrier of the Pope and of the
crowd of pilgrims. No neophyte was more perfectly
prepared for initiation into the mysteries of that treasure-
house of the world than Bobby, fresh from his tilt with his
examiners, still clad in the panoply of classic learning.
His enthusiastic delight in the sights of Rome filled
many pages of his South African letters. They describe
his rapture at the " entrancing " Vatican pictures ; his
falling in love with the newly discovered statue of Niobe,
54 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
the Psyche of Naples and the Melian Aphrodite ; the long
hours spent in the Forum under the splendid guidance of a
fellow Wykehamist, Dr. Thomas Ashby, Director of the
British Archaeological School in Rome; his inspiring
visits to churches, services, ruins, catacombs, gardens ;
his impression of an audience with Pope Pius x. on Easter
Eve ; and the Service in St. Peter's for the Beatification
of Jeanne d'Arc.
On Maunday Thursday he was taken to the Trappist
monastery of Tre Fontane, the site of St. Paul's martyr-
dom, where " His head was cut off, and, bounding three
times, caused three fountains to spring up. This is an
unconvincing miracle and not very useful ; the site shows
St. Paul must have been of an elastic build," remarked
Bobby.
He was impressed by the differing qualities of apprecia-
tion shown by French and British lionizers.
" Sight-seeing, with the French," he wrote, " is interest-
ing. Their artistic appreciation is so quick and acute ;
but they have a superficiality of interest very different
from the English and German. They despise catalogues.
They admire a statue, but are not in the least curious as
to its subject, author or date. They have no desire to
know whether it is by Canova or Polycleitus. They
admire it and look at it solely for its beauty as one might
admire a pebble on the beach. The Briton almost always
adds to his admiration (when genuine) a curiosity
scientific or historical. This, I say patriotically, is the
broader and more truly artistic view, because it regards
each work of art as a part of the whole of its art-system,
having its place and characteristics in that relation : so
regarded, the individual works can be more fully under-
stood and interpreted. Thus a more complete apprecia-
tion is possible. In practice, I admit, the interest of
classification, with English people, is apt to absorb the
attention, at the expense of aesthetic responsiveness,
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 55
which is less instinctive in us than in the French. But a
light touch does not often go very deep.
"In another respect the French are more matter-of-
fact than we. Mystery has not the slightest attraction
for them. They stop the pursuit of a thing directly
they see they can't catch it. Thus they may save time,
but they miss a lot of pleasure. Moreover, the occupation
often leads to achievements otherwise impossible. It
was the favourite employment of the Greeks and, for me,
one of their chief charms. All this d propos the famous
Cippus, i.e. archaic pillar, discovered in the Forum of
the sixth or eighth century B.C., with an inscription on
all four sides written in strange semi-Greek, containing
strange primitive words and forms which can only be
recognized here and there. The main part is undecipher-
able, and for that reason the most thrilling of all the
inscriptions in Rome to me : even Fia professes enthu-
siasm, but to my uncle it is sheer waste of time to look
at a thing you can't read."
The culminating effect on Bobby's mind of the Beatifi-
cation Services in St. Peter's was produced by the
wonderful and theatrical illuminations, the superb music,
and the vast crowd of French pilgrims, whose hymn,
" Sauve, sauve la France,
Ne 1'abandonne pas ! "
set a thrill of sympathy vibrating in his heart.
CHAPTER IV
OXFORD, 1909-1911
ON his return to Oxford, Bobby immediately began to
work for his Greats examination. He wrote to his
mother :
" I have finally decided to take Greats after carefully
considering the arguments against it. In the first place,
I am satisfied that, as schools are arranged here, Greats
is the best education ; that is to say, it does more to
teach you to think independently. The main disad-
vantage seems to be that Greats accentuate the Jubal, at
the expense of the Tubal, Cain in one. That is the
utilitarian point of view and there is a lot to be said for
it, though I shall never be much of a utilitarian. I feel
sure Greats reading will be more congenial than history.
What weighs most of all with me is the classical side. I
am, as you know, just now fast caught in the spell of
their fascination ; they are my greatest interest just
now; and if I had history, I should have to drop them
right in the middle of the fever. No doubt it is a pity
that my family are so unclassical and so un-Greatslike ;
but you've nobly come to the rescue, and as long as I may
let off a little steam occasionally I am happy."
Bobby attached enormous value to the intellectual
sympathy afforded to him by his mother, and appreciated
deeply the efforts she made to follow his reading for the
Greats school and also her unconventional criticisms on
the various systems of philosophy which he was studying.
He found her comments " most illuminating, by flashes."
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 57
Certainly Bobby's letters to his mother written at
this time kept her informed of many details of his work
and of his views on the Greek drama, the world-debt to
Plato, philosophy, metaphysics and kindred subjects.
On the value of the existing system of the study of
the classics, he wrote :
" It teaches one accuracy of thought. You are taught
to read every book as though it were a proof-sheet, and
though this makes reading slow, it certainly makes one
remember what is in the book ; and not only in books.
I find myself dropping into the same frame of mind while
listening to a speech or sermon, and instinctively light on
the weak and strong points ; this is very useful in debate.
Most valuable of all, perhaps, for everyday purposes is
its use in teaching one to write English. One can only
write good English by thinking pedantic English as one
writes."
Bobby was somewhat perplexed by his mother's lack
of appreciation of Plato's political theories. To a fanciful
comparison suggested by her between General Botha, as
type of the practical unphilosophical statesman, and
Plato, as type of the " thinker on a throne," Bobby
replied with the following comments :
" As for Plato and Botha as rulers, Plato would fail
because he would be too far in advance of the common
man. The political leader must be only just in advance
of the ideas of the mass of his countrymen ; he must
be near enough to have links by which he can attach
them to himself. One might almost say that a teacher
is only enabled to lead by his own shortcomings or back-
ward parts. Plato was so far ahead of 400 B.C. (and
possibly of A.D. 1900) that he would have been far above
out of their sight and they would have declined to follow
him. It is not want of knowledge of men which would
have prevented Plato from descending to the standard
of others and governing accordingly, but the almost
8
58 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
physical impossibility, for a man who sees the truth, of
letting it go, abandoning what he sees to be right, and
submitting to the ignorance and prejudices of his mental
inferiors. If Plato had been offered a throne, he ought
to have refused it, and I think he would. Yet, of course,
the world owes far more to Plato than it ever will to
Botha. A man like Plato is too far away from his own
time to fit into it ; but he made bridges for the next and
succeeding generations. He could appeal to thinkers,
and in a few generations his disciples mastered his
thoughts and so diffused them. If I had to sum up
Plato's service to the world in a sentence, I should say
he had saved it five hundred years. You say that Plato
would have been driven out within ten years : this is
the greatest tribute you could pay to his greatness. Our
Lord was killed after three years. I don't think the
comparison is irrelevant. How many hundred years
farther back should we be if it had not been for
Christianity ? "
And : " A pleasant surprise is Aristotle : he has none
of Plato's charm, I grant you ; but from an inquirer's
point of view is more helpful and he is much more inter-
esting than I had expected. Plato so often outlines
theories and leaves you to answer the objections : a
stimulating education for the leisured and ingenious.
Aristotle is honest and meets his own objections briefly.
We are reading the Ethics, and, so far, I agree with
almost all his analysis, especially his definition of happi-
ness as ' a soul-activity on lines of excellence ' (which
sounds so odd in English). We can't realize at all ex-
actly how much we owe to Plato and Aristotle, but, as far
as we can judge, each broke absolutely new ground in
his line, and saved the human race centuries of thought."
On the royal trio of Greek tragedians :
" -ffischylus is undoubtedly far the greatest poet,
Sophocles is the most perfect artist, and Euripides is the
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 59
deepest thinker. He is too prone to philosophical
digressions to be a first-class poet or dramatist when
judged by whole works. But incidental passages show
he was a wonderful poet, but had not great facility of
expression. He stands to ^Eschylus as Browning to
Shakespeare, yet Euripides is a much greater thinker
than Browning ; and ^Eschylus' mind was far more like
Milton's, though he can only be compared to Shake-
speare for his terrific power over language. Sophocles
is the Tennyson of Greek i.e. first for sheer beauty and
grace (that is how Tennyson appeals to me), but hardly
sublime."
Of the great English writers whose names are graven
beside those of the ancient world on the walls of Apollo's
temple, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Tennyson were
most venerated by Bobby, while he delighted in the
music of Keats, Shelley, and Swinburne. His apprecia-
tion of Tennyson, though written later, may fitly be given
here. He said :
" His mind, to my thinking, was profound but not of
very wide range, and strangely abstract. His only pressing
intellectual problems are those of immortality and evil,
and he reached his point of view on those before he was
forty. He never advances or recedes from the position
summarized in the preface to In Memoriam, d. 1849.
The result is that his later work lacks the inspiration of
restlessness and discovery, and he tends to put more and
more of his genius into the technique of his verse and
less into the meaning.
" Tennyson saw and stated the whole rebels' position.
In Memoriam is largely a debate between the Shelley-
Swinburne point of view and the Christian. Only he
states it so abstractedly that, to people familiar with
Browning's concrete and humanized dialectic, it seems
cold and artificial. But it's really his sincerest and
deepest thought, and he deliberately rejects the rebel
60 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
position as intellectually and morally untenable, and
adopts a position of acquiescent agnosticism on the
problem of evil, subject to an unshakable faith in immor-
tality and the love of God. This is a red rag to your
Swinburnes. I want to get to the bottom of his position.
Shelley's I know, and it is, in my opinion, a much more
obvious, easier and more superficial one than Tennyson's,
besides being based on a distorted view of Christianity.
Shelley, in fact, wanted to abolish Christianity as the first
step towards teaching men to be Christian."
And of Swinburne : " Swinburne disappoints me as
a mind perverse, fantastic, and involved. Obscure when
he means something, he is worse when he means nothing.
As an imagination he is wonderful. His poetry is really
a series of vivid and crowding pictures only held together
by a few general and loose, though big, ideas."
The two years of strenuous qualification for the
Honours School of Litterae Humaniores were regarded by
Bobby as spent in laying the foundation of his life's work.
" If one is not fitted to influence people socially, as seems
to be my case," he explained, " one must try intellectually,
that is to say, by politics or literature. The classics are
a fine literary training, so time spent on them is not
wasted."
His College tutors still retain vivid recollections of
his work and personality.
Mr. G. H. Stevenson says : " I had a great liking and
admiration for Bobby Palmer. He was probably the
ablest man whom I have been called upon to instruct,
and he possessed a maturity of judgment which one very
rarely finds in people of his age. Though he was always
willing to argue and question a statement, one always
felt that he was really trying to get at the truth of the
matter and was mostly applying a well-balanced intellect
to the question in hand."
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 61
Mr. E. F. Carritt also considered Bobby to be among
the best pupils in philosophy that he had had in twenty
years.
" I don't know," he says, " that I ever had a pupil
who so strongly gave me the impression that you could
trust him to deal in a thoroughly competent and scholarly
way with anything that was put before him. It was the
general solidity and balance of his mind and his deter-
mination to grasp a subject thoroughly that struck me.
" I always remember one remark of his. We were
discussing an essay of his on some point of moral philo-
sophy, and I suggested that a man might do certain things
under compulsion or fear of death. He said, 4 Oh ! I
never feel I should be at all afraid of dying.' The natural-
ness and spontaneity with which it came out were very
striking in a boy of that age. ... I always liked and
admired him so much."
Bobby became the pupil of Mr. A. B. Poynton in
1907. He says of him : " I saw a good deal of Bobby's
work and found him a delightful pupil. He helped me
by his shrewd and sensible questions, and almost always
contributed something worthy of consideration. He
argued, but without captiousness and perverse ingenuity.
He wanted to get everything clear to his mind and exact ;
if I did not convince him, he would take up my clues
and go back to the evidence. He never shirked a diffi-
culty. He had a practice, irritating to some examiners
and opposed to Oxford conventions, of appending notes
to his translations. So unwilling was he to produce a
false impression that I have known him reveal doubt
about a rendering which was absolutely right and, in any
case, tenable. My objection to this proceeding was
disarmed by the obvious sincerity of his mind. He was,
perhaps, not quite so quick-sighted as some of his con-
temporaries, and he did not trust his instinct sufficiently ;
but I always felt that had his lot been to pursue the study
62 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
of the Greek and Latin classics, he would have gone very
far in the scholarship perhaps as an interpreter of
philosophical texts.
"His skill in composing Greek and Latin verse was
not specially remarkable, but he wrote very good prose.
He was most careful to represent the English exactly.
" Bobby was very highly esteemed in college, and his
influence with his fellow-scholars was great. He fully
sustained his record [of success in Moderations] both in
Greats and in the examination for the Ireland and Craven
Scholarships, when he was distinguished by the examiners.
Our men were proud of him, and all his teachers felt that
he was * golden,' good, wise, learned, and loyal.
" But his great honour was won in a wider field, as
an officer and president of the Union. A man who fills
that position must take a prominent place in the Univer-
sity and one or more of its political clubs.
" What would Bobby do in the world ? How often
I discussed this with those who knew him ! It seemed to
me that he would make a name at the Bar and then, in
some time of emergency, civil discord, or labour trouble,
he might spring up suddenly as a real force in English
life, like others of his kindred."
In June 1909, Bobby was invited, by the suffrages of
his friends, to occupy the presidential chair of the Oxford
University Church Union. He filled it with eminent
success. During his term of office he compiled a new
service-book (with the aid of his uncle, Lord Hugh Cecil)
for the weekly intercessions; and by his leadership he
helped to raise the life of the whole body to a higher level.
Most of its members were undergraduates ; and it needed,
as such Church societies often do need, a softening,
sweetenizing, humanizing influence. This was Bobby's
contribution. This enabled him, with the help of his
friend Mr. Micklem (a Congregationalist and President of
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 63
the Christian Union), to succeed in converting the two
Unions into colleagues instead of rivals. The chairman
of the Church Union (the Rev. C. Whittuck, vicar of
St. Mary's, Oxford) was greatly impressed by Bobby's
wisdom as shown in his suggestions for the selection of
preachers of the Special Sermons to undergraduates.
Bobby never allowed his strong Churchmanship to favour
the appointment of preachers on account of their dis-
tinctive views, but rather on account of their experience
of young men and of their most vital needs. His keen
fellow-feeling, his conviction of every man's hourly need
of God's upholding guidance, with his acute consciousness
of the necessity of linking church-life to the common life
of mankind all this spiritual apprehension armed him
with powerful insight and influence for his presidential
work for the Oxford University Church Union.
The crowning political glory of attainment to the
Presidentship of the Oxford Union gave Bobby deep
satisfaction. Mention has already been made of his suc-
cesses at the Canning. These he did not recognize as of
much value. " I am unable to speak decently in the
Canning," he declared, " but I persevere as I think it is
useful. At the Union I am all right if there are people
there ; it is a matter of concentration." (The Canning
inability was apparently caused by sleepiness, which
invariably overwhelmed him at ten p.m.)
The account of Bobby's connection with the Union
may fitly here find its place. His success there was assured
from the beginning. In the first week of his residence at
Oxford he made a maiden speech against the policy of
the Government in regard to the House of Lords. Those
who heard that speech asserted that his manner and matter
" made it clear that a future president was speaking."
In November 1908 he was appointed Secretary of the
Union, on which occasion his surprise at his popularity
vented itself in a characteristic letter to South Africa :
64 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
" I was elected Secretary of the Union by a much
larger majority than I had expected, getting 226 votes,
while the other candidates got 77, 73, and 66 respectively.
This is, I am told, a record for poll and for majority. This
satisfactory result is largely due, of course, to Top's
reputation and influence, partly to the weakness of the
other candidates, and partly to my South African speech,
which went down very well. It is extremely gratifying
to think that there are over two hundred men in the
'Varsity who cared to vote for me. From the egotistical
point of view the most agreeable feature of Oxford is that
there are people here who like me, as delightful an ex-
perience as it is rare."
In March 1909 he was elected Junior Librarian, and
in November of the same year President, by 278 votes,
giving him a majority of 89 above the next candidate,
the largest majority that had been secured in three years.
University dons, who detested the petty intrigues and
log-rolling which too often tarnished Union elections,
rejoiced in the knowledge that Bobby had passed through
the ordeals quite untainted by such sordid transactions.
His personality had carried him victoriously into power
and popularity.
It must certainly have been difficult to withstand the
attraction of his obvious sincerity, freedom from prejudice
and charm of manner. His mannerisms of delivery
resembled those of his brother, although the tones of his
voice were much deeper. His presidential bearing was
winning in dignity, simplicity and humour. He stood
the fire of questions on private business triumphantly,
and sent a wave of smiles rippling over the whole assembly
as he rose to answer one after the other with an enchanting
blend of amusement, good humour, courtesy and serious-
ness beaming from his face.
As an orator, he was respected as one who never tried
to make a mere debating point, as one who refused to be
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 65
drawn into side issues from the broad survey of the matter
under discussion, as one whose sole object was to state what
in his judgment was the right view of the matter.
Bobby's last speech at the Union was delivered on
26th November 1910, an impressive speech which was
enthusiastically applauded from all quarters of the House,
pleading for the rejection of the Parliament Bill and for
the substitution of a " Settlement on the basis of Consent."
On taking office, each President of the Union suffers
the fate of seeing himself immortalized in an article in
The Isis. Here is my nephew's portrait as presented in
its pages :
"ISIS IDOLS. No. CCCCI. (JANUARY 22, 1910.)
THE HON. ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER.
PRESIDENT UNION SOCIETY,
PRESIDENT OXFORD UNIVERSITY CHURCHMAN'S UNION.
The firmness of Burleigh dictating apologies,
Virtue of Selborne, renowned for hymnologies,
Salisbury's diplomacy, needless to say :
Genius of B If r, with no amphibologies,
Staunchness of H gh, whom our own Hertford Coll. lodges,
Practical wisdom of J mm B mb y :
Take of these elements all that is fusible,
Mix them all up in a pipkin or crucible,
Set them to simmer and take off the scum,
And R. S. A. P. is the residuum.
'* Mr. Palmer was born at the fascinating age of four.
Of his childhood (if we may be pardoned the expression)
and of his boyhood nothing further can be told, nor indeed
is known. He passed through Winchester with a ' soft
abstracted air,' and was content to meditate in quietness
his muse. When he arrived in Oxford he continued to
pick up quickly (for a Wykehamist) a serviceable know-
ledge of the English tongue. During his first year,
however, he was enabled \ct6tiv |3/<y<raf owing to his
9
66 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
identity with his elder brother, and nothing was noticed
of him except the more than usual ubiquitousness of Lord
Wolmer. Even now he dwells somewhat apart perched
on his lonely eyrie far above the High : he has always
loved the top.
" Great is his tact : even the uncouth big game of
South Africa seemed not uneasy in his presence ; he has
scoured the veldt (pronounced velt) a better rider than
Bellerophon ; he has shown his prowess in the wilderness,
in the Ireland, on the tennis-court, and on the links ; he
has slept before now in a tiger-skin upon the ground.
" His ability as a speaker no one can doubt.
" ' Lucan's bold heights matched to staid Vergil's care,
Martial's quick salts joined to Musaeus' tongue.'
Such a man is surely not unfit to fill the presidential
chair !
" Another family possession issues in his presidency of
the Church Union. He is not less a strong Churchman
because he has maintained that
" ' If a man's belief is bad
It will not be improved by burning.'
He is going to the Bar. His power of cross-examination,
if we may judge by his able handling of Oxford land-
ladies, will carry him far ; his geniality of character and
dignity of mind will carry him further still.
" We believe in him now, and shall continue to believe
in him when going down from Oxford he * snatches his
rudder and shakes out his sail ' upon a wider sea."
The Rev. N. Micklem (ex-President) says : " Bobby
spoke easily and well, but I think his success at the Union
was due rather to his ability and sincerity and moral weight
than to special brilliance of debate. He held advanced
views about Social Reform, and his ideals did not differ
from a Radical's ; but that which held him Conservative
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 67
follow, not lead ; he was very strong upon that. I once
sent him a book upon Syndicalism by a Frenchman ; he
returned it with the remark that the politicians make an
even greater mistake than the theologians when they
forget original sin. His heart was in polities ; he had
such dignity of mind and delicacy of character, warmth of
social enthusiasm as weD as such intellectual strength, is
it to be wondered at if his friends looked to him to be a
leader of the nation in days to come? 9 *
Of his twofold Presidency, the Her. Ronald A. Knox,
one of his most intimate friends, gives certain recollections
in the following character-sketch:
BOBBY PALMER AT OXFORD
" Bobby Palmer was not one who could be summed up
in a phrase or an epigram. It is difficult to use phrases
in the description of him which do not do him injustice
by making him seem merely compact of solid virtues;
few people had less of ' redeeming vices,' and you have to
have the whole person before your mind if yon are to put
any life into the portrait. Ton have to know the ready
laugh, half hysterical, half scandalized ; the buoyancy of
manner which had escaped as if bv a miracle from lining
bounce ; something of a family drawl ; the extraordinary
aiiMXiiLy , and consequent impressiveness, of his manner
even when he only rose for a moment or two for an
impromptu speech ; above all, tike freshness and youth-
fulness with which, nikil puerile garau m opere, he threw
charm into the dullest of IM occupations.
"For nobody could have a larger share of the con-
scientiousness we are accustomed to associate, in most
people, with merit rather than attractiveness, plodding
rather than brilliancy. He won all the academic laurels
appropriate to a scholar, he was an exemplary President
of the Union, he was in the forefront of religious Oxford,
68 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
yet he had no * Open Sesame ' to these distinctions ; he
trod the common road, yet passed nowhere (could not
have passed anywhere) for a mediocrity. If you associate
the dead heroes of that time with particular spots in
Oxford and particular attitudes, you will think of Bobby
half-way up the High, half on and half off his bicycle,
pausing to buttonhole you on business on his way to the
Grid, the Union, or the Station. It was against the
conventions, for a Univ. man (at least of that period)
should walk up the High very slowly, with an air of having
all the weight of the universe on his shoulders. Altogether,
Bobby might have seemed in the wrong place at Univ.
To be much outside your own College and the circle it
recognized, to indulge in the activities of politics, still more
to find in the sacred deposit of religion you brought with
you from school matter for exterior comment, let alone
propaganda or controversy, was foreign to the spirit of
the institute. He did all these things unashamed and
unrebuked, and it was part of his personality that Univ.
never managed to disapprove.
44 The Union by which I mean the cursus honorum
at the Union is in some ways less a test of brilliancy or
rhetoric than of social gifts. The secret of success is a
personality that can become a living personality, instead
of a mere lifeless reputation, in the critical eyes of a host of
undergraduates who know you, if at all, very slightly. A
pose will do as well as your own nature, but the public
must have something to take hold of. Bobby's success
here, then, was not merely the success of the scholar or the
rhetorician. Apart from his virtues and his accomplish-
ments, you might almost say in spite of them, he was a
figure ; and I suppose few people have had an easier
career through the roll of offices. As an orator, he had
faults ; he gasped rather between his clauses, as if in cold
water, and he had a clutching gesture of the arms which
spoke of the same nervousness. But the nervousness did
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 69
not affect the manner or the wording of the speech, with
which the rhetorician could not have found fault ; more-
over, the rhetorician could neither have criticized nor have
taught that gift of contagious conviction the speech
carried with it ; no one could have supposed that he was
speaking for effect, or maintaining a thesis. Yet those
who remember Bobby at the Union will not picture to
themselves the orator, but the President. For he held the
balance in an unusual way between the sense of dignity
and the sense of humour which are equally necessary to the
President, especially in the times of 'private business.'
You did not doubt the barrister in him, but there was
almost surer presage of the judge.
" He was a godsend to the Oxford University Church
Union when he consented to be its President. He was
committed to no party, at a time when all the other
candidates that seemed possible were avowedly party men.
He was not marked out, as most of them were, for the
ministry, and there was no professionalism or pietism
about his religion. His own tastes definitely set in the
Tractarian direction, and he often attended the Cowley
Fathers' church, but you could not pin him down or label
him. By hereditary temperament, he had no fondness
for the mere political manifestations of Nonconformity ;
yet some of his best friends belonged to the school which
urged rapprochement (not necessarily involving com-
municatio in sacris) with the Student Christian Movement
and similar bodies, and he would have been a bigot indeed
who should have quarrelled with his conduct of the
Presidency. About the externals of religion he had a
saving sense of humour, not confusing a judicious levity
in such matters with flippancy. The splendid thing about
his humour was that it never for a moment concealed how
frightfully in earnest he was about anything he was doing.
No one could doubt that his religion was a real and
personal one, not the relics of a public-school education,
7 o ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
nor a family prejudice, nor a subordinate department
of his political interests, but the real centre of his
being.
" He did not, however, move exclusively in the circles
of the 'unco guid.' He mixed freely with men of a
different moral tone without any lowering of standard.
He recoiled from evil, even in conversation, naturally and
without the inurbanity of the prig. In one of his letters
from India in 1915, he describes how, on the eve of his
sailing with a draft of men for the Persian Gulf, some of
his fellow-officers conspired to make him drunk ; he adds
that * In the same bet which they hid privily was their
foot taken.' It is a singularly easy scene to picture for
anyone who knew him : he was just the kind of person
they would try to make drunk, blameless enough to make
the experiment exciting, yet good-natured enough to
bear no malice and to make no scenes, had they
succeeded.
" If there is one disadvantage social rather than
moral about the blameless ones and the energetic ones
of the world, it is that they are apt to lose the power of
unbending, lack humanity and the gift of languor. Of
Bobby, such a criticism would have been extraordinarily
untrue : with all his sincerity of conviction, he was per-
fectly at home in the rather dilettante atmosphere of
the Canning, with its mulled claret, its churchwarden
pipes, its weakness for epigram. With all his purposeful
activity he was an ideal companion for a holiday, whether
you were lounging in a punt for a day or bathing, or on
some reposeful reading-party on the beaches at Caldey.
It is sometimes recorded to a man's credit that ' he liked
his joke ' ; how far greater a title it is to admiration,
that he should like other people's ! And whoever enjoyed
a friend's joke better than Bobby, took it up better and
developed it and kept it rolling? With all his other
qualities, he was a companion for a desert island.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 71
" So far as character can be judged from letters, it
seems clear that the youthfulness which accompanies
innocence, and the gaiety which springs from youthfulness,
remained with him as much among the fatigues of the
camp as among the sobrieties of the Law. Animce, quales
neque candidiores. If the word had not changed its
meaning through its adoption into English, candour
would be the dominant quality you would seize on in his
character something blended of innocence, of straight-
forwardness, and of serenity. I have heard people
complain of him at Oxford as too immature, and others
complained of him as too serious ; they had both failed
to grasp the composite. It was a quality that would have
graced old age, yet is equally a fitting aureole for his early
death."
The year 1910 was one of fever strain throughout
Great Britain, on account of General Elections in January
and December, of passionate party strife, and of the
death of King Edward in the midst of his desperate
attempts to make peace between the two Houses of
Parliament.
Oxford sent strong contingents from her Union and
political clubs to take part in the January election. Of
these, Wolmer stood as Unionist candidate for Newton-
le-Willows, where he suffered defeat at the first election,
to experience a triumphal reversal of the judgment by
the constituency eleven months later.
Bobby was unfortunately debarred from canvassing
at Newton by fear of the inevitable confusion which his
likeness to his brother might occasion. He therefore
threw himself into the contest at Bradford, where
his brother-in-law stood as the unsuccessful Unionist
candidate.
72 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
To HIS MOTHER
" OXFORD,
January 21, 1910.
"It is too sad about Newton. 1 Charlie's 2 defeat,
though not unexpected, was far more severe than anyone
on our side, or most on theirs, imagined. I fear the mass
voted on Free Trade, and apparently a good many people
woke up for the first time to the fact that this was an
issue. Bob's 3 heavy defeat at Blackburn is another
family and party blow. Of course Tariff Reformers say
that it was because he had no alternative to the Budget.
I am afraid that Top must be cruelly disappointed ; he
was doing so well until the moment for decision came. I
came up here to Oxford on Tuesday feeling very tired
and don't know how I shall begin to tackle my heavy
arrears of work."
On 19th February he wrote again to her, saying :
" If there is another election before Greats, I shall have
to retire abroad for it. I have skimmed through a little
Kant : he strikes me as by far the most interesting of
the metaphysicians I have yet struck, though his phrase-
ology is tiresome, and one is tempted to think it leads him
to gloss over confusions of thought. I sympathize with
him ; for I fear my mind is not sufficiently alert to make
sustained metaphysical argument natural, and I suffer
from an almost irresistible temptation to leave his meaning
(when I read) or my own (when I write) only half thought
out. My tutor quite rightly insists on the necessity of
being quite sure of one's thoughts : he stoutly maintains
that metaphysics teaches one to think clearly, though its
aim is necessarily unattainable. I think this may be
true, but it will require a lot of hard work to keep one's
1 Wolmer was defeated by 752 votes out of a total of 13,760 on 2oth
January 1910.
1 Viscount Howick. His uncle, Lord Robert Cecil.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 73
mind at it ; and for that, Oxford with its perpetual
interruptions is extremely unsuited."
"STANZAS WRITTEN ON SEEING THE SUNRISE AFTER
READING KANT ON THE ' COSMOLOGICAL ANTINOMY '
THESIS : It's not the East that makes the sunrise
It's merely in the East, the sun.
ANTITHESIS : It is the yeast that makes the bun rise
And yet the yeast is in the bun.
ANTINOMY stated : Thus here each proposition
To each is contradictory.
PROBLEM : Which then is mere phenomenon
And which of them the thing per se ?
METHODOLOGY : The answer is not far to seek
And quickly will to those appear
Who find in Reason's Pure Kritik
The Cos mo logical Idea.
SYNTHESIS : For thus a true existence each
May dialectically reach :
For there is S ence in the Sun
And there is B ing in the Bun.
R. S. A. P."
It was not only parliamentary elections that interrupted
the tranquil course of Bobby's reading. His unselfish
nature had a magnetic attraction for other people's
troubles, and their anxieties of every kind were piled upon
his shoulders. All through his Oxford years he sacrificed
much of his precious time to bearing burdens for his
friends. " It didn't matter what was on one's mind,"
said his aunt, Lady Gwendolen Cecil, " if Bobby appeared,
one simply had to tell him all about it. He always
understood ; he was always delightful in his interest and
in the quiet humour with which he listened and led one
on, till every * blue ' had vanished from one's mind."
The Easter vacation of 1910 was spent in the retire-
ment of a reading-party. " A holiday spent with Bobby
on the northern edge of Dartmoor remains a permanent
possession, a luscious medley of mountains and cliffs,
books and affairs, moor and sea, fun and frivolity, theology
74 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
and religion. Ah 1 It was one of the big things of life ! "
was the description of Mr. E. Priestley Swain, one of the
party. The presiding don was the Rev. Neville Talbot, 1
who was much impressed by Bobby's regularity and
thoroughness of work, and by his horror at the iniquity
of skipping in reading a book. " There was none like
him among his contemporaries for such massive disciplined
ability and character," he said.
To Bobby, poet and bird-lover, Dartmoor was en-
chanted ground. In " the spacious emptiness of its huge
rolling downs, grey green with a shimmer of yellow,
towering a thousand feet above sea-level perpetually
buffetted with wild winds, he saw an unlike reminder of
the high veld, the Devonshire tors being curious brothers
of the African Kopje tops." He spent " interminable
hours " wandering over the springy turf and lonely patches
of the moor in friendly pursuit of the birds and their
nests, in delightful contemplation of the dippers and
yellow wagtails. The exhilarating air, peat fires, Devon-
shire cream, and jolly companions were all delicious.
He wrote to South Africa of all these delights, explaining
what a charming set of companions surrounded him.
" All Socialists, except me, and they require the dis-
establishment of the Church as the only way of getting
rid of musical matins. Talbot is a great addition, though
he seriously diminishes the possibilities of work, both
because the atmosphere working on his naturally
Samsonian heartiness in a cottage of small rooms and
rickety furniture produces a state of perpetual earth-
quake, only comparable to Olympus when Zeus was at
the nodding or laughing biz ; and also because he treats
us daily to full Matins and Evensong ! "
Bobby had the unspeakable relief of posting his last
letter to Pretoria at the beginning of Easter term.
" So it's over and good-bye to South Africa," he wrote
1 Now Bishop of Pretoria.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 75
to his father. " I can't say how glad I am to think of
your being home again ; but it was worth it, though five
years is such a long time to be away. I feel oh 1 so thankful
you've been allowed to do such a thoroughly good piece
of work. May it continue to go well when you have left."
To his mother he wrote : " It has seemed so long, this
five years, though four breaks have made a tremendous
difference. But now it will soon be all over, thank God,
and perhaps you need never go away again, or if you do
I may be able to come too."
In the general overflowing happiness of 4th June, the
blessed day when the family were once more reunited in
England, no one showed more plainly than Bobby what
sufferings of hunger he had endured from the long separa-
tion. His face shone with joy as he lay on the grass at
his mother's feet like a knight adoring his restored lady.
Nothing mattered now : neither the strain of other
people's burdens with which, at this time, he was over-
laden ; nor " the care of all the Churches," as he termed
his University Church Union Presidentship ; nor the
anxiety about his reading for Greats. His sympathetic
companion and counsellor was once again within reach ;
he immediately secured a promise from her to accompany
him, as soon as term ended, on a reading-party to Falmouth.
They went there in August ; and, from Falmouth, Bobby
passed on to the quiet retreat of Caldey Abbey, where he
concentrated successfully upon his arrears of work.
He wrote from the Abbey Guest House, Isle of Caldey,
South Wales, on 13th September. "There is no doubt
my mind acts like negative electricity and is repelled by
what is nearest it, especially by extremes. However, I
am prepared to enter into the spirit of the place for the
time : ' When you're in Caldey, do as the Romans do,'
and so I go to daily Mass and Vespers or Compline which
slightly curtails working hours.
" I don't think one ought to go so far as this without
7 6 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
leaving the English Church or trying to convert it. They
profess to the latter, but, in fact, they retire here and
hope to escape notice by their insular and extra-diocesan
position. They are spiritual insurgents, and I don't see
how their attitude can be justified. 1 . . .
" September 16. I am enjoying life here very much :
it is like a cross between Church and a Gilbert and Sullivan
opera. The meals are extraordinarily comic. There is
a rule of silence at breakfast, the fare is exceedingly plain
and fasts crop up unexpectedly, and it is very funny to
see the hearty undergraduate's face fall when he comes
in after bathing, all unwitting that it is the Eve of Holy
Cross, and is confronted with two sardines and a biscuit
for his lunch. Finally, the telephone is in the dining-
room, and it starts ringing violently, but nobody stirs ;
then a very secular British man-servant enters and
conducts a telephone conversation, which is always comic
and gains enormously in effect when there are twelve
breakfasters listening in solemn silence. We have played
bridge every evening as I had prudently brought some
cards. The surroundings give an extra relish to the
game ; one feels rather wicked playing cards for love on
a week-day. Last night we got a priest to play as a kind
of sanction. . . .
"September 23. Time flies here very quickly. I
have enjoyed my stay here muchly. There is a peace-
fulness about its island seclusion which resembles a sea
voyage and one's fellow-passengers all congenial. And
the greater number of one's wants vanish when the means
of satisfying are removed : games, sport, newspapers,
wine, good cooking, valets, hot water all these things
are out of mind when out of sight ; and I can't think why
we insist on burdening ourselves with them."
1 Caldey Abbey was occupied by a Benedictine Community, then in
the communion of the Church of England. They seceded to the Church
of Rome in 1913.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 77
Michaelmas Term found Bobby established in rooms
in 8 Long Wall, looking on the old city walls. He had for
fellow-lodgers a friendly company of raggers and readers.
They felt that Bobby and his friend, Mr. Micklem (who
was also lodging there), had imported an " embarrassingly
high standard for them to live up to," but they liked
and honoured them both, laughed at their sparring
matches on theological, political and social questions,
and reverenced Bobby for his passionate sincerity and
singleness of heart, for the power exhibited in him of a
strong personal religion, the vision which it had brought
to him, and the incentive which it gave him of quiet
determination to make that vision a reality. They
nicknamed him " the future Prime Minister." Some-
times he delivered his soul in an oracular address, some-
times he introduced some serious subject for discussion
in which the raggers were not interested : " Don't talk
like that, Bobby ! " was their encouraging reception of
the theme. " Keep that till you are Prime Minister ! "
He took the rebuff with smiling serenity.
It is easy to understand how some of his idiosyncrasies
must have amused the ragger-mind. His elaborate
labour-tables for each day's work ; his peculiar attitudes
for reading with mountains of cushions piled around him ;
the clockwork regularity of his sallies forth to the golf
course and of his game of chess before going to bed, part
of a carefully-planned routine to assist brain-work ;
his penchant for a steaming hot bath to promote the
circulation of his thoughts (he used to say that he did all
his best thinking there) ; his stout championship of the
morality of a hot-water bottle to assist sleep ; his belief
that, from the moment of leaving his bed till his return
to it, nothing rested his brain except music and having
his hair cut these and other quaint peculiarities afforded
mirth, but the merry-makers found them qualities,
winning rather than repellent, in Bobby.
78 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
There is no doubt that, at this date he attracted to
himself friends of very different temperament and outlook,
and he had begun to show a power (all the greater because
it was unobtrusive) of keeping other men straight and of
communicating to them a strength which they lacked,
the sources of which were hidden in religious devotion.
He affected and influenced others, not by being like
them in their weaknesses, but by being obviously
better.
Dr. Herbert Fisher l said of him : " Bobby was gold
all through, for head and heart one in a million. Of all
the undergraduates I have known at Oxford during my
twenty years of work there, he struck me as most certain
by reason of his breadth and sobriety of judgment,
intellectual force and sweetness of disposition, to exercise
a commanding influence for good in the public affairs of
the country. Everyone admired and liked him, and I
know that his influence among his contemporaries was
quite exceptional from the first. He always seemed to
find it easy to do the right thing in the happiest way,
so that everyone instinctively trusted him and would
follow him."
Of his followers, Luly rejoiced in counting himself one
of the most devoted, while Bobby gladly availed himself
of every opportunity for giving his younger brother help,
advice, encouragement. " Let me know the dates of
leave-out days and whether you want any Englishes,"
he wrote in the middle of his strain of reading. And :
" How fared your maiden speech ? I always think
Debating Society an extremely difficult audience to ad-
dress." And : " I am sorry you're having such a thin
time of it just now. Don't let these worries interfere
with your work if you can help it. I am awfully keen
you should ' raise books ' 2 and vindicate the family
1 Now Minister of Education.
* Notion for Get a Class Prize.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 79
honour, because neither Top nor I ever did : and it would
never do for you to lose ground in exaniinas."
On 9th December Bobby wrote to Luly a paean on
Wolmer's triumph at the General Election : " Isn't
Newton splendid ? I am frightfully bucked at Top's
getting in, and I think it is quite one of the finest wins
of the election."
The prudence of Bobby's abstinence from taking part
in the Newton canvassing was speedily justified ; for
unfortunately the Tweedledum and Tweedledee mystifica-
tion played occasional tricks on sensitive constituents
who complained to their embarrassed Member of his
having cut them dead in the streets of London.
In April 1911, Bobby, Luly and their mother were
passengers on the Dunottar Castle for a cruise in the
Mediterranean to Syracuse, Greece, the JSgean Islands,
Rhodes and Crete. The voyage afforded Bobby a delight-
ful interlude of classic scenes and ruins in the place of
classic books and lecture rooms. Mrs. Earl, the mother
of one of his undergraduate friends and a fellow-passenger,
in the following word-picture, has sketched him in the
radiance of Delos :
" 1 always remember your nephew's enjoyment of a
wonderful morning at Delos : such a glory of colour
as I have never seen elsewhere. The white marbles
cropped up against the blue sky, above and beyond,
from amidst a crowd of flowers : anchusa, a deeper blue
than even the sky, and 4 poppies, red to blackness,'
crimson, not scarlet, all tangled together by wreaths of
purple vetch, while in front and around the shore, the
sea girdled all with a darker but more shining blue than
that of sky and flowers. He spoke of it afterwards
and of how unforgettable it would be all through life.
And it has grown to be part of my memory of him a
worthy setting for such a beautiful and heroic figure."
8o ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
When Bobby returned to Oxford, after the three
weeks spent with Luly and his mother in Fairyland, he
wrote to her :
" I find it rather hard to settle down to work again .
Everything here has shrunk so. I spent this afternoon
in Bagley Wood. In its way it can't be beaten even by
Delos and Crete. Parts of it are carpeted with primroses,
but more of it with bluebells as thick as the poppies of
Delos and stretching for acres and acres. It is a very big
wood, bigger than Milwards Park ; 1 and the absence
of rhododendrons gives long vistas. Other parts are
absolutely white with wood-anemones and occasionally
these mix with the bluebells with lovely effect. The
absence of red and bright yellow makes it less gorgeous
(and the sun was sadly deficient) than Delos and Crete,
but the greens are far more delicate and varied, and
their presence as a canopy puts a glamour on to the effect
which no mere open landscape can have."
Just before the examination began, two of Bobby's
friends and fellow-victims fell seriously ill, and all his
thoughts were diverted from anxiety as to the probable
issue of the coming ordeal to solicitude for them. He
carried off one of the invalids, Mr. Austin Earl, to Black-
moor to recuperate, and watched over him with the
tenderness of a brother. Thence they returned to enter
the Examination Schools, where they both won the
highest honours.
To HIS MOTHER
" 8 LONG WALL, OXFORD,
June 14, 1911.
" Greats is over, and on the whole I am very pleased
with the course it has taken. I don't think I have done
any bad papers, and one or two I think I did better than
A wood at Hatfield.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 81
I could have expected. I kept pretty fresh all through,
full of beans, in fact, till yesterday, when the Moral
Philosophy paper left me rather tired and I was perhaps
a trifle stale this morning ; but I wound up with an
unexpectedly successful Greek Prose and feel quite fit
now. I think this is due to my much chaffed methodical-
ness. Since I came back from Greece, I have hardly
ever worked seven hours a day, and I never worked later
than 10.30 p.m. Consequently my friends, who left too
much to the last minute and sat up till one or two at
nights, got much staler, and one can't philosophize when
stale."
On 9th August (the eve of the climax of the fight
over the Veto in the House of Lords) the Class List of the
Final Honours School of Litterce Humaniores appeared in
the Times, showing Bobby's and Mr. Earl's names among
the First Class men. Another stage in life's journey was
successfully passed, and Bobby paused for a space before
entering on the next. He wished to gain a certain
assurance as to his vocation whether it called him to
Ordination or to the Bar and a political career. Politics,
with their tangled ethics, perplexed him.
" It afflicts me rather that nearly all the nice people
I know at Oxford are Liberals," he said. " The Tories
are mostly selfish and insincere jingoes ; the people
who really care for ' the poor and needy ' are almost
all Liberals. It is hard to resist the conclusion that
there is less attraction to good minds in Unionism than
in Liberalism. I don't at all want to become a Liberal,
and this fact seems to me to make it more important
not to ; but the process of preaching my views to the
young Tories (if it ever extends beyond the Canning)
will, I fear, be thankless."
His anti-Liberal attitude was strengthened by his
conviction that the British Empire had reached its apex
82 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
at the time of the second Jubilee, fourteen years pre-
viously ; and " that the descent lies before us. Under
these circumstances, I conceive that the one foremost
duty of the statesman is to delay the descent, grip the
wheels, descend as slowly as we can. A rapid descent
would send all to the devil."
Thus Bobby pondered, thankful that no immediate
solution of the problems before him was demanded of
him by either the Time-Sphinx or by his conscience. His
next duty was to take part in an examination for an
All Souls' Fellowship. This he did creditably, as he was
classed among six (out of forty) competitors who were
judged to be fully up to the required standard ; but he
was not the fortunate winner of the prize.
In consequence, he found himself free to gratify a
long-cherished desire to visit India, a visit which was
made easy to him by the generosity of his godfather,
Lord Northcote, and of his cousin, Mr. Ralph Palmer.
He left England in the middle of November and landed
at Bombay, with a great crowd of Durbar tourists, on
28th November 1911.
CHAPTER V
INDIA, 1911-1912
THE Indian tour occupied five months and covered great
distances. It included the splendid spectacle of the
Royal Durbar and missionary journeys among obscure
villages and outcastes in distant parts of the diocese of
Bombay. It led its pilgrim to Rajputana, Goa, and other
ruined cities, to the dream-glories of ancient mosques,
tombs, and temples, and plunged him into the noisy
crowd and bustle of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.
It conducted him through the perils of the Khyber Pass
and showed him the enchanting beauties of Darjeeling
and Kashmir. All the time the pilgrim was observing
with shrewd eyes, keen sympathy and eager interest, and
recording his impressions in the diaries and letters which he
afterwards published in his book, A Little Tour in India. 1
Those who care to read his commentary on what
Christianity is doing for India, his evidence on the
splendid work of the Indian Civil Service, the problems
of administration and Indian self-government, his glowing
descriptions of architecture and landscape, and the humour
of his narrations of adventures and anecdotes are referred
to the book, where, to quote his own words :
" Some gleam of India you may find
In these rough pages, like the gleam
Of moonlight on a mountain stream,
The ripples of a restless mind."
1 A Little Tour in India. Publisher, E. Arnold, 1913. By the kind
permission of the proprietor and publisher several quotations from this
book are given in this chapter.
83
84 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
The Durbar at Delhi represented the first landmark of
Bobby's journey. The dust, tumult and cost of the
preparations aroused sharp aversion in his mind : " They
make me think of the famine districts in the same de-
pressing way that a London ballroom sometimes makes
one think of the slums," he wrote. Eventually his
opposition was disarmed by the beauty of the spectacle,
" the most extraordinary phantasy of splendour that has
ever been seen," and by its potentiality as " a political
education in imagination."
From the flashing splendour of the Present, Bobby
passed to the majesty of the Past, shining dimly above
mouldering cities and forts, temples and tombs. Certain
among these made a deep impression on him.
Agra he visited several times, drawn there by the
magnets of friendship and beauty. He used to stay at
St. John's College where he made friends with all the
staff, especially with the brilliant Philosophy Professor,
Mr. Raju, a high-born Indian Christian, whose influence
over the students and whose forcible " slashing at
Hinduism to Hindus, in a way which no white man could
venture upon, and which brought them in flocks to hear
him," impressed Bobby deeply. The Rev. Garfield
Williams recollects a visit which he made with Bobby
and Mr. Raju to the Taj Mahal shining in its incom-
parable beauty in the moonlight, when (in Bobby's
words) " the snowy glister of the marble, the stillness and
the shadows on the vaulting seemed the very symbols of
mystery and peace."
" We talked of many things. Robert Palmer could
be interesting and enlightening on so many subjects. He
talked of politics, of personalities then engaged in politics,
and of his own hopes for the future of English political
life ; and the impression which both of us, who listened,
got was that we were talking to one who was himself
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 85
likely to become a great political leader in the future.
He seemed to possess such clearness of vision and such
high ideals of political responsibility. Our talk drifted
on to the subject of the unity of the Church. He spoke as
a convinced Anglo-Catholic. He seemed to us to have a
spirit which, if it had been the possession of most of our
Church leaders, would have solved the problems of our
unhappy divisions long ago. He talked about the future
of Indian Christianity, and about the future in particular
of Mr. Raju, who was with us. Most men of his gifts are
more interested in causes than in personalities. It was
not so with Robert Palmer, and I remember how anxious
he seemed to be that the Church should make the most
of Mr. Raju's brilliant personality."
Old Goa, shuddering beneath the double menace of
destruction by the jungle and by the animosity of the
Portuguese Republic, made a tragic impression on Bobby.
He wrote : " The situation of old Goa is lovely, on a rise
in a palm forest overlooking a silvery creek which winds
back towards the distant grey-blue ghats. The place is
dead, silent and deserted ; the forest has closed in all
around it and the jungle has swallowed everything but
the churches. These have remained splendid and rich ;
and the pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Francis Xavier is
made by Indians of all religions. Now the final blow has
fallen : the Republicans have confiscated the churches
and all Church property. The decree doing so has for
the moment been suspended, so there may be a chance
yet. Otherwise, the churches must go to ruin. As a
crowning piece of villainy, the whole of the pilgrims'
offerings made at the great exposition of St. Francis's
body in 1910, and amounting to Rs. 30,000, has been
confiscated and pocketed by the new Governor !
" These expositions take place at stated intervals of
years when the body of St. Francis Xavier is exposed
in its glass coffin in the Cathedral of Goa. The body is
86 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
slightly withdrawn from the coffin to allow the pious
pilgrims to kiss the departed Saint's toe. One Indian
lady, in excessive desire to possess herself of a relic,
attempted to bite the toe off, but only succeeded in
securing the fleshy part, leaving the bone exposed. How-
ever, her action was immediately noticed by the priests,
and she was compelled to disgorge the canonized digit.
" There was no sign of life in Old Goa except the
chanting of the Mass in the Cathedral the one church
still used. Beyond the canons, there is no population
whatever. One of them showed us the Bom Jesus Church
and St. Francis's tomb. There are three other huge
sixteenth and seventeenth century churches, with
magnificently garish reredoses of gold, a most wonderful
sight in the setting visible and remembered."
An incident of Bobby's journey from Goa to the
ruins of Vijayanagar was commemorated by him in
the following doggerel :
" I did not take a motor-car
To visit Vijayanagar,
In fact it simply isn't done
Round there besides, I hadn't one.
I therefore hired a native-cart
A vehicle to which a start
Of seven furlongs in a mile
(To judge from my contraptious style)
Is one which any terrapin
Could easily concede and win.
A curious feature of these carts
Is the omission of those parts
Which usually are looked upon
As being sine quibus non.
They haven't seats, they haven't springs,
Or backs or lamps or all the things
Which every common cart provides
To stick about the horses' sides
And back and head, but there, of course,
They haven't even got a horse,
For local prejudice allows
No locomotive power but cows."
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 87
His description of lively Benares contrasts sharply
with that of dead Goa. He says : " This city is quite the
most picturesque I have seen. The reason of this lies in
the fact that the nearer you die to the banks (only the
west bank, if you die the other side you become a donkey)
of the Ganges, the better your chance of a ' rise ' in the
next life. Consequently the competition for sites near
the river is like that for City sites in London ; it has
forced the houses up to double their usual height, and has
squeezed the streets to half their normal breadth. The
result is a city of extremely narrow, irregular streets
between fine, tall, purely Oriental houses (a religious
centre instinctively avoids foreign adaptations) which
almost meet above, as in Old London.
" The City is about three miles long, built along the top
of the high river-bank, and from it, all along, a series of
terraces and steps (called ghats) lead down to the river.
Along the top of the bank are the temples, and flanking
the broad flights of steps are innumerable shrines and
other picturesque buildings. The most amusing temple
is Durga's, where there are scores of monkeys that will
come quite close if you call and feed them.
" The whole length swarms with humanity like a bee-
hive, and it was a fascinating sight as we rowed slowly along,
seeing the crowds walking, standing, sitting, bathing, boat-
ing, praying, juggling, dancing, buying, selling, eating, drink-
ing, burning corpses, all in a cinematographic profusion.
" Benares seems to me to be the best manifestation of
Hinduism I have seen. The pilgrims really meant
business ; there was genuine devotion about their ablu-
tions and processions and multitudinous observances.
It was all a jumble, but a reverent jumble. The very
smells had an odour of sanctity that made them fitting
and almost desirable."
It was not only the tame monkeys that delighted
88 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Bobby the naturalist : wherever he went he saw the happy
results of the Indian reverence for the sanctity of life.
" This country is the paradise for animals," he wrote.
" Instead of flying at man's approach, they come towards
you in the most friendly way. In the Pushkar lake, fishes
crowd and jump for the food that people throw them.
The water-birds, bitterns, cormorants, and kingfishers were
equally tame, and an old crocodile swam lazily up to me to
see if I had any food for him. Everywhere it is the same,
especially with the birds, which are perfectly lovely. The
Hindu does not kill wantonly, but except for cows,
monkeys, peacocks and local sacred beasts, he will kill
under provocation. The Buddhist is much stricter, and
won't even kill snakes. But with the Jains (a sect of the
Hindus) it amounts to fanaticism. Not only won't they kill
even a flea (their holy men carry brushes to sweep insects
out of their path, lest they should tread on one), but they
make great efforts to keep things alive at all costs. They
put up beautifully carved feeding-places for birds, and
they build homes for diseased cattle, which are to our ideas
horribly cruel, for they keep animals there with broken
legs and festering sores. At Ahmedabad I met a string of
about fifty Jain women carrying canvas bags from which
water was trickling. On inquiry I found they were carry-
ing all the fish from a pond ten miles away, which had
dried up, to another pond where there was water."
Among the intensest feelings experienced by Bobby
from childish days were his delight in the inconceivable
beauty of mountains and his susceptibility to their solemn
influences. The vision of Kinchin janga (the highest peak
but one, Everest, of the Himalayan Range) left him amazed,
as an unreal and incredible dream.
" Suddenly one realizes that there is this vast snowy
pile right away above, beginning at three miles high, i.e.
about where Mont Blanc leaves off, and rising another two
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 89
miles into the clear blue air, seemingly afloat high upon
the haze. As I reached the summit of Tiger Hill, Dar-
jeeling, the top of the mist in the east and west began to
take on lovely colours of pink and blue in layers like a
rainbow. Above towered the eye-compelling Kinchin-
janga, and the tops of the rest of the range just showed
in a long, serrated line. Then a brilliant golden light
caught the top of Kinchinjanga, as if a kind of liquid fire
ran down it till the whole of its snows glowed with a cold,
yellow glitter that drove the mist down, so that quite half
the mountain showed every line and ridge as clear as
possible."
The romance of the tour culminated in an expedition
up the Khyber Pass, where, by exceptional favour of
Sir G. Ross-Keppel, Bobby was permitted to penetrate
as far as to Landi Kotal Fort. From thence he rode to
the neighbouring hill to see the view.
" When we reached the top, all of a sudden was dis-
closed a tremendous view ; the dramatic surprise of it
quite took away my breath, and reminded me of the Third
Temptation. On the side we came up the hill was about
eight hundred feet high, but on the other it went down
about two thousand five hundred feet, and from its foot
stretched, it seemed, the whole of Afghanistan, line upon
line of low rugged hills and broken plains through which
the Kabul River wound hills of every size and shape,
great snow mountains massed on the right, the reverse
slope of the Khyber hills on the left, and in the dimmest
dim distance a long line of snow mountains, half-hidden
by luminous white clouds. I judged they must be fully
fifty miles away. The place I was on is appropriately
called Pisgah."
Bobby spent his last two weeks in India on a house-
boat at Srinagar, in Kashmir : a fairy town, built like
Venice on a network of streams and canals, its houses all
constructed of weather-stained wood, roofed with emerald
90 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
turf, studded with clumps of white and purple iris and
crimson tulips. A foam of pink and white fruit blossom,
almond, cherry, peach, apricot, floated across the fore-
ground ; and round about the town, the snow mountains
mounted guard " like a chorus of white angels."
In this paradisiacal retreat he kept Holy Week in
prayer and a searching examination of the problem of
existence under the heads of The Moral Argument for
God ; The Bond between God and Man ; The Implications
of the Incarnation ; and, Dogma. At the beginning of the
manuscript book, in which he recorded his arguments, he
wrote : " Those who can be content to face life without
tackling the above problem have no pressing motive for
this inquiry. They run the risk, however, of having their
deepest convictions unexpectedly shaken or overthrown
later on. Their view of life cannot be fundamental, and
therefore it may fall like a house founded on sand."
None of his excursions awoke keener interest in Bobby's
sympathetic mind than those on which he accompanied
the Bishop of Bombay on his missionary tours. They
provided him with occasions (rarely granted to tourists)
of seeing real life under the ordinary conditions in which
vast millions of the peoples of India spend their existence.
They gave him opportunities of meeting men and women
outside the ken of political theorists on Indian problems,
but who, nevertheless, are forces as pioneers of Christian
civilization.
Besides graver interests, the missionary tours were
rich in mirthful experiences, such as those at Saigao (in
the Moghulai, where all the Mangs are Christians), thus
described by Bobby :
" We were received by a motley procession, and
marched in state to the church, led by a band of two
cornets (played by Mohammedans), a fife, and cymbals,
while in front of all was a Hindu, who let off cracker-bombs
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 91
in our honour all the way. (Who would receive a bishop
with Chinese crackers in England ? We have such poor
imaginations !) He fastened each cracker on to the end
of a long staff and then leaped into the air, using the staff
as a jumping-pole ; and as the point hit the ground it
exploded the cracker with a tremendous bang. I should
have liked to photograph it, but I was in the middle of the
procession myself.
"In the church Jim held a biggish Confirmation
thirty-four confirmed. The proceedings were enlivened
by a small boy of about five in the front row. The
innumerable babies always behave queerly, but this one
was distinctly original. He first escaped from his mother,
who was handicapped (1) by a smaller infant, (2) by being
a Confirmation candidate ; then advanced to the open
space in front of Jim's chair, where he proceeded to divest
himself of his only garment, a cotton coat. He then lay
on his back and slapped his stomach loudly for some
minutes, after which he solemnly dressed again, and
repeated the performance with variations (one very em-
barrassing) all through the service."
On another occasion during a Deccan trek, Bobby was
delighted to come across a familiar Squire-type at Miri :
" We went to tea yesterday with the son of the leading
landowner here. He croaked over the growth of luxury
among the kumbis in quite a homely way. In the good
old days they only wore a loin-cloth ; now the extravagant
young dogs nearly all wear a shirt. Also wages have
risen in the last fifteen years from two to three rupees
a month to six or eight."
These and sundry other impressions made on Bobby
during his travels are all recorded in his book. For the
impression made by him on those whom he met we may
look for information to his cousin, who was his constant
companion during many parts of his travels.
"Bobby had," said the Bishop of Bombay, "an
92 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
almost endless interest in things and people, an equally
endless power of acquiring knowledge, and an unfailing
capacity for disposing it in his mind in an orderly manner
and holding it altogether in its true proportions. For
one of his age, his mind was remarkably penetrative.
More than one elderly man, whose working life had been
spent in India, remarked to me that it was extraordinary
how quickly and accurately Robert Palmer had * got the
hang ' of things. But though he was a born student,
he was not merely a student. When he had the fruits
of his observation arranged in their proper order and
proportion, he had the power of selecting those points
which were of essential significance or importance. It is
that power which makes the great man of affairs."
An instance of this sense of values may be quoted
here in his judgment on Nationalist demands that every
post should be thrown open to Indians. He said : " As
for this Nationalist demand, the two sides give flatly
contradictory evidence. Every English Civil Servant tells
you that whenever an Indian has been given the final
responsibility for any department, things have gone
hopelessly wrong, and that their Municipal Corporations,
etc., are as corrupt and incompetent as they can be. The
Indians tell one that they are never given the chance of a
free hand, and that English officials have an idie fixe
that they will fail, and so never let them try. In the few
cases, like the judicial service, where Indians rise to the
top, they are as competent as English ; and their corpora-
tions are no worse than English ones, and would be
better if they weren't official-ridden. My own impression
is that in point of fact the Anglo-Indians are right, but
that they don't try enough to teach Indians the right way
to regard public service. They give them their own
example, of course, but then every Indian regards every
Englishman as a confirmed madman, so that mere example
doesn't have its due effect. Also, the Anglo-Indians,
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 93
being thoroughly English, think that because Indians
are clever, therefore they are not able ; whereas many
of them are very able as well as clever ; what they haven't
got is moral courage and stamina and ' character ' in
that sense. But there are exceptions, and we ought to
be keenly on the look-out for them and snap them up
into our service. Nine times out of ten, the Anglo-
Indian is right, and so when the tenth and exceptional
man comes along, he refuses to judge him on his merits."
Those who know the absorbing interest felt by Bobby
in the religious problems of India may be interested to
know that the conclusion which he formed as to the
supreme need was the provision of a Native Ministry.
" Christianity can only be worked into the fibres of
Indian life by Indian minds. The fact is recognized, but
statesmanship must also face its implications."
He longed intensely to see the " Christianity of India
Catholic in the real sense of the word, i.e. freed from the
fetters of the controversies in which it has been entangled
in Europe for more than three centuries." " I believe,"
he said, " that India will grasp the Catholic idea, for
India has an overmastering sense of fundamental unity."
CHAPTER VI
INTERIM, 1912-1914
IT was a very sunburnt, vigorous young man whom we
welcomed home in the middle of May 1912, full of the
zest of life, eager to serve, learn and experience. During
the two ensuing peaceful years his hours brimmed over
with manifold activities, which, like the colours of the
prism, were linked together in harmonious sequence.
Social service, friendships, professional work, intellectual
interests, and spiritual development all these found
their place in the orderly rhythm of his life.
I place social service first, because Bobby's personality
expressed itself spontaneously through that medium,
which flowed into many channels. India had spurred
him to an ardent missionary zeal, that found its vent
in very generous help to Bombay Diocese, in smoothing
the path for his friend, Professor Raju, to go into residence
at Oxford, and in admirable speeches at missionary
meetings in many parts of the country. It was not only
his intensely earnest words which made a deep impression
on his audiences, but also his modern unexpected points
of view and his effective answers to critics.
As an instance, I may mention that his reply to the
frequent assertion that Hinduism meets the Indian needs
better than Christianity showed in an arresting figure
how " Western civilization was crashing into Indian
civilization like an iceberg into a water-tight steamer,
smashing all its compartments, confusing all its systems
of caste in a welter of wreckage, and how the Christian
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 95
religion alone could save it from the most awful
ilftbfe."
His missionary zeal was as keenly alive to the need of
effective Christian influences in England as in heathen
lands. The Christian Social Union, the Students' Chris-
tian Movement, the Penal Reform Association, Oxford
House, Bethnal Green, and Edghill House, Sydenham,
were all causes very near his heart for which he was
always ready to speak or work.
For some years Bobby had looked forward to making
a prolonged sojourn in East London so soon as his Univer-
sity obligations came to an end. Accordingly, he spent
the spring of 1913 at Oxford House as a resident worker,
devoting himself to the work of the clubs, the Charity
Organization Society and the Poor Man's Lawyer Depart-
ment.
He wrote of his first observations there, as follows :
" I find the Club work x rather dull, though quite pleasant.
I doubt if it is quite in my line. The C.O.S. is thrilling
and heart-rending. One works very hard to do a tiny
piece of good, and so the result, if any, is very personal
and precious. I don't quite approve of all then* methods.
For their size they are nearly as red-taped as Government
offices. Most of the cases are of people predoomed to
failure by drink and slackness, or else cases of illness.
The machinery for finding work is hopelessly clumsy.
The Labour Exchanges are no earthly use for a man
seeking work on recovery from illness. The employers
don't use them. The only method, besides advertising,
is for the wretched man to go a weary round of shops and
works every day. It is the utter want of organization
and its consequent waste that makes Socialism attractive."
Bobby's mind was greatly perplexed in regard to the
responsibilities of employers, especially when incurred as
shareholders of companies or members of corporations.
1 The University Club for men.
96 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
" Our responsibility has its limits," he said, "for we cannot
undertake to find out how our railway stock affairs are
managed. But if we possess brewery, distillery or morally
questionable shares, if we get rid of them by selling them
we shift our responsibility on to other shoulders, and if
we burn them we increase the value of the rest." The
Communistic solution was regarded by him as equally
unsatisfactory.
He welcomed opportunities for the study of points of
view differing from his own, on every kind of subject.
On one of these Bethnal Green Sundays he found occasion
to make himself better acquainted with the opinions of
Congregationalists at the City Temple. He said after-
wards :
" I felt quite at home, but not in church. The whole
show was very reverent and Christian, but the difference
is that there is no worship and hardly any prayer, plenty
of praise and exhortation and moral doctrine. I felt
that I came to get certain things, i.e. to hear a sermon
and music ; whereas I feel that I go to church primarily
to give something, i.e. worship and sacrifice."
On 19th March, when his younger brother had joined
him as a resident at Oxford House, Bobby wrote :
" This is proving an extra full week, so I am writing
this in the intervals of running University Club Office,
and am therefore likely to be incoherent. Monday
evening I took Luly on my C.O.S. rounds and he was quite
keen about it. In the afternoon we visited the London
Hospital, and Luly had (I gather) quite a success there.
Evening, Clubs. Tuesday I got up at 5.15 a.m. and went
to Covent Garden with some residents ; Luly came too !
Then C.O.S. 10 to 11. My Relief Committee at Hackney
Wick from 11.30 to 1. Then to lunch with Aunt Alice
Northcote 1 at 2, then try on uniform and back for the
address. The Head is giving us an address every day
1 Lady Northcote.
Photo. VanJyk. London
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Aged Twenty-five, 1913.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 97
this week at 6 p.m. He has been saying some very good
things. Good Friday will be spent in almost continuous
services, I foresee, of various sorts : at least 8 to 9 ;
12 to 3 ; 4.45 to 5.30 ; 6 to 6.30 ; 8.30 to 10 ; these are
already booked, besides an extra or two which I am
doubtful of attending I However, it will counterbalance
last Good Friday at Srinagar, where the undenominational
chaplain reduced the services to about five-eighths of an
ordinary Sunday's."
Bobby won the love of all his fellow-workers. The
Rev. F. A. Iremonger, the Head of Oxford House, says
that, " it was not so much what he did as what he was
that captured their respect and affection. Of all the men
I had with me during nearly six years, there was no one
who helped me more to raise, and to keep on the highest
level, the tone of the House."
The individual personal help and friendship which
Bobby delighted to give to shadowed lives, to a tuber-
culous child neglected by a callous father, to an old blind
club-member who much appreciated daily visits for
regular reading aloud, and to others in necessity and
tribulation, culminated in his services as " Poor Man's
Lawyer." Whether he was in or out of residence at
Oxford House, he appeared unfailingly on stated evenings
at Bethnal Green, where he devoted many hours to giving
legal advice to needy clients. He was most efficient at
this work and grudged no amount of trouble over any
case to whom he could be of real help. He gained the
trust of his clients ; and those who had consulted him
often returned again and again to ask his advice in all
their difficulties. Occasionally the impression made on
him by some of these harassed souls was that of wondering
reverence.
I remember how, shortly after he and I had had a
discussion on the reality of the assumption that twentieth-
13
98 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
century Englishmen were a Christian nation, he wrote
the following letter :
To THE LADY LAURA RIDDING
" OXFORD HOUSE,
April 2, 1913.
" Curiously enough, a propos our argument as to
whether England was still a Christian country, the very
next day at our Poor Man's Lawyer room in Bethnal
Green two separate very secular-looking clients incident-
ally showed that they really were Christians. One was
an old lady whose husband had been run over. We had
got and just handed over to her 50 compensation from
the omnibus company ; and she immediately said she
would like to put a part of it into our poor-box, though she
was extremely hard up ; but she explained she had been
a member of a Christian Brotherhood for a great many
years. The other was a man who sought a separation
from his wife, who had gone off with another man. He
came because his son had threatened to leave the house
if he ever took her back again ; and indeed it seemed
little use, because he had already forgiven her and taken
her back eleven times. But he was, nevertheless, very
reluctant to get a separation ' because the Bible tells us
different,' though his vicar had advised him to get one."
Bethnal Green Club work had enlightened Bobby on the
lamentable hindrances which prevent so many poor boys,
rich in capacity but destitute of means, from taking at the
flood " the tide in their affairs which leads on to fortune."
When, therefore, in 1912, he was invited to become an
original Governor of the newly founded Edghill House,
Sydenham, by the nomination of his old Headmaster, 1
1 Right Rev. Dr. Burge, Bishop of Southwark, afterwards Bishop
of Oxford.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 99
he gladly accepted the post. He helped Edghill House
in many ways, not the least of which was his careful
assistance in the legal matters connected with drafting
its constitution and trust-deeds ; and the moving appeal
sent by him to the Spectator and inserted under the
heading of " The Edghill House and the Clever Poor Boy.'''
The sense of fairness which impelled Bobby to fight
unflaggingly in behalf of his clever poor scholars made
him an equally keen advocate of voteless women. His
parents had always been enthusiastic supporters of their
cause, which found in him an ardent champion. While
still at Oxford, he had moved a resolution in favour of
the extension of the franchise to women at a meeting of
the Arnold Society ; and when he left Oxford he freely
gave yeoman service by writing and speaking in behalf
of Woman's Suffrage all over the country.
Lady Willoughby de Broke is one of many who re-
member " the irresistible personal charm and splendid
brain power which added such force to his service to the
Woman's Cause."
A one-page article which he wrote under the title
" Why Men should support Women's Suffrage" * gives his
arguments with admirable brevity and point under four
heads: "(1) Because women's sphere is in the home;
(2) because men want women to be their partners and
helpers ; (3) because men should be just ; (4) because
men should be sensible."
The best piece of work which he did for the cause
was an analysis of sixty-three replies received in answer
to an inquiry from leading Englishwomen, addressed to
representative and prominent citizens of the American
States in the Union, in which Woman's Suffrage has been
adopted, with the object of obtaining an impartial account
of the results there of the enfranchisement of women.
1 Published in The Conservative and Unionist Woman's Franchise
Review, No. XIII., October 1912.
ioo ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Bobby's paper was first published in the Nineteenth
Century 1 and afterwards printed as a short pamphlet.
It elicited the following letter to his mother from his
barrister uncle, Lord Robert Cecil :
" Just a line to say how very good I think Bobby's
article. It is really one of the best things of its kind I
have read for a long time, and curiously legal. If he
does not do well at the Bar I'll eat my hat ! which, if
you know it, is a serious undertaking."
There is one of our knight-errant's letters which may
find its place here, as it shows the shrewdness with which
he realized the difference of outlook between men and
women ; and that, consequently, his service was rendered
from a sense of justice and obligation, not from senti-
mental emotion.
To HIS MOTHER
" June 12, 1914.
" I have had such a busy week that I haven't had
a moment to write un-business letters. This is partly
because I am single-handed as Poor Man's Lawyer at
Oxford House for two weeks till Edward Lascelles
joins me.
" I have also been sent two cases to * inquire and
report ' upon under the new rules for poor persons.
There are already two thousand applicants under these
rules, and I believe nearly half are for divorces, as I
anticipated would be the case at first. Both my appli-
cants want divorces. One is a man and one a woman,
and they illustrate the differences of the sexes ! The
man a labourer on twenty-six shillings a week, ex-
soldier made his application concisely and almost
correctly, quite impersonally. He came to see me and
1 Woman Suffrage at Work in America. (I.) A Suffragist View. By
the Hon. Robert Palmer. The Nineteenth Century and After. February
1914.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 101
discussed the whole thing in a detached way. His wife
is now living with another man in South Africa, and he
quite appreciated that the difficulty was to get evidence
cheaply, since a law court can't act on letters. I shall
recommend his case, but he would at once accept my
decision as fair if I declined to on grounds of expense.
" The woman made a long rambling application
wholly off the point. She came to see me and talked
volubly about quite irrelevant incidents and grievances,
regarding the whole matter purely from the personal
point of view (a man is much more ready to look at
himself detachedly as a unit in a system). Her husband
had deserted her and was irregular in his payments.
But she not only had no evidence of adultery, but no
shred of ground for suspecting it. When I pointed
this out, she replied (1) that, * as he wasn't living with
her, he must be living with someone else ; (2) that,
as he had his freedom, she didn't see why she wasn't
to have hers ; (3) that if she was rich I would talk
different to her.' She then asserted that she had seen
in the paper that 'under the new Act they would take
up your case whatever it was.' I gently pointed out
that this was a misapprehension, to which she replied
with withering scorn that * that was funny, seeing as how
she had seen it in black and white.' She finally left,
firmly convinced that I was misrepresenting the law in
order to keep her out of her rights.
" The point is that the female attitude is : * I have a
grievance : if the law doesn't remedy it, the law is bad,
and all who administer it are my personal enemies.'
The male attitude is : 4 1 am under a hardship : does
the law give me a remedy ? If not, 1 must do without.'
" What do you say to that ? I was greatly pleased
to have specimens so suited to my argument.
44 On Tuesday papa and I dined in Arlington Street.
102 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
On Wednesday I dined at Liddon House and spoke
about India with one Sir A. Hirtzel. Yesterday I
played tennis at Chelsea 1 and stopped to dinner; and
after dinner Hermione and Jack Talbot sang songs.
The other man was Jack Buchanan, who is a particularly
nice fellow I am getting to know quite well ; Walter
Gibbs, who is cast in the same mould, son of Herbert
Gibbs ; and John Gore, whom I also like very much.
I had hoped to go down to Fisher's Hill 2 this evening
to an out-of-doors dance from five to ten ; but owing to
Goddard's press of work I had to stop and finish a set
of papers for him and did not get home till seven, and
I felt too tired to go off to Woking, so papa and I dined
together."
This letter incidentally bears witness to the fact that
Bobby had now passed beyond the undergraduate stage
when his revulsion from house-parties and balls made
him complain of having to endure their exhausting
imbecility and declare that " I would as soon work a
lift ! " He now found considerable pleasure in his
London season, dances and country-house visits, with
their natural results in friendships with his partners
and with young men of his own age. His critical faculty
was but lightly muzzled and continued its vigilant guard
over the citadels of his heart and conscience. An
instance of its warning bark is given in the following
words written from a delightful country-house :
" 1 find even this good house-party rather depressing.
They look (or pretend to look) on the world as a place
to enjoy oneself in ; and this seems to be the most de-
pressing of abominations, making play into work, and
life a blue without perspective or unity or chiaroscuro ;
1 At the Governor's House, Royal Hospital, the home of General and
Hon. Lady Lyttelton.
2 The home of Mr. Gerald and Lady Betty Balfour.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 103
whereas O and K accept the world as a place
to work in, which gives it a point ; and holiday as an
interlude, which gives it a relish. The gents misuse
the sauce for the meat and really enjoy themselves less,
besides putting all sane ideas out of joint. When I'm
old and famous, and have the courage to snap fingers
at their conventions, I shall get on better."
In the autumns of 1912 and 1913 Bobby enjoyed a
series of country-house visits to Ardgowan, Whittinghame,
Alnwick, Falloden, Lockinge and Eastwell as well as
to various members of his family. At Ardgowan, 1 after
a luckless set of lawn-tennis games, he appeased his
unfortunate partner's annoyance by a Sonnet of Apology :
" When I engage in tennis tournament,
Not points received avail, nor choice of side :
The ball or strikes the net or, flying wide,
O'ershoots the service-line with force unspent :
And if perchance it bounces where I meant,
My adversary with a single stride
Is there, as though my efforts to deride,
And drives it back with murderous intent
That through my bosom's insufficient guard
Of flannelled white inflicts a nasty one ;
Or, filling more refinedly the cup
Of my discomfiture, propels it hard
Into the farthest corner, where I run,
And, bursting, barely fail to get it up.
R. S. A. P.
ARDGOWAN, Sept. 20, 1912."
From Ardgowan he went to Whittinghame, the home
of his cousin, Mr. Arthur Balfour. Bobby felt great
affection for his host, whom he admired as a " supreme
master of all the amenities of life, society, music, art,
science and philosophy everything that is intellectual and
cultured and pleasant." He wrote from Whittinghame to
his mother :
" I am enjoying myself here. It is quite a family
The home of Sir Hugh and Lady Alice Shaw Stewart.
104 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
party. Arthur arrived yesterday morning. I do some
writing every morning and then golf or lawn-tennis, and
I have fished once, catching three trout. My golf has
improved a good deal, though I haven't played so well
here as I did at Lossiemouth. Yesterday A. J. B. and I
played against Gerald and Nelly 1 in a foursome at
Dunbar.
*' Arthur surprises me more each time I see him. I
don't think I know anyone whose person so attracts me,
while at the same time his whole point of view is one
which I so strongly disagree with."
Bobby's arrival at Whittinghame in 1912 and 1913
had been clouded by the unpleasant experience of the loss
of his luggage en route. This double annoyance inspired
the following " Collins " to his hostess on the occasion of
his second visit.
To Miss BALFOUR
" CHEWTON PRIORY, BATH,
August 31, 1913.
" It is with no small gratification that I am able to
report that British pluck and resource successfully over-
came the difficulties of a night march through difficult
country. 2 In fact, the whole affair was a triumph of
organization and careful strategy. When I mention that
eleven articles of the most elusive nature were moved four
hundred miles in a single night over five railway systems,
and two of them Scottish, with only one trifling casualty,
you will forgive a little pardonable pride. Neither trunk
nor train was lost from start to finish.
"The total casualties killed, wounded, and missing
only amounted to twelve egg sandwiches, and they were
left behind at the start. With many troops a failure of the
commissariat means an irreparable loss of morale ; but the
1 Mr. Gerald Balfour and his daughter.
3 Edinburgh to Bristol.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 105
6th Hampshires are of a stern stuff. 1 A foraging party at
Princes Street, after a slight repulse by one barmaid,
succeeded in securing provisions. The baggage was then
rescued in quick succession from an inebriated porter, who
was trying to label it " Preston," and a fat man in a box
who tried to pass off six enormous packing-cases on
me at commercial rates. It was then weighed, at first
with alarming results ; but investigation showed that the
inebriated porter was standing on the weighing-machine ;
and fortunately the fat man accepted my assurance that
he wasn't part of my luggage, and in any case hadn't been
labelled. Once the position at Princes Street had been
carried, the advance met with little resistance. There
was some skirmishing with ticket-collectors on and off all
through the night, but even this fire was silenced after the
one at Hereford (3.15 a.m.) had tripped over my boots and
fallen heavily against the door.
" Well, it is a great comfort to know it can be done,
however much appearances are against it. Please don't
trouble to send on the egg sandwiches, but convey my
apologies to the cook for having put her to the trouble of
making them.
"I enjoyed the time at Whittinghame quite enor-
mously : it is so good of you to have me there. Please
give my adieux and best thanks to Cousin Arthur, whom
I didn't say good-bye to."
While to many of his companions Bobby's friendship
seemed like rays from the light of a great ideal, friendship
appeared at this time chiefly to signify to him oppor-
tunities for chivalrous service. If misfortune overtook
his friends, he had, as one of them expressed it, " an
immediate and heavenly impulse to step right into the
middle of their troubles " and to lavish help upon them by
He had received a Commission in the 6th (Territorial) Battalion,
The Hampshire Regiment during the previous month.
14
io6 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
communication of courage, or by intervention, or by
monetary assistance. He was extremely generous and
spent what ordinary people might have considered a
grossly disproportionate amount of his modest income on
help to friends and on forwarding the religious and social
causes for which he specially cared. He had all his life
been scrupulously prudent with his money, and now he
reaped the reward of his self-control and frugal habits by
always having money at his command whenever some
special call appealed to him.
His sense of the vast possibilities of friendship (the
depths of which he was aware that he had not yet plumbed)
made him foresee that some day, probably through that
medium, he would meet love and his future wife. His
deliberate weighing of the respective values of literary
tastes and matrimony was quaintly characteristic.
To HIS MOTHER
" CHEWTON PRIORY, BATH,
November 5, 1912.
" I want to find time for writing. I shan't be happy
till I have written two or three books : they weigh on my
mind. Only I don't like to neglect my Bar work, as I
might want to marry and I couldn't expect a wife to fall
in with my ideas of income. I can't tell a bit whether I'm
meant to marry or not."
And : "I quite agree that the Law is a very good
profession : only, if I judge myself right, I don't think
I have any special contribution to make to it ; I believe,
and can only test it by trying, that I have some things
to say that want saying and that I can say. But it
wouldn't be fair to a wife to rely on them for support,
since they wouldn't be written for money. So if I
marry I must pursue the Law seriously, otherwise my
400 a year would last me amply and leave me free
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 107
to pursue literature and politics without having to
pot-boil.
" I feel a little afraid of marrying, because I feel sure
I should be wax in Mrs. Bobby's hands, and so I hope I
shan't fall in love till I'm sure that the She is better and
wiser than me : once I felt that, I should be perfectly
happy, but, as you say, one doesn't judge right once the
thing has begun."
Having duly passed his Bar examinations, Bobby
began his legal career as the pupil of Mr. Howard Wright
at 11 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, in the same chambers
that his grandfather, Lord Chancellor Selborne, had
occupied for nearly forty years in the previous century.
It was about this time that Bobby was offered the
alternative of an Oxford career. New College was desir-
ous of securing him as a Fellow and Dean of Divinity;
but as he was now convinced that his destiny lay in the
Law Courts, he was unable to avail himself of the Oxford
offer. There can be little doubt that his decision was right,
for his capacity for concentration, clear thinking and
impartial weighing of evidence, his passion for justice
and his judicial temperament, were qualities which had
marked him out from early childhood as the descendant
on whom his grandfather's mantle might duly fall.
He was called to the Bar in November 1913, and his
name was put up at his grandfather's old chambers.
Shortly after, he went on his first Assize Circuit (the
North-Eastern) as Marshal to Judge Darling, Mr. Justice
Scrutton being the second judge.
From Mr. Howard Wright, Bobby passed under the
tuition of Mr. R. Goddard, with whom he studied for
two months. He joined the Western Circuit in June
1914. The following letter, written during the Assizes at
Winchester, shows that he was gaining professional
confidence.
io8 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
To HIS MOTHER
" WINCHESTER,
June 19, 1914.
" We have had another very busy week. I think I
am very lucky to have gone into chambers with Goddard.
His practice is increasing rapidly and he has only one
devil, so with luck I may have a fine chance with him.
" I nearly had my first chance this week, and in the
Court of Appeal too. Goddard had four things on
simultaneously and left me to protect him in a Work-
man's Compensation Appeal. The case before all but
collapsed while he was still away, but the junior in it was
put up to make a last kick, and, being once on his legs,
stayed there three-quarters of an hour, and Goddard
just came in in time. Even so, it was a very interesting
case, because all three judges started dead against us.
After about half an hour Goddard got Pickford * round,
but the others were obstinate, though I'm sure we were
right. However, after Goddard had sat down, I, who was
watching Swinfen Eady, 2 spotted the scent he was on and
told Goddard to try a new line of argument which just
occurred to me. Goddard took the point in his reply, and
we believe and hope that Swinfen Eady swallowed it.
Anyway, they've reserved judgment, and it will be a score
if we win.
" I came down here to-day to be admitted to the
Circuit. I have to make a speech at dinner. I'm afraid
there is little chance of my getting a brief, because almost
all the prisoners have pleaded guilty. However, I observe
that a very satisfactory proportion of them come from
Bordon and from Alton : so that if Top exerts pressure on
the Whitehill J.P.s I may get some prosecutions hereafter."
1 Sir William Pickford.
Sir Charles Swinfen Eady.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 109
This hope was shortly fulfilled, for on 14th July
Bobby held his first brief at the Winchester County
Quarter Sessions. A fortnight later, his barrister's
gown was flung off, never to be resumed, on his putting
on the khaki uniform of the 6th (Territorial) Battalion
of the Hampshire Regiment in the training camp at
Bulford, where he joined his regiment on 25th July.
Although his time with Mr. Goddard was thus cut down
to less than three months, the latter retains a vivid re-
collection of his pupil. He says :
" Very soon I came to regard Palmer as a man who
would rank with the foremost lawyers of his generation.
His grasp of legal principles can only be described as
intuitive ; all he needed to learn was the everyday
practice. He was, however, far from being merely an
academic lawyer. He had both the instinct of the ad-
vocate and the skill of the draftsman. I well remember
how in the first week he tackled a heavy set of
papers that would have bewildered most men starting in
chambers, and drew a pleading which I signed without
alteration. A little later I asked him to help me with an
arbitration that I had to leave for a time. At the con-
clusion, the arbitrator, Mr. Boydell Houghton, K.C.
(and no one could be a better judge), asked me who he
was. ' I never heard,' said he, ' a young man ask his
questions so well or handle a case better. What a future
there is for him ! ' I remember saying that, since I had
been pupil to Sir John Simon at Oxford, I had never met
anyone who had impressed me so much. WTien his name
appeared on the Roll of Honour, Houghton recalled the
incident to me, saying he should never forget the way he
did the case. I keep his fee-book as a recollection. There
are just three entries in it. There was the pity of it:
he had not had his chance. The War has robbed the
Bar of many to whom reputation had already come, but
though his name was as yet unknown in the Courts, it is
no ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
my firm belief that in Palmer's death our profession
sustained its most grievous loss. There was no position
to which he might not and would not have risen.
" But what I like best to remember, and what I
chiefly miss, is his companionship in chambers. I wish
I could think I had taught him a tithe of what he
taught me. I was proud to have him as a pupil,
but I am infinitely more proud to remember that for
three months we were together daily in chambers as
friends."
There is little more left for me to record of Bobby's
life as a civilian. In those twenty-six years his character
blossomed into such beauty and goodness that it seemed
to many of us that his short life (brilliant and so full of
splendid promise) was as near to being the perfect one as
it is given to men to live, and that " he did not need any
more discipline, he was already so good." 1 His last two
years in England of deepening experience of the driving
force of material life in London, East and West, served
but to intensify his desire for the ascendancy of spiritual
claims. He foresaw, I think with great anxiety, the
fierceness of the coming struggle between these two
incompatible hostile powers. " I should like to see
monasteries in our Church," he once observed, " if only
for the comfort of knowing one could retire to them in
one's old age."
Meanwhile, in the absence of such retreats, Black-
moor afforded him a satisfactory substitute. His last
irresponsible days there were occupied in taking a census
of the birds' nests in the garden. He traced a map of the
grounds with careful accuracy, on which every nest was
marked and numbered ; the census accounted for two
hundred and eighteen nests of twenty-seven different
species. His father and he spent hours upon the search,
1 This was said of him by his cousin, Viscount Grey of Falloden.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER in
and I recollect their pleasure over their latest discoveries
of nests of a jay, a nightjar, and a pied wagtail.
In my last walk with Bobby at Black moor I remember
that, in going across the park, we came upon the scene of a
successful plant laid for me, not long before, by my
irreverent nephews. It was a rabbit's burrow, where
roman tiles and sherds were to be had for the digging.
Inveigled into an antiquarian search, I had discovered
there some black pottery of entirely different pattern to
any found before, and my unsuspicious zeal received a
shock on deciphering the inscription " Cur es tarn viridis ? "
thoughtfully scratched on one of the pieces by Bobby.
From the scene of my humiliation we wandered into
a little fir wood discussing his Oxford House work and
various socialist theories. The afternoon sun shone on
the tall stems of the young firs and turned them into
slender columns of burning red gold. Bobby delighted in
the aisles of resinous pillars, and he told me that he loved
this spot above all the beautiful woody delights of his
home.
The 6th Hampshire Regiment assembled for their
fifteen days' annual training at Bulf ord Camp on Salisbury
Plain during the last week of July 1914, when all Europe
was resounding with the baying of the dogs of war.
Bobby, who, as a subaltern in the " G " (Petersfield)
Company, had joined the regiment in the previous year,
was interested in watching an unaccustomed phase of
human society. He philosophically set forth the con-
clusion of his observations in these words :
" There is a temptation in camp to cover one's ignor-
ance by officiousness, and the main difficulty is to steer a
course between that and a slackness prompted by diffi-
dence. One is expected, I think, to develop a spirit of
petty criticism, and I find myself taking a sudden interest
in the position of privates' thumbs or the fastening of
their buttons ; but the effectiveness is rather marred
112 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
when I find my own sword is back to front or the haversack
where Nature never intended it to be. The anomalous
thing is that most of the time the whole aim of existence
is to do exactly what everyone else is doing a most
corrupting and devertebrating effort and then, suddenly,
chunks of responsibility are thrown at one : mostly pseudo
in camp, because your responsibility is as much (or more)
in the manner of doing a thing as in the doing of it."
He summarized the reasons for enjoying camp-life
under four heads : " (1) That one feels so well with open
air and hard marching. (2) That it is gratifying to find
that men have been ordered by King George to do what
you tell them. The pleasure of ordering people about is
greater than the irksomeness of being ordered about.
(3) There is a kind of primitive charm in dressing up in
uniform and moving about elaborately, with the added
self-satisfaction of feeling that England depends on you.
(4) It is a great relief to take a turn at being a cog in the
machine, with no worries.
"Of these, No. 2 must, I think, be the essential one,
since it is the only one that distinguishes camp-life from
penal servitude."
This halcyon condition of camp-life was abruptly
ended by the mobilization which followed the declaration
of war on 4th August. The next day Bobby was sent
to take charge of one of the forts which form the defences
of Portsmouth.
To HIS MOTHER
" BULFORD CAMP,
August 12, 1914.
" We had a very hard week last week. We got the
order to move on the Monday morning, but owing to
lack of trains we didn't get away till Tuesday morning.
Then we had to march into Salisbury twelve miles, and
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 113
out from Portsmouth to Hilsea three more ; and owing
to the transport service being mobilized, the men got
no food to speak of after leaving here. Then first thing
Wednesday we were drafted out to our various forts
(mine was Fort Monckton), where I was in sole charge
when you came over. I quite enjoyed that for the few
days, though it was uncomfortable and sleepless. The
General came round one day and said I was a born soldier,
on the strength of which I have decided to grow a mous-
tache pro tern. This was General Kelly, who commands
the Portsmouth defences. We were relieved on Sunday,
and returned to Hilsea (where was the camp of the
battalion), hoping for a day or two's rest. Instead of
which we got orders to march that same evening. We
set out at 7 p.m., and we reached Bulford Camp at 6 a.m.
" We rested pretty well on Monday, but have now
begun a strenuous course of training, which will be
extremely unpleasant, but very good for us: drill and
physical exercises every day ; strict inspections of kit,
rifles, etc., and route marches every few days. The great
defect seems to be that ammunition is too precious to
let us practise musketry.
" Several of our officers are volunteering for service in
Belgium, and I had to think over whether I ought to do
the same. But I don't see that I ought, as I am doing
a necessary job here and one which I am less unfit for.
I don't want to go abroad, and there are more fellows
that do than will be allowed to go. If there is a general
call for volunteers later on when I am trained, I may
feel obliged to offer to go ; but I should dislike it above
all things ! Meanwhile I think I am doing a fair share
if I work my hardest here. It is hard to see how long
this war will last. The expenses seem to forbid its being
long, but the strength of each side's forts seem equally to
forbid its being short. Perhaps this points to a collapse
before either side has crushed the other."
15
H4 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
The week which followed the return to Bulford
must have proved a severe test to Bobby's serenity.
Starvation rations, overcrowded tents, defective sanitary
arrangements, an appalling deficiency of equipment of
clothes, boots, rifles ; ** all their blankets pinched from
them to supply the wants of Lord Kitchener's new army,"
no musketry practice obtainable from lack of ammunition,
painful consciousness of incompetency and ignorance in
officers, non-commissioned officers, and men all these
shortcomings reared their hydra heads in paralysing
discouragement against the sorely-tried Territorials.
Bobby's letters " groused " a little during these days.
Then on the 18th of August, he wrote :
" We are getting some of the men's wants supplied,
thanks to a hot report from the General, who came round
on Saturday and who reported that this brigade is the
worst equipped he has ever seen."
From that date, conditions continued to amend ; and
Bobby, now promoted to be a full Lieutenant, was gladdened
by the men's progress in physical fitness and discipline.
To HIS MOTHER
" 6th HANTS,
BULFORD CAMP, SALISBURY PLAIN,
August 30, 1914.
" I was quite right in thinking that K. 1 was determined
to get us to volunteer. He has sent round a paper, which
I am sending to Papa, explaining the gravity of the
situation, and implying that he wants every unmarried
man to volunteer for foreign service. Every officer and
man is to be asked definitely to-morrow whether he will
join the Foreign Service Division or the Home Defence
Division. If sixty per cent, volunteer, we shall go as a
battalion ; if fewer, then composite battalions will be
1 Lord Kitchener.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 115
formed. In any case the volunteers will be separately
trained from 1st September onwards. Now that the
call is made like this, I think it is clearly up to me to
say I'll go ; but I don't intend to try to persuade any of
the men unless they see it as a duty, particularly not the
married ones.
"I think in effect a good deal of moral pressure will
be applied to secure the sixty per cent., which seems to
me unfair, unless K. and the Government are prepared to
go in for compulsory levies. To apply pressure to a
body merely because it is easily accessible is as unfair
as taxing land because it is easily taxed. And it is
specially unfair when a set of men have gone with you
one mile to compel them to go twain before compelling
the shirkers to get a move on at all.
" Of course, if they are going to make a universal
levy, the situation justifies them in making it first on the
most easily handled section of the public ; but I'm afraid
the Cabinet will cling to the name of a voluntary system
until they have dragooned everyone on whom they can
turn the screw into volunteering. . . .
" You give me no news of the family in your letters,
but perhaps you haven't heard any. I should greatly like
to know which of my relatives have joined regiments, which
have gone abroad, etc., and the same of friends such as the
Kindergarten, the Hatfield push (Sidney Peel, Charlie Mills,
John Gore, etc.), and any other acquaintance."
In September the battalion moved to Bustard Camp
on Salisbury Plain, where it was divided into foreign and
home battalions. Bobby was then given command of
" F " Company of the Foreign Service Battalion, a
company which comprised men from his home neighbour-
hood and from the outlying villages and Petersfield.
On 13th September Luly joined up, to the great pleasure
n6 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
of his brother, who was much attracted by another newly-
joined subaltern, Mr. Purefoy Causton, son of the Master of
St. Cross at Winchester and a member of Bobby's College
at Oxford, where he was reading for Greats.
When the final orders of the War Office announced
that the Wessex Division (including the 6th Hampshire
Regiment) was to be dispatched to India, Bobby, Luly
and Mr. Purefoy Causton were delighted with the prospect,
while their respective families felt much relief in the
hope that their destination was to comparatively safe
regions.
On 4th October Bobby wrote home :
" At last definite news. We march from here (Bustard
Camp) Thursday night and embark at Southampton early
Friday morning, the 9th. It must take all day Friday to
get the whole division on board, and so I have great
hopes that Top will be able to get a glimpse of us.
" Our station in India is to be Dinapur, a suburb of
Patna, on the Ganges, a hundred and thirty miles below
Benares. I would much have preferred to be north and
closer to the great cities ; as it is, Benares and Allahabad
will be the only ones within comfortable reach, and
Calcutta ten hours away. One consolation is that our
hill-station is Darjeeling. I am further cheered by
X , who has been five years in Dinapur and liked it
very much. He says it is a good climate and very good
duck-shooting to be got. He takes the military point of
view, as I heard him say : ' There's nothing to see at
Benares ; it's where the Parsis (sic) bury or burn their
corpses ; as a matter of fact, I think they give 'em to
the vultures to eat.' That's the sort of remark Gokhale
& Co. overhear from soldiers who have lived in India five
years 1
" One can imagine Gore's * feelings if an Indian, after
living five years in England, declared there was nothing
1 Dr. Charles Gore, then Bishop of Oxford.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 117
to see at Canterbury except the mortuary of a Christian
Scientist or something. . . .
" Unlimited numbers of old packs of cards, large and
small, will be very acceptable ; also some old Punches,
etc., for the men : no room for very many. My kit is
complete except for a Kodak. Will you buy me a Brownie
No. 2 ? I think Luly wants one too ; they only cost
ten shillings. We are extremely busy getting straight.
The Brigadier inspects us to-morrow and K. later."
Four days earlier, the brothers had come over to
Blackmoor for their final leave-taking. To my eyes
Bobby had never looked so delightful as he did on that
day, with his springing step, youthful grace and dignity
giving distinction to the ugly khaki uniform, and with
his beautiful face illuminated by his serene purity of brow
and delicious smile that flashed with fun and affection.
The pulse of these two golden autumnal days beat on in
poignant endurance ; and at their end both sons and
parents parted with cheery courage in full consciousness
of their double sacrifice, for, while Bobby and Luly
disliked military service and abhorred the interruption
it had made to their civil careers, their parents realized
only too keenly what their patriotism might entail.
CHAPTER VII
INDIA, 1914-1915
THE voyage to India in war-time afforded a sharp contrast
to that of Bobby's experience three years previously.
The Ulionia was one of eleven transports, escorted by
the cruisers Bacchante and Euryalus, steaming with
masked lights at the cautious pace of ten to eleven knots
an hour. She had less deck-space than a Channel boat,
and Bobby's company had to parade on the top of a
horse-box. Physical exercises and deck games were
impossible. The ship was extremely dirty and her
minute cabins sweltered with heat from the kitchen
hot steam pipes, which (as the vessel was fitted for the
Atlantic passage and not for the Red Sea) ran through
every cabin.
Bobby's recreations during the voyage included the
reading of Bernhardi, Gibbon, Meredith's Sandra Belloni,
and books on India, hygiene, etc., and the welcoming
of occasional visits on deck of various land-birds. " I
never remember so many kinds before," he wrote. " Be-
tween Gibraltar and Malta these included a thrush, a
robin, one, if not two, kinds of finch, a turtle-dove, an
owl, a night -jar, also a falcon and a quail." In the Suez
Canal he noted " an unfamiliar finch, a greyish wagtail,
and a purple kingfisher perched on the boat. I also saw
two kinds of swallow, a stork, pied kingfishers, dotterels,
carrion crows and a coot."
The Ultonia reached Bombay on 8th November, where
the 6th Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment was entrained
118
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 119
for Dinapur and arrived there on 14th November.
Bobby's Company " F," (with " G " and " H," under
Major Wyatt's command), went from thence to Dum-Dum
to relieve a detachment of the Royal Fusiliers ; and on
2nd December, Bobby was again moved with part of his
company to relieve another detachment of Royal Fusiliers
at Barrackpore.
While there he confessed in a letter to his mother the
reasons which made him dislike the military profession :
"It is the unrelieved dullness of soldiering which
makes it to me an astonishing profession for anyone to
select. I never before met an occupation in which it was
impossible not to be continually looking forward to the
moment when one would get off duty. I suppose all
factory hands do, which is the root of social unrest.
Our fortnight's training was different a kind of picnic.
Now we do interminable squad drill, which means endless
repetition of wholly uninteresting exercises and the
concentration of one's faculties on the detection of trivial
mistakes. It requires a great effort of imagination to
keep in view the connection between these minutiae and
the avenging of Lou vain.
One gets to know and like the men well enough, and
that gives one some human interest ; but, at the same
time, it makes drill to me all the more tiresome, because
the duty of nagging perpetually comes between you and
them, or seems to. But one learns the mystic fact that
one can, at times, make a man like you more even by or
in punishing him."
A few days after the date of this letter, Barrackpore
was taken over by the 10th Middlesex, and Major Wyatt's
whole detachment proceeded to Agra, whither the rest
of the 6th Hampshires had moved from Dinapur.
Agra held two powerful attractions for Bobby : the
presence of his friend Professor Raju at St. John's College,
120 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
and the Taj, which he felt to possess a unique " per-
sonal ascendancy over him the moment he entered its
presence."
To HIS MOTHER
" AGRA,
January 13, 1915.
" I have got over, I think, the depression which this
beastly routine used to induce from time to time. I
think it was partly the dulness and partly the war, which
at times overwhelms one as the annihilation of all that
makes it better to be alive than dead : a fit which reason
and the memory of Bernhardi can sometimes dispel not
always.
" I find the greatest comfort and refreshment is to
switch my mind into another world whenever possible.
The birds are the greatest resource in this respect. As
long as I'm awake my mind must run on something,
like a motor-engine ; and whenever I'm out I can run
it on to the birds and forget I'm in uniform.
" The second great refreshment is the Taj, which is
almost the only building, and one of the very few sights,
which affects one through the eyes as music does through
the ears. About once in ten days I get down there with
somebody or alone, and sit in the garden and look at it :
and as you look, it grows and fills your whole mind, so
that the motor stops and you become quite passive,
which is delicious. I have felt the same occasionally
inside St. Paul's and Winchester Cathedral ; but apart
from them, only big mountains and music have that
peculiar charm.
"... I dined with the colonel of the native regi-
ment here on Saturday, but met nobody of interest.
I tackled the two women next me on the way they all
ignore the native population, and they answered, of course,
that having to manage native servants is so aggravating,
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 121
that the only way to keep sane is to forget whenever
possible that there are such beings at all, which was the
Louis XV. way of regarding the poor, and is the nega-
tion of the 'Commonwealth.' What I saw of the Cal-
cutta ladies there quite confirmed my impressions. Not
only do they seem unaware of the coloured population's
existence, but some of them must live permanently
indoors. I asked one of them about Darjeeling, and she
described exhaustively the various social functions there ;
but from her description of the place it might have been
Johannesburg or Port Said or anywhere else."
The horror of war, which to the end haunted Bobby,
shadowed many of his earlier letters from India.
To THE REV. RONALD KNOX
" AGRA,
January 4, 1915.
"It is curious that the absence of news (we only get
meagre Reuter's summaries three days old), instead of
increasing the suspense, puts the whole war into the
background in a way which would be inconceivable in
England. Still, it is a horrible time, even with all these
stimulants to the imagination absent. At times I feel
uncannily oppressed, almost stifled. The whole process
of self-enslavement in order to become proficient at
slaughtering men is so odious. At such times my greatest
comfort is Bernhardi. Of course you have read him :
the moment I did so I felt quite happy to be fighting
his pestilential creed ; and if one has got to be shot, I
can conceive no cause I had rather be shot in, because
it is a question of everything that I value both in religion
and by English instinct."
16
122 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
To THE VISCOUNTESS HOWICK
"February II, 1915.
" It just shows how silly soldiers or most of them are,
that they went out to the war expecting it to be fun.
Whereas any sane man with a grain of imagination knows
that it is so horrible as to make one sick. That is where
the middle-class Socialist is much more in touch with life's
realities than a public-school boy, bred to an artificial
or rather atavistic view of war. Never having had any
illusions, I dare say I should find the Front less intolerable
than some, who have had a big disappointment."
To THE VISCOUNT WOLMER
" AGRA,
February 4, 1915.
" How odd you should be at Fort Monckton ! l I hope
you find the bed as comfortable as I did, in the spacious
officers' quarters. After the first night I preferred the
floor, not having any mattress or bedding, bar one
regimental blanket. Also the washing arrangements
must be delicious in February. The walk round the
ramparts is very refreshing and ozoney, especially the
' twice by night ' part ; and I hope there is a brass
plate to mark the spot where General Kelly said I was
a born soldier. However, I expect anything is better
than the Isle of Wight : you aren't so very far from
Blackmoor after all.
" I expect if you or I go to the Front, we shall find
it less intolerable than some do, because we've no illusions
about it. Most of the idiots here are itching to get there
and imagine they will have a glorious time. I have
1 Wolmer was a captain in the 3rd Battalion, The Hampshire Regi-
ment, at that time in charge of the Forts of Portsmouth.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 123
always felt quite sure that fighting would be the limit
of beastliness, and it will do the reality credit if it sur-
passes my expectations.
" Last night we had a thunderstorm here from 6 to
7 p.m. in the course of which it hailed for twenty minutes,
the best walnut size. Result is that all roads and fields
are flooded on low ground, and the leaves are stripped
from the trees and hedges as if a swarm of locusts
had passed along. Innumerable birds must have been
killed. They picked up 150 crows in the Fort, and lots
of other birds, even kites, were killed. I found nine
lovely bee-eaters together, all little St. Stephens as Lolly l
would say."
To HIS FATHER
" AGRA,
February 3, 1915.
" I had a great day on Saturday at Bhurtpur shoot, or
rather super-shoot ; because the whole thing was on a truly
rajah-like scale. Radwell, Curtis, and I from the 6th Hants
and two others, Hammond and Murray, managed to reach
the Residency at Bhurtpur at 9.15. There we found a crowd
and bustle more like the entraining of a battalion (though
far better managed) than a mere shoot. We were given
our orders for the campaign, including instructions, &
game card, and a map. From these documents it appeared
that there were 42 guns and 400 beaters, besides 126
pickers-up and 8 elephants ; so no wonder it required
some organization.
"My butt was No. 35, and I had to drive about a
mile along a causeway built out of the jhil. The jhil
is a large marshy expanse of several square miles, full of
reeds and rushes with larger trees thickly sprinkled, so
that you never could see more than a small area of the
jhil at one time. My butt was on an island about 150
Lady Laura Ridding.
124 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
yards to the left of the causeway. As we drove along
the latter, we got glimpses through the trees of vast
flocks of water birds of all descriptions, grey cranes among
the reeds trumpeting, white flamingoes, herons fishing,
and on the tree-tops plovers and sandpipers on the
mud-banks, geese and ducks, egrets and ibises, stilts
and cormorants, pelicans and bitterns, a most fascinating
profusion, like the sands of the seashore for number,
and including, it seemed, almost as many species as the
British Isles could show together. Just opposite my
butt, the other side of the causeway, was a flock of geese,
covering about three acres.
" To reach the butt I had to embark in a queer little
tin tub, which was partly towed and partly shoved through
the fen by the three coolies who were attached to the butt
as pickers-up. My island was circular in shape and
about 8 feet in diameter. On it had been constructed a
butt of green boughs, inside of which was a shooting-seat
and trestles supporting an open box for cartridges in two
divisions ; also a basket with soda-water, fruit, and
sandwiches. It was a perfect day, light cloud hiding the
sun, and quite cool and calm.
" At last the bugle to start the shooting sounded, and
almost immediately a pintail came across my front at
about 25 yards, nicely up. I hit him hard both barrels,
but failed to bring him down ; as a matter of fact it
proved to be about the easiest shot I had that day.
My shot raised the geese and a small detachment were
coming my way, so I reloaded with No. 3's. By the time
they reached me they were high and sheering off on seeing
the butt, but one came within shot, and the first barrel
caught him full where the neck joins the breast and he
fell like a stone. This bucked me up and I had a busy
ten minutes. Small lots or single birds were passing
pretty continuously, each a little higher and wider than
the last, but I was very much on the spot, and got eight
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 125
down out of the first ten or twelve, each a first-rate shot ;
after which I lost count.
" Taking it all round, I don't think I have ever shot
better. Every third or fourth time I managed to pull
one down, to my great surprise and jubilation ; and a
large portion of these were clean killed. After the first
hour things got quieter, the birds being fewer and higher
than ever ; and I only shot about one in four or five
minutes. The geese had kept 200 feet and more up
ever since the first go off, but a single one came exactly
over me now, as I thought just out of range. However,
I saluted it with 3's, and to my astonishment it came
crashing down about 100 yards behind me in a large
bed of reeds.
" When the bugle went for luncheon I examined the
bag, and found they had picked up 28, composed
of a great variety of birds. The most prominent bird
about was the pintail, which is large and very handsome ;
the commonest was the teal. There were several I had
not shot before, and one bird, the spot-billed duck, quite
new to me.
" I was towed to shore and driven to a kind of Durbar
camp, a sumptuous luncheon marquee with the table laid
for fifty. The guns included three Rajahs, the Lieutenant-
Go vernor of Burma, and various other nobs. Patiala
and Dholpur had each bagged over 100, and the crack
British gun who lives there, one Cruikshank, had 140. I
reckon that he would have got 100 where I was. I fired
at about 150 birds, of which he would have got perhaps
40 as certainties and about half the remainder. The
morning's bag totalled 1490, and included grey-lag
goose, a few mallard, pintail, gadwall, spot-bill duck,
wigeon, shoveller, red-crested pochard, pochard, white-
eye and teal.
" We got back after a very good luncheon to our butts,
and the bugle sounded again at 8.30. Birds were much
126 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
scarcer and higher than ever. I was shooting even better
in the afternoon, which I don't often do, and I got some
of the most glorious high teal I have ever seen. I had
the satisfaction of finishing up with three consecutive
beauties a teal, a shoveller and a gadwall, the last being
high, crossing at over 50 yards. My total bag was 17
for the afternoon, or 45 in all, made up as follows :
1 grey-lag goose, 5 pintail, 4 gadwall, 3 spot-bill duck,
5 shoveller, 3 red-crested pochard, 4 white-eye, 18 common
teal, 1 teal (?), 1 common pochard. I fired 320 cartridges
in all, which is equal to seven per bird picked up. Anyway,
it works out at bringing down every fourth bird I fired at ;
and if you'd seen the birds you would have agreed that
that was extremely good for me.
" Starting at 6.30, we got back to Agra at 8.40. So
ended a glorious day."
His next leave, on 12th February, was spent in a visit
to Delhi and Muttra. Of Muttra he wrote :
" The city is, I think, the most fascinating I have
seen the only one to beat it might be Benares. Muttra
is very sacred and the scene of many Krishna legends,
and a centre of Vishnu worship. Consequently it is
thronged with pilgrims and fakirs. The streets are
paved, the fronts of the houses rich with stone carving,
temples frequent, and the whole teeming like a beehive.
Along the Jamna bank are bathing ghats ; a paved street
runs along behind them, and presents a kaleidoscope
of devotional pictures. This aspect of Hinduism is the
only one which attracts me at all ; some people are
repelled by it, with its paint-daubs, ashes, matted hair,
genuflexions, ablutions and other uncouth circumstances ;
but it all seems to me a very genuine and human expression
of the instinct of propitiation and purification.
" The place is full of holy men of all kinds. There
has just been an extra big feast there, which occurs only
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 127
once in twelve years. We wandered about the bazaars
till dusk wonderful paved lanes of Oriental shops teeming
with life and colour and slow rambling motion. Nobody
took much notice of us or pestered us to buy.
" At about 6.30 we got into a big lazy boat, and
punted up the river to watch the ceremony of the Lights,
a kind of Hindu Vespers peculiar to Muttra and a most
enchanting sight, in a magical setting. The whole river
front of the city is embanked in stone, with flights of steps
to the water, as at Benares. From these steps or ghats,
pilgrims and others were launching little votive lights.
These are wishes : they are mere wicks and oil in clay
thimble saucers, set on tiny rush rafts, six or eight on a
raft, and they drift and twinkle away in the fading light.
" Soon we joined a semicircle of boats around the
ghat where the ceremony was to take place. A large
temple court looks on to the river, the steps leading down
from it. At the top was a stone canopy or baldachino
hung with bells. On the steps was gathering a crowd
of the people and pilgrims. These were busy feeding the
turtles in the river a wonderful sight in itself. They
simply swarmed, from terrapins to monsters, jostling and
heaving in a mass like fish in a net. Presently the bells
began, slowly at first, like chapel bells at Oxford, then
growing to a wild barbaric jangle, and in accompaniment
there rose cries and chants and gesticulations from the
now dense and emotional throng of people on the steps
and in the court. Suddenly the excitement grew tenser
and a priest appeared dim under the canopy (character-
istically not white-robed to complete the picture, but in
a dirty plum-coloured shawl and nondescript clothes).
Before him two acolytes stretched a muslin veil, behind
which he held a metal candelabra, not branched, but in
tiers like a skeleton papal tiara. On this were set many
little lamps and wicks, and the priest proceeded to light
them one by one, with prayers and ritual, while the cries
128 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
redoubled, the bells beat in loud panting peals, and the
whole mass of people about the ghat and courtyard
swayed to and fro in a kind of dreamy ecstasy. Then
the luminous veil was snatched aside and the priest held
up the brilliant cluster of lights sacrificially in oblation
a picture never to be forgotten. It was almost completely
dark now, and the river and steps could only be dimly seen,
while the courtyard faded into darkness behind the
glowing circle of the lights.
" Then the priest drew down his hands, and the people
swarmed round and with long, sinuous gestures reached
out and passed their fingers through the flames, whether
to touch the fire or slowly to beat it out was obscure.
Gradually the lights died away, and with them the bells
and the voices, till the ceremony ended in dramatic still-
ness and darkness, to which the Tencbrae at St. Peter's
offers the only parallel I know."
Holidays, such as those described in the last two letters,
formed the fringe, not the texture, of Bobby's days.
During the spring of 1915 he was fully occupied with
complaints and discontent among his men, occasioned
by the faulty food provision.
" At best, the food is bad," explained Bobby, " and
the process of conveying it to the men is like bringing
water through a leaky aqueduct. It's an exhausting
and thankless job trying to put your finger on the leak."
He inaugurated his reforms by investing in a mincing-
machine, by instituting new cooking orderlies, by revising
the expenditure of messing-money, by superintending
the giving out of rations and the weighing of the food,
and, on one occasion, by testing the tea, of which the men
complained, by serving it out to the officers' mess, where
it was rejected with convincing vehemence. Presently,
to his great relief, he was joined in his campaign by
Major Wyatt, who threw himself into the fight directly
CAPTAIN THE HON. R. S. A. PALMER
6th Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment. (India.)
Aged Twenty-seven, 1915.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 129
he took command of the detachment left at Agra. " He
is convinced," said Bobby, " that the food here is worse
than at other stations, and is making detailed inquiries
and embodying the results in repeated complaints, and is
suggesting remedies." Among the facts thus elicited
were :
1st. That the total value of the daily ration, meat,
bread, and groceries was fourpence halfpenny (as opposed
to two shillings in England).
2nd. That of this, only something under three penny-
worth reached each man, the contractor pocketing the
balance.
3rd. That the daily ration of meat for one company
was found, on re-weighing after the bone was removed, to
have shrunk to half the original weight.
4th. That the bread was proved to have been
systematically damped for weighing.
5th. That the chief Babu of the Supply and Transport
made an incredible show of wealth on his modest stipend
of thirty rupees a month.
Before many weeks had passed, Major Wyatt's and
Bobby's concentrated efforts produced a noticeable and
increasing improvement in the canteen ; so that, when in
May the battalion was reorganized on the double company
system, and " F " and " H " became " D " double com-
pany, with Bobby as second in command, 1 he was free to
turn his attention to the provision of occupation for his
men during the coming hot weather.
" What I am going to propose," he wrote home, ** is
the reorganization of games, which have (d la Hampshire)
got very slack. Possibly we can start hockey. Various
tournaments, quoits, whist, etc. Sports, swimming,
(there arc baths in barracks).
" I had thought of lectures, but it is so difficult to make
1 He was promoted to the rank of Captain in April 1915, but was not
gazetted till the autumn.
'7
I 3 o ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
them entertaining without lantern-slides. I gave them
one on the Taj in the winter. I may be able to work a
series on the War, using Land and Water."
His care for his men permeated every phase of their
lives, their pay, food, health, amusements, interests and
morals. He had hardly landed in India when he started
a savings bank for his company, which rendered useful
service for three years. He lectured his company on
hygiene, watching over their health with the prudence of a
cautious medical man, and being rewarded by a consoling
absence of illness. " There has never been so little sick-
ness since we mobilized," he reported to his mother in
June. " We are nearly three-quarters of the way through
the hot weather in its narrower sense. I had been led by
Kipling's lurid accounts of the hot weather in barracks to
anticipate a lot of trouble, but there is no sign of it. We
have kept pretty free of sunstroke owing to the Major's
very sensible precautions. The gunners sneer and jeer
at these precautions, but the result is that, though their
numbers are almost a third of ours, they have had nine or
ten bad cases of sunstroke (one fatal) to our two."
Bobby's relations to his company earned the approval
of his men and his fellow-officers from the beginning.
After his death, Lieutenant J. H. Stables wrote to Purefoy
Causton : " It did not take long to recognize Robert
Palmer as one of the great strengths in the battalion. It
was noticeable from the very first, from the way he handled
his company and went about working for them on
the UUonia it struck me."
Sergeant Alfred Lunt recalls two incidents which he
considered to be characteristic of Captain Robert Palmer.
The first was a stern reproof addressed by him to his
younger brother before the whole company, for being late
on parade, which the men regarded as showing " his
obvious wish to be absolutely impartial in enforcing
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 131
discipline." The second was an incident during some
company manoeuvres, which Sergeant Lunt was sent to
attend as an " unofficial umpire." " After the con-
clusion of the mimic battle it fell to my lot to criticize
adversely Captain Palmer's action in an emergency. He
was kind enough to thank me for the criticism, but he was
far less forgiving towards himself. His sense of duty
was, I fancy, a very powerful one, and whether he was
on orderly duty, company duty, or office work, he was
always absolutely punctilious in performance."
No greater contrast occurs in Bobby's life than that
shown in his intolerance of schoolboy Philistinism at
Winchester and his understanding of the outlook of the
Hampshire Territorial. He had learned, as his former
Headmaster expressed it, " to see deeper. Before the
end he saw the strength and steadfastness and comrade-
ship that lie in the breast of the most unlikely, and his heart
went out to meet them with a fulness wonderfully different
from the aloofness of schooldays."
Bobby wrote an unsigned article in the Indiaman of
30th April 1915, on " The Territorials in India : Adapta-
tion to Environment" It is singularly interesting as
showing the ceaseless observation and philosophical
deductions made by him in his hourly intercourse with
his men. He noted with regret that the final adjustment
(which followed the excitement of novelty and the ensuing
reaction and home-sickness) involved the sacrifice of many
living interests, among which was, too frequently, the loss
of all concern in things Indian, due to the creation of an
aggressively British atmosphere.
This was the more distressing to Bobby, because, for
him, the attraction of India and her people remained as
potent as ever. He greatly appreciated the opportunities
of intercourse with his friends at St. John's College which
Agra afforded him. He threw himself enthusiastically
i 3 2 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
into Mr. Raju's project of forming a local " Round Table
Group," l and he took part in a preliminary meeting,
held to consider the proposal, where, at Mr. Raju's request,
he sketched the history of the Round Table inquiry and its
group-method. He also attended subsequent meetings
of the Group, which was eventually formed. " I am sure
that it is Raju's vocation to be a Spark-scatterer 1 " he
once remarked to a mutual friend.
In addition to this effort to stimulate study on sound
political lines, Bobby shared in another of his friend
Raju's intellectual enterprises, i.e. in a series of lectures
delivered at meetings of the professors of St. John's
College, when keen discussions were held on the theories
of Transmigration and of Karma. Mr. Raju contri-
buted two brilliant original addresses delivered from the
Christian standpoint ; Bobby wound up the argument
with a remarkable paper which partly corrected and
partly supplemented the lines laid down by his friend. It
was entitled " Inequalities, Criticisms and Suggestions
from the Christian Point of View." After my nephew's
death, Mr. Raju sent the paper as a " dearly valued and
treasured " offering to the mother of " the dearest and
truest friend he had ever had, or hoped to have, in life."
At the same time, Purefoy Causton (another of Bobby's
devoted friends) described to her his recollections of
discussions with its author of various points in the paper
while it was being composed : " The thing interested
me enormously. It makes hay very satisfactorily with
the Theosophist point of view."
At the time that these lectures were being delivered,
in March of 1915, the friendship between Purefoy Causton
The Groups conduct inquiries into the relations existing between
the several parts of the British Commonwealth, with the object of deter-
mining whether they are satisfactory ; and, if not, how far they require
to be changed in order to make them so.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 133
and Bobby had thrown out very deep roots. On 19th
March the latter wrote to his mother, saying : " I have
become very devoted to Purefoy since we have been here.
I have never known a friend before who made me forget
all about myself and care only for him. It is the best
thing that has come into my life for a long time, and every
day I thank God for it. He is a real unpretending saint,
but full of go and charm, and I just love him because he's
Purefoy. Luly is nearly as devoted to him as I am, and
he has made the whole difference to me out here. I know
you would understand it at once if you saw a little of
him ; and I hope you will, if we all come home safe by
God's mercy. I can't illustrate his power over me and
Luly, or his good use of it, more convincingly, than by
saying that he has persuaded us both to go in for a bare-
back riding course on the artillery gun -team horses
here ! ! "
Bobby's last earthly Easter was spent at Rawal Pindi.
He wrote in Holy Week, saying :
" Now I'm off to Rawal Pindi to-morrow, to do a
musketry course. (Isn't it like the military to order one
to report oneself at a place seven hundred miles off on the
afternoon of Easter Day ? However, I've got leave to
start on Good Friday, as half the battalion is setting off for
the hills then.) I told the Quartermaster that I thought
it a bit thick sending us all off on Good Friday instead
of waiting till Monday, and he said : ' Yes, it is a bit
awkward; but Monday is a Bank Holiday, too, so it
makes no difference either way I ' "
To HIS MOTHER
" FLASHMAN'S HOTEL, RAWAL PINDI,
Easter Day (April 4), 1915.
" I don't think I have ever spent a more blessed
Easter Day, and I must begin my letter to-day just to
134 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
tell you how deeply happy I am. Isn't it strange that,
with you far away and the nightmare of the War hanging
over us in a dark cloud, I have never felt so happy and
peaceful inwardly ? Don't think for a moment that
being away from you doesn't hurt me. Of course it does,
every day ; and if I let myself think too much about it,
I get very home-sick, and at times the horror of the War
still almost stifles me ; but, instead of feeling miserable at
it all, I now find a happiness and peacefulness that in the
end is always the deepest thing i# me, and reasserts
itself after every unsettlement. Even the dull old routine
of drill has got its little cheery halo.
" I keep wondering how this has come about, as I
can't trace the stages in it clearly, and I can't even be
certain it will last. But for the moment I have found
this wonderful peace. I have settled some of the long
mental battles which divided me against myself and
made me afraid and ashamed of myself. I feel at peace
with God and more deeply thankful to Him than I can
say ; and that by resting on His love I can be less of a
coward, less selfish and less isolated. Only, I am frightened
I shan't have the faith and goodness to keep in such
harmony with life.
" Among human relations, I owe this great blessing to
dear Purefoy more than anyone. He has touched me as
no one else of my own age has, and has given me glimpses
of a blessedness I've always longed for and always missed,
like love to an old maid. But the glorious thing is that
I've not only got a glimpse but a taste of the real thing.
I'm not an old maid, but a young boy, and I can feel the
glow of a friendship that is more precious than life. You
must love him too and make him love you. I often talk
to him about you to try to make him know you now.
"I've taken up Wentworth 1 again. He was rather
interrupted by company training and our other activities,
1 His unfinished novel, Wentworth's Reform.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 135
but here I try to devote an hour to him every day, and do
on most. I find it much harder to write than an article,
and am not satisfied with the present form of what I have
written. ... It is a very amusing work, and now I feel
so contented and peaceful there is nothing to spoil it."
Of his conversion of mind with regard to active
service, he wrote :
" At first I was devoutly thankful that I had been
honourably removed from the firing-line, the prospect of
which I funked acutely even when I screwed myself up to
volunteer for Foreign Service. But now it seems to me
one can't shirk it like that. I feel that, if I got the chance,
I ought to go to the firing-line, partly on general grounds
that one ought to be at the most dangerous place and any
form of staying away from it is in the long run wormish ;
and partly on personal grounds that one ought to take
the line of most resistance if one is to make a reality of
one's pretensions to lead a Christian life.
" The only qualification to this conclusion which I feel
is quite honest, is that I don't want to go anywhere
without my men. The company comes from all round
Blackmoor and includes boys like N and W and
W , so that I feel a kind of special responsibility for
them. One would feel it terribly in the firing-line ; but,
after pondering it over, I am sure it would be right to
take them there if I had the chance, even though I knew
that many of them would never come back."
Three weeks later he wrote to his mother that :
" They are calling for volunteers from Territorial
Battalions to fill gaps in the Persian Gulf. ... So far
they have asked the Devons, Cornwalls, Dorsets, Somer-
sets, and East Surreys, but not the Hampshires. So I
suppose they arc going to reserve us for feeding the 4th
Hants in case they want casualties replaced later on.
136 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Even if they come to us, I don't think they are likely
to take me or Luly, because in every case they are taking
the senior subaltern. But, of course, I shall volunteer,
as there is no adequate reason not to ; so I thought you
would like to know, only you mustn't worry, as the chance
of my going is exceedingly remote ; but I like to tell you
everything."
" Everything " included at this time a matter that
weighed heavily on Bobby's soul. The abominations of
the Contagious Diseases Acts seemed to him to survive
in the hideous prostitution system in India. He described
himself as " up against it ! " and wrote both to his mother
and to me about his distress concerning the whole matter.
He disbelieved entirely in warnings given to soldiers
against unchastity, based only on the danger of catching
disease :
" I tell my men to abstain, 1st : Because it's wrong,
and you know it is. It's a wrong (i) to yourself and your
self-respect ; (ii) to the girl, because you are contributing
to keep her in a rotten life just as truly, if not so obviously,
as if you were seducing an innocent girl each time ;
(iii) to any future sweetheart or wife you may have here-
after.
" 2nd : Because it's dangerous to your health and
military efficiency.
" There are, in fact, only two tenable attitudes on the
question : i.e. my attitude and that of the ' facilities
and protection.' The logical Germans have adopted the
latter, I'm told. To me, such a policy is inexpressibly
horrible, because it implies such an infamously degraded
conception of women and their treatment."
Some criticisms of Sinister Street, 1 relating to this
matter, show how passionately Bobby rebelled against
the ordinary worldly view of immorality.
1 Sinister Street, by Compton MacKenzie.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 137
To his friend, Purefoy Causton, he wrote :
" It's not the indecency I object to : it's the cruelty.
Why won't fellows realize that womanizing is one of
those things, like slavery and cruelty to children, that
are essentially damnable and barbarous ?
"I have finished Sinister Street, Book IV. What I
think is really great in the last book is that he gives an
absolutely realistic picture of the underworld it reads
quite as convincingly as the picture of Oxford, though
I haven't the same means of testing it without ever
once being morbid or nasty about it. And it brings out
vividly the two facts which oppress me always i.e. the
horrible cruelty of the whole institution of prostitution
right down from the top to the bottom Mrs. Gainsborough
is nearly on the top rung of a ladder, of which the bottom
rung is Mrs. Smith's. (Even she is not by any means the
bottom, really, when you remember the white slaves of
Buenos Ayres.) They are part of one whole, which stands
or falls together. That is the first thing.
" And the second is the astonishing callousness of
men, due to lack of imagination. They only see their
own point of view, and they assume that for an unmarried
man to go off for a week-end with a girl is, at the worst,
an amiable weakness of youth, and think none the worse
of him for it. Yet, to me, it is staringly obvious that,
say Lonsdale, whenever he goes to Brighton with Lily,
is helping to create a Mrs. Smith, just as surely as if he
had frequented a brothel or seduced a nursemaid, both
of which he would probably have realized to be revolting
things to do.
" Do you follow ? and do you agree ? I do so want
you to feel as I do about this, because it is a very important
question and is going to loom very large before long.
And it is so hard to discuss with other people, that I feel
the risk of getting a one-sided or exaggerated view of
it. I feel I may have to spend a good part of my life
18
138 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
fighting this indifference and acquiescence in two standards,
so I want to do so sanely."
To his mother he wrote on the same subject :
" I should like all my young men acquaintances to
read Sinister Street, to help them to realize how miserable
a prostitute's life really is, and how the scale passes re-
morselessly from the Mrs. Gainsboroughs at one end to
the Mrs. Smiths at the other. The only thing which
seemed to me not quite true to fact was Michael's ap-
parent assumption that all his friends were lax in these
matters and that it was inevitable it should be so. I
believe that is an exaggeration : among the 'Varsity class
I should say that only about one man in three (enough,
in all conscience !) had wrong relations with women before
their marriage ; and that the remainder (more or less
mildly) deprecate their doing it."
The ferment resulting from the action of Western
ideas on the ancient and antagonistic ideas and use of
India was another subject of grave study by my nephew.
He analysed it in several letters, from which some extracts
may fitly find their place here.
To HIS FATHER
" AGRA,
May 4, 1915.
" I will certainly peg away at the Indian problem
and let you know my conclusions. My difficulty at present
is to get first-hand statements of the Indian point of view.
At present I'm rather depressed by what I understand
of it, as it seems we are heading towards a critical dead-
lock. With regard to what you say, my impressions are
these :
" 1. The ' catchwords of European democracy ' don't
loom so large as you suppose. It is more a question of
national or racial incompatibility of ideas. I don't even
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 139
detect any enthusiasm for Parliamentary Government,
except as a means of overthrowing the Anglo-Indian
bureaucracy. Such democratic talk as there is, rings to
me like mere eyewash of English M.P.s.
" 2. The ' small proportion ' is and is not true. Of
the population of India, of course, only a very small
percentage is educated at all. But, as far as I can make
out, of the educated classes in the towns, including clerks,
petty officials, commercial clerks, shopmen, petty traders,
students and lawyers, the overwhelming majority are
Nationalist. The only exceptions seem to be those
whose job depends on the maintenance of the status quo.
The army is a doubtful quantity. It is assiduously fed
with Nationalist propaganda, but with what result I
don't know.
" 3. What impresses me most, as compared with what
I heard in 1912, is the universal opinion that things have
moved very quickly since then, and that a further large
advance towards giving Indians a controlling share in
the government is inevitable in the near future. In
every department, civil service, municipalities, finance,
provincial governments, the Indians are pushing steadily
forward, like a line of saps, towards fuller control of their
own affairs. ... It is all we can do to guide them into
the safest channels ; and that's what we're trying to do,
always assuring them that we sympathise, and so on.
But now when a concrete question comes up for decision,
a so-called concession which everyone knows could have
been made without the smallest risk or difficulty, the
Lords go and reject it. Instantly every saphead becomes
irritated and enflamed. They cry out that it is a put-up
job, that our professions of sympathy are insincere, that
our advice and guidance is only an attempt to stifle their
movement.
" 4. The whole agitation and unrest spring from two
roots, as far as I can see :
140 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
" (a) Incompatibility of temper, sharpened by a
sense of being treated as a conquered
race.
" (b) Hope of loot.
"The first is, of course, the formidable root, and it
is ineradicable. British methods and attitudes irritate
Indians as much as theirs irritate us. Their standards
are so hopelessly unrelated to ours that I despair of our
convincing them either, 1st, that British methods give
better results than Indian methods ; or even, 2nd, that
British methods give better results when worked by
Englishmen than when worked by Indians. As for the
sense of being a conquered race, I should like to see
Government work its hardest to remove that sense ;
but I confess that the chief points of grievance are ex-
tremely difficult to remove. The ones most often cited
are:
" I. The social exclusion of Indians from English
clubs and social functions, etc.
" II. The way in which the youngest English whipper-
snapper orders Brahmans and other Indian swells about
like servants.
" III. The Aliens Act. Raju says this rankles more
than anything.
" IV. The exclusion of Indians from highest posts in
the Army and Civil Service.
" V. The treatment of Indian emigrants in South
Africa and Canada.
" These headings seem to me typical. Only the last
raises the question of India's place in the Empire. I.
and II. breed a desire to eliminate the Anglo-Indian, as
far as possible, because he is a galling and unsympathetic
personality ; III. and IV. breed a desire to get control of
the machine of Government ; whether that machine is
democratic or autocratic in form I don't think interests
them. Running through all this, and greatly reinforcing
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 141
it, is the desire to get control of the huge revenue and
patronage of Government. And that, of course, is exactly
what we can't give them. Hence I see a deadlock,
which can only be postponed, not averted, by ' conces-
sions ' on unessential matters.
44 It seems to me more urgently necessary for India
than for any other part of the Empire to come under a
really Imperial Parliament which could keep abreast of
its problems. But I believe it would be disastrous to
put India under such a body autocratically, i.e. without
reconciling Indians to the change, which will be difficult.
They dislike and distrust the Dominions because of their
immigration policy, and fear they will be exploited or
treated as an inferior people by them.
" I am convinced that the only way of reconciling
them to it will be by giving them direct representation
in the Imperial Parliament. And on general grounds I
think they are entitled to it. The Indian point of view is
distinctive, sincere, and often vitally serious to Indians.
It is entitled to be heard, and Indian Civil Service people
with the best will can't always voice it ; at any rate
Indians never think they can.
" I don't think numbers will be a difficulty ; the
principle is representation and is familiar here ; counting
heads isn't. A very small number would suffice.
" The difficulty is much more likely to be to get the
Dominions to agree to allowing Indians a voice in their
affairs. But that must be just faced ; there is no way of
evading it.
44 It seems to me that what is wanted here pre-
eminently is thinking ahead. The moment the War
stops, unprecedented clamours will begin, and only a
Government which knows its aim and has thought out
its method can deal with them. It seems to me, though
i 4 2 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
my judgment is fearfully hampered by my inability to
get at any comprehensive statement of most of the
relevant facts, that the aim may be fairly simply defined,
as the training of India to self-government within the
Empire, combined with its good administration in trust
meanwhile. That gives you a clear criterion India's
welfare, not British interests and fixes the limit of the
employment of Indians as the maximum consistent with
good government.
" The method is, of course, far more difficult and requires
far more knowledge of the facts than I possess. But I
should set to work at it on these lines :
" 1. Certain qualities need to be developed : re-
sponsibility, public spirit, self-respect, and so
on. This should be aimed at (i) by our own
example and teaching, (ii) by a drastic re-
form of higher education.
"2. The barbarisms of the masses must be attacked.
This can only be done by a scheme of uni-
versal education.
" 3. The material level of civilization should be
raised. This means agricultural and in-
dustrial developments in which technical
education would play a large part.
" Therefore, your method may be summed up in two
words sympathy and education. The first is mainly, of
course, a personal question. Therefore, preserve at all
costs a high standard of personnel for the Indian Civil
Service.
" The second, education, is a question of s. d.
The aim should be a far-sighted and comprehensive
scheme. Reform of higher education will be very un-
popular, but should be firmly and thoroughly carried out ;
it ought not to cost much. Elementary education would
have to begin by supplying schools where asked for, at a
certain rate. From this they would aim at making it
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 143
gradually universal, then free, then compulsory. But
that will be many years hence inevitably."
On the 18th May, Bobby, Luly, and Purefoy Causton
made an expedition from Simla to Narkanda, which in
Bobby's estimation was surpassingly rich in the delights
of glorious panorama, snow ranges, birds and butterflies
of exquisite beauty, picturesque hill-people, and the
recollection that Narkanda was the scene of the last
episode in Kim. 1
Of the return journey, Bobby wrote :
" We started back at 9.30, but after five miles of road
we left our rickshaws and climbed by a footpath over the
wall of the valley and so down to Matiana. The walk
was the loveliest and most delightful I ever remember
taking. The air was like champagne. One saw the
flowers, birds and butterflies on much more intimate
terms than from the road. The trees were magnificent.
The butterflies were magical. Of the many flowers, the
most exquisite was a blue anemone, almost the colour of
a periwinkle, but not quite the colour of anything but
itself. The path ran for some way along the ridge, with
a view on either side through the forest. Then we came
to an open space, where a grass meadow ran up to a
tor which crowned the ridge. From this meadow we had
a stupendous view of the full semicircle of the snows, now
all visible. We could see at least a hundred miles in either
direction, from the Chamba Hills round Dalhousie to the
great peaks beyond Mussourie, Kedranath and Badrinath
towering above everything on the extreme right, and to
their left, Gangutri and Jamnutri, the twin mountains
from which the Ganges and Jamna rise. A large pro-
portion of the surface is too steep for snow to lie, and this
adds greatly to the effect, as the white snows are chequered
with blue, like the shadows on the moon at dawn.
1 Kim, by Rudyard Kipling.
144 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
" We scrambled quickly down to Matiana through
mossy forests of ilex. The journey back to Simla gave
us a last idyllic afternoon in the woods between Wild-
flower Hall and Mashobra, the same overhanging, dizzily
falling, fern-tangled, cedar-shafted mountain-side with its
pools of light and silent floating butterflies and scented
cool shades. The fragrance of these forests is one of their
chief delights.
" We rejoined our rickshaws at Mashobra, and they
took us back to Simla, full six miles, in an hour. We
found various exciting and melancholy bits of news since
our departure : colossal casualty lists, including poor
Ninian Bertie ; Italy almost at war ; and a reconstruction
of the Cabinet imminent."
The sense of isolation deepened as the weeks rolled on.
In one of his letters, Bobby explained how his life in India
resembled that of a Religious within enclosing walls :
" From our experience war would appear to be an
almost monastic regime, monotonous, secluded, immensely
remote from the buzzing world, characterized too by early
rising and poor feeding ; but somewhat perfunctory in
the liturgical and intercessory department. Our only
real emotional link with Europe (apart from the private
weekly mail) is the endless series of casualty lists, a
pathetic reminder of ties remembered only in their
breaking. Every week it seems somebody drops from
the outer circle of one's acquaintance ; one lives in an
oppressive apprehension as each new list looms forward.
Almost everyone I know seems to have been wounded.
" Otherwise, the tiny, pregnant items of news which
reach us three days old, via Renter and the Pioneer
4 Italy has declared war on Austria ' ; ' The British
Cabinet will be reconstructed on a National basis ' seem
trivial and commonplace, and one's mind retains the
impression of them for fewer minutes than the result of a
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 145
by-election interests one at home. It always amazes me
when I think of it : this country is a land of the Lotus
Eaters. I am very happy in the lotus-eating kind of way,
with occasional fits of acute depression when one sees
oneself a coward, and twinges of home-sickness which
the presence of Luly and Purefoy prevents from taking
hold of you."
The " endless series of casualty lists " at that time
included among the dead the names of Bobby's friends
George Fletcher, William Gladstone, Ronald Corbett and
Ninian Bertie.
To THE VISCOUNTESS HOWICK
June 7, 1915.
" I am very keen on the National Government. 1 Its
meetings must be rather comic, but I can imagine nothing
better for politicians than to be forced to see each other's
point of view. I hope papa will enjoy the Board of
Agriculture. Bob 2 at the Foreign Office ought to have
full scope for his energies if ever we get to negotiating a
peace.
" I have taken up hockey in order to be hearty with the
men during the hot weather. Luckily, hot weather makes
me feel hearty and energetic. I run about incredibly
fast and often, and positively enjoy it. And at the end
I can go right into the bar of the Club (which I used to
regard as the most unapproachable spot on earth) and
sit on the counter drinking beer and cider by the pint
and other beverages equally indigestible, without turn-
ing a hair. So far has my education by Purefoy pro-
gressed.
" I was much gratified by the two letters I got from the
1 Mr. Asquith had just formed his Coalition Cabinet.
* Lord Robert Cecil.
19
146 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
4 Princesses.' * * We have got two new ducks on the moat
and two Belgian refugees in the house,' echoes another
famous phrase. Also ' Granny has got her portrait in the
papers ; Nisset has made holes all over the knees of her
stockings,' is Gibbonian in spirit."
To HIS FATHER
" AGRA,
May 30, 1915.
" I am very glad Asquith has included you, and that
you have accepted inclusion, in his new Cabinet. I expect
you will like the Board of Agriculture, though I hoped
they would put you back at the Admiralty. However,
I am glad A. J. Balfour has gone there, as he is the most
outstanding figure in Parliament and is also just the man
to prevent friction."
To HIS MOTHER
" AGRA,
July 16, 1915.
" Thanks for Oliver's book which has arrived. I have
only had time just to begin it. Luly is still reading
Treitschke, so I haven't begun him. I read Aladore. 2 The
language is lovely. It is too irresponsible to criticize,
but he keeps on straying into allegory and then taking
flight on wings of fantasy, which prevents my putting it in
the first rank, because I believe he meant it for an alle-
gory. Shagpat 3 avoids that weakness until near the end.
" I am making an effort to learn some Hindustani,
partly because I find it very inconvenient when on leave
not to be independent of an interpreter, and partly be-
cause Purefoy wants me to go in for the Lower Standard
exam, with him. At present I am learning to read and
1 His sister's little daughters.
2 A ladore : a Prose Phantasy, by Henry Newbolt.
The Shaving of Shagpat, by G. Meredith.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 147
trying to acquire a little vocabulary. Their alphabet is
constructed on the most ridiculous principles, or want of
them, and reminds me very much of the state of their
towns : in fact, it is symbolic of Indian culture generally."
At the end of July, Bobby and Purefoy were granted a
fortnight's leave, which they spent in a visit to Lady
Meston at Naini Tal. While there, a telegram arrived
from Major Wyatt, asking my nephew if he would com-
mand a draft ordered to reinforce the 4th Hampshires
in the Persian Gulf. His comments on this offer are
given in the two following letters.
To HIS MOTHER
" GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
NAINI TAL, August 3, 1915.
" This is the exact fulfilment of the calculation I wrote
to you in April, but it came as a surprise at the moment.
I was more excited than either pleased or depressed. I
don't hanker after fighting, and I would, of course, have
preferred to go with the regiment and not as a draft. But
now that I'm in for it, the interest of doing something after
all these months of hanging about, and in particular the
responsibility of looking after the draft on the way, seems
likely to absorb all other feelings. What appeals to me
most is the purely unmilitary prospect of being able to
protect the men to some extent from the, I'm sure,
preventible sickness there has been in the Persian Gulf.
The only remark that ever made me feel a sudden desire
to go to any front was when O'Connor at Lahore told me
(quite untruly, as it turned out) that * the Hampshires were
dying like flies at Basra.' As for fighting, it doesn't look
as if there would be much, whereon Purefoy greatly com-
miserates me ; but if that is the only privation I shan't
complain !
148 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
" I'm afraid your lively imagination will conjure up
every kind of horror, and that is the only thing that dis-
tresses me about going ; but clearly a tropical climate
suits me better than most people, and I will be very careful
to avoid all unnecessary risks ! both for your peace of
mind and also to keep the men up to the mark, to say
nothing of less exalted motives."
Bobby's last hours in India were saddened by the
arrival of a terrible casualty list. He wrote home as
follows :
" Yesterday Purefoy and I went to the Taj at sunset.
It was wonderfully peaceful, the river now fully 250 yards
broad and flowing like the tide in Tennyson that * moving
seems asleep, too full for sound and foam.' The sun set
exactly behind the centre of the Fort. The world there
seemed to be as God meant it to be.
" The news of poor Gilbert Talbot being killed has
just come through. It affects me very much. I was
fond of Gilbert, and it is a pathetic end to all his exuberant
schemes and hopes. And I am very sorry for the Des-
boroughs losing Billy so soon after Julian. I am anxious
to hear how Foss Prior is. I hardly knew the Lascelles
boy. It is the most pain-giving list we have yet had."
" August 4. The whole station turned out to the
Anniversary Service to-day. It is dreadful to think that
we've all been denying our Christianity for a whole year
and are likely to go on doing so for another. How our
Lord's heart must bleed for us ! It appals me to think
of it."
On the 14th August 1915 Bobby entered on the final
stage of his life's journey. It led him through desert
whirlwind and the roar of battle to the supreme act of
self-sacrifice in death.
CHAPTER VIII
MESOPOTAMIA, 1915
THE " cultured leisure " thrust willy-nilly upon Bobby
during most of the time spent by him in Mesopotamia
left him free for much general observation, shepherding
of his men, letter-writing and reading. "I meditate on
the felicity of the Tennysonian c infinite torment of flies.'
I am driven to study Hindustani and read Gibbon on the
heresies to avoid being actually bored, which, in a normal
existence, ought to be almost an unthinkable state," he
explained.
In those four months he read Origin of Species, Religio
Medici, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, History
of India, Wealth of Nations, Life of St. Francis of Assist,
Balfour's Theism and Humanism, Bacon's Essays, Borrow's
Works, Burke's French Revolution, Creighton's History
of the Papacy, Margoliouth's Mahommed, Wakeman's
History of the Church of England, Illingworth's Divine
Immanence ; the poems of Chaucer, Coleridge, Pope,
Swinburne, Tennyson and Wordsworth ; besides detective
stories and novels innumerable.
Bobby's insatiable literary craving was never allowed
to interfere with his punctilious performance of his
military duties or with his " mothering " of his men.
Both officers and privates soon saw his worth through
the veil of his shy reserve and learnt to feel the warmest
esteem and affection for him. One such instance may be
recorded in the words of Captain G. Elton of the l/4th
Hampshires, who was sent to Amarah with a large draft
150 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
and five other officers in October 1915, and was there
attached as a subaltern to the company of which Bobby
was second in command. He says: "It was with a
thrill that I discovered that he was the Palmer who had
been President of the Oxford Union and got a first in
Greats. He had quite a lot of interesting books with
him even there. The first book he lent me was Balfour's
Theism and Humanism ; and whenever I got a chance
I used to talk to him. It wasn't easy ; he lived in a
different building and shared his room. But I managed
it fairly often, usually by sitting next him in mess. He
impressed me very much as a person with an astonishing
reserve of strength. Beyond and behind his sympathy
and charm there was something else, something one
didn't quite reach, obviously wouldn't reach, until one
knew him really well. I guessed at the time that that
something was spiritual rather than intellectual, but I
never knew him long enough or well enough to confirm
my guess. Besides in these ways attracting me as a
spirit, though wiser and stronger, yet kindred, in an
alien place, I used to admire his extreme efficiency as a
soldier. I don't suppose he really liked the routine as
I always thought some of our companions did. In fact,
the first thing he ever said to me was, on my remarking
that I wanted to follow my own men into * A ' Company,
that, judging from his own experience of the Army, I
might be pretty certain that that was the one company
I should not be appointed to. But he was clearly a very
fine officer, in that, besides being completely competent
and level-headed in the details of administration, he had
a real hold over the men, who recognized and loved him
as a gentleman. It was an additional attraction to me
personally that, with the efficiency, he could be sufficiently
absent-minded to put his gaiters on the wrong way
round. These, you see, are all external impressions. He
was too reserved to tell me explicitly what he was thinking,
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 151
although he at once understood and sympathized with
what I was thinking. It was, no doubt, from the sub-
conscious impressions, which are usually the truest, that
I became persuaded that he profoundly disliked his sur-
roundings but would never admit his discomfort and drew
all the while upon an inner source of strength, which I
took to be a philosophy founded on religion.
" A mere accident kept him from coming upstream
with us into Kut and staying there for siege, subsequent
captivity in Asia Minor, and ultimate release. I remember
a fellow-officer saying that when Robert saw us off there
were tears in his eyes. I don't know if that was so.
But at least he was badly missed, and I often thought
what a difference he would have made to our captivity."
" I wish you could know what a tremendous lot people
thought of him in the regiment, both officers and men, some
of whom had little in common with him," wrote his friend
Purefoy Causton to Bobby's mother. Colonel Stilwell, of
the 4th Hants, (then Major in command of the battalion at
Amarah) was struck from his first arrival with his popularity
with the draft which he had brought from India, and before
long saw how he had won the love of the whole company.
"He always looked after their interests, and the men
knew it. He proved a good leader of men."
Fred Norris, one of his Blackmoor men, with character-
istic Hampshire avoidance of gush, bears the following
testimony to his company's appreciation of my nephew :
" Of all men which served under Captain Palmer's
command, not one did I hear speak a word against him,
which shows how well he was liked, and many times they
said if all officers were the same as him the British Army
would be perfect. When his draft arrived at Basra he
was so disappointed at the conditions that he worried him-
self awful over his men, and by his thought for them saved
a great number of his draft from the sun by buying things
which he could not get issued for them. He would never
152 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
rest until he had seen his men as comfortable as possible.
When the mail arrived with any parcels, they were always
sure of the greater part of his being distributed among
them."
To THE REV. RONALD KNOX
" H.M.S. Varsova,
OFF FARS ISLAND,
August 22, 1915.
" It is too warm to be facetious, and I have no letter
of yours to answer ; so you will have to put up with a
bald narrative of our doings since I last wrote.
" They gave us various binges at Agra before we left.
A concerted effort to make me tight failed completely ;
in fact, of the plotters it could be said that in the same
bet that they made privily were their feet taken.
" We left on Saturday, 15th : fifty rank and file and
myself. One had a heat-stroke almost as soon as the
train had started (result of marching to the station at
noon in marching order and a temperature of 96), and
we had an exciting hour in keeping his temperature
below 109 till we met the mail and could get some
ice. We succeeded all right and sent him safely to
hospital at Jhansi. The rest of the journey was cooler
and uneventful. We reached Bombay at 9.15 a.m. on
Monday and went straight on board. The ship did not
sail till next day, and when it did, they contrived to leave
thirty-two men behind, including five of mine.
"The thirty -two lost sheep turned up at Karachi,
having been forwarded by special train from Bombay.
No fatted calf was killed for them ; in fact, they all got
fourteen days' c confinement to barracks ' and three
days' pay forfeited ; though, as Dr. Johnson observed,
the sea renders the C.B. part rather otiose.
" It is getting pronouncedly hotter every hour. It was
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 153
a quarter to one when I began this letter and is now half-
past twelve, which is the kind of thing that is continually
happening. Anyway the bugle for lunch has just gone,
and it is 96 in my cabin. I have spent the morning
in alternate bouts of bridge and Illingworth on Divine
Immanence. I won Rs.3 at the former ; but I feel my
brain is hardly capable of further coherent composition
until nourishment has been taken. So good-bye for the
present. It will take ages for this to reach you."
To HIS MOTHER
" P.S.S. Karadeniz, BASRA,
Friday, August 27, 1915.
" I wrote to papa from just outside the bar, which is a
mud-bank across the head of the Gulf, about seventeen
miles outside Fao. We anchored there to await high tide,
and crossed on Tuesday morning.
" Fao is about as unimpressive a place as I've seen.
The river is over a mile wide there, but the place is
absolutely featureless. In fact, all the way up it is the
same. The surrounding country is as flush with the
river as if it had been planed down to it. On either side
runs a belt of date palms about half a mile wide, but these
are seldom worth looking at, being mostly low and shrubby,
like an overgrown market garden. Beyond that is howling
desert.
" We reached Basra about 2 p.m. and anchored in
midstream, the river being 800 yards or so wide here.
The city of Basra is about three miles away, up a creek
" The scene on the river is most attractive, especially
at sunrise and sunset. The banks rise about ten feet
from the water ; the date palms are large and columnar,
and since there is a whole series of creeks, parallel and
intersecting (they are the highways and byways of the
place), the whole area is afforested and the wharves and
154 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
bazaars are embowered in date groves. The river front
and the main creeks are crowded with picturesque craft,
the two main types being a large high-prowed barge, just
what I picture to have taken King Arthur at his Passing,
but here put to the prosaic uses of heavy transport and
called a mahtla ; and a long darting craft which can be
paddled or punted and combines the speed of a canoe
with the grace of a gondola, and is called, though why
I can't conceive, a bhellum. Some of the barges are
masted and carry a huge and lovely sail, but the ones in
use for the Indian Expeditionary Force * D ' are pro-
pelled by little tugs attached to their sides and quite
invisible from beyond, so that the speeding barges seem
magically self -moving.
"Ashore one wanders along raised dykes through a
seemingly endless forest of pillared date palms, among
which pools and creeks add greatly to the beauty, though
an eyesore to the hygienist. When one reaches the native
city the streets are unmistakably un-Indian, and strongly
reminiscent of the bazaar scene in Kismet. This is
especially true of the main bazaar, which is a winding
arcade half a mile long, roofed and lined with shops,
thronged with men. One sees far fewer women than in
India, and those mostly veiled and in black, while the
men wear long robes and cloaks and scarves on their
heads bound with coils of wool worn garland-wise, as one
sees in Biblical pictures. They seem friendly, or rather
wholly indifferent, to one, and I felt at times I might be
invisible and watching an Arabian Nights story for all
the notice they took of me. By the way, I want you to
send me a portable edition of the Arabian Nights as my
next book, please.
" We have moved across to this ship while awaiting our
river-boats. They use ships here as barracks and hotels,
very sensibly seeing that there are none fit for habita-
tion on land ; while being about 400 yards from either
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 155
bank we are practically free from mosquitoes. But this
particular ship is decidedly less desirable for residential
purposes than the Varsova. It was originally a German
boat and was sold to the Turks to be used for a pilgrim
ship to Mecca ; and I can only conclude either that the
Turkish ideas of comfort are very different to ours or that
the pilgrimage has a marked element of asceticism.
" But I am quite ready to put up with the amenities
of a Turkish pilgrim ship. What does try me is the
murderous folly of military authorities. They wouldn't
let us take our spine-pads from Agra, because we should
be issued with them here. They have none here, and have
no idea when they will get any. Incidentally, no one
was expecting our arrival here, least of all the 4th Hants.
Everyone says a spine-pad is a necessary precaution
here, so I am having fifty made, and shall try and make
the Colonel pay for them.
" To continue the chapter of incredible muddles : the
780 who went off on Wednesday were embarked on their
river-boat packed like herrings at 9 a.m., and never
got started till 4 p.m. A bright performance, but nothing
to our little move. This boat is 600 yards from the
Varsova, and they had every hour in the twenty-four to
choose from for the move. First they selected 2 p.m.
Wednesday as an appropriate hour 1 It was 100 in
the shade by 1 p.m., so the prospect was not alluring.
At 1.30 the order was washed out, and for the rest
of the day no further orders could be got for love or
money.
" We were still in suspense yesterday morning, till at
8.30 just about the latest time for completing a morning
movement two huge barges appeared with orders to
embark on them at 10 I Not only that, but although
there are scores of straw-roofed barges about, these two
were as open as row-boats, and in fact exactly like giant
row-boats. To complete the situation, the Supply and
156 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Transport had not been apprised of the postponement,
and so there was no food for the men on board. Conse-
quently they had to load kits, etc., and embark on empty
stomachs.
" Well, hungry but punctual, we embarked at 10 a.m.
It was 102 in my cabin, so you can imagine what the heat
and glare of a hundred and fifty men in an open barge
was. Having got us into this enviable receptacle, they
proceeded to think of all the delaying little trifles which
might have been thought of any time that morning. One
way and another they managed to waste three-quarters
of an hour before we started. The journey took six
minutes or so. Getting alongside this ship took another
half -hour, the delay mainly due to Arab incompetence this
time. Then came disembarking, unloading kits, and all
the odd jobs of moving units which all had to be done in a
furnace-like heat by men who had had no food for twenty
hours. To crown it all, the people on board here had
assumed we should breakfast before starting, and not a
scrap of food was ready. The poor men finally got some
food at 2 p.m. after a twenty-two hours' fast and three
hours herded or working in a temperature of about
140. Nobody could complain of such an ordeal if
we'd been defending Lucknow or attacking Shaiba, but
to put such a strain on the men's health newly arrived
and with no pads or glasses or shades gratuitously and
merely by dint of sheer hard muddling is infuriating to
me and criminal in the authorities a series of scatter-
brained nincompoops about fit to look after a cocker-
spaniel between them.
"Considering what they went through, I think our
draft came off lightly with three cases of heat-stroke.
Luckily the object-lesson in the train and my sermons
thereon have borne fruit, and the men acted promptly
and sensibly as soon as the patients got bad. Two began
to feel ill on the barge and the third became delirious
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 157
quite suddenly a few minutes after we got on board here.
When I arrived on the scene they had already got him
stripped and soused, though in the stuffy 'tween decks.
I got him up on deck (it was stuffy enough there), and we
got ice; and, thanks to our promptness, he was only violent
for about a quarter of an hour, and by the time my kit
was reachable and I could get my thermometer, an
hour or so later, he was normal. There was no medical
officer on board, except a grotesque fat old Turk physician
to the Turkish prisoners, whose diagnosis was in Arabic
and whose sole idea of treatment was to continue feeling
the patient's pulse (which he did by holding his left foot)
till we made him stop.
" It seems to me another count in the indictment
against the brass hats that no instruction has been given
to the officers and N.C.O.'s of our drafts as to how to
deal with such cases. Nothing would have been easier
than to give it on the Varsova"
To HIS MOTHER
44 AMARAH,
September 2, 1915.
" Our embarkation was much more sensibly managed
this time, a Captain Forrest of the Oxfords being O.C.
troops, and having some sense, though the brass hats
again fixed 10 a.m. as the hour. However, he got all
our kits on the barge at 7, and then let the men rest
on the big ship till the time came. Moreover, the barge
was covered. We embarked on it at 9.30 and were
towed along to the river steamer Malamir, to which we
transferred our stuff without difficulty as its lower deck
was nearly level with the barge.
44 Starting at noon on Monday, it took us till 5 p.m.
Wednesday to do the 180 miles. It is much less for a
crow, but the river winds so, that one can quite believe
158 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Herodotus's yarn of the place where you pass the same
village on three consecutive days.
" In the afternoon of the second day we passed Ezra's
Tomb, which has a beautiful dome of blue tiles, which
in India one would date seventeenth century. Otherwise
it looked rather ' kachcha ' and out of repair, but it
makes an extremely picturesque group, having two
clumps of palms on either side of an otherwise open
stretch of river.
" Soon afterwards we came to a large Bedouin village,
or rather camp, running up a little creek and covering
quite fifteen acres. They can't have been there long,
as the whole area was under water two months ago.
Their dwellings are made of reeds, a framework of stiff
and pliant reeds and a covering of reed -matting, the
whole being like the cover of a van stuck into the ground
and one end closed, but smaller.
" Next morning, Wednesday, a half -gale was blowing
against us and progress was slower than ever. The
river got wider again, nearly 200 yards in places, and the
wind lashed it into waves. We arrived here about 5 p.m.
" This is a town of about 10,000 inhabitants, on the
left bank of the Tigris. On the river front is a quay
about a mile long, and an equally long row of continental-
looking houses. It almost reminds one of Dieppe at
moments. We occupy a block of four houses, which
have a common courtyard behind them, a great cloistered
yard, which makes an admirable billet for the men.
" We officers live in two of the houses, the third is
orderly room, etc., and the fourth is used by some native
regiment officers. There is no furniture whatever, so
it is like camping with a house for a tent. We sleep on
the roof and live on the verandahs of the little inner
courts. It is decidedly cooler than Basra, and last
night I wanted a blanket before dawn for the first time
since April (excluding the hills, of course)."
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 159
To HIS FATHER
" AMARAH,
September 4, 1915.
" This battalion when we arrived here was nominally
nearly 300 strong, but actually it could hardly have
paraded 100. This reduction is nearly all due to sickness.
The deaths from all causes only total between forty and
fifty, out of the original 800, and of these about twenty-
five, I think, were killed in action. But there has been
an enormous amount of sickness during the hot weather,
four-fifths of which has been heat-stroke and malaria.
There have been a few cases of enteric and a certain
number of dysentery ; but next to heat and malaria
more men have been knocked out by sores and boils
than by any disease. It takes ages for the smallest
sore to heal.
" Of the original thirty officers, eight are left here,
and Major Stilwell, who is Commanding Officer.
" In honour of our arrival they have adopted double
company system. I am posted to c A ' Double Company,
of which the company commander and only other officer
is Harris, cet. nineteen. So I am second in command
and four platoon commanders at once, besides having
temporary charge of the machine-guns (not that I am
ever to parade with them). It sounds a lot, but, with
next to no men about, the work is lessened. In a day
or two we shall be the only English battalion remaining
here, so that all the duties which can't be entrusted to
Indian troops will fall on us. While sitting on that court
martial at Agra (on 13th June) I expressed my view in a
sonnet which I append, for you to show to mamma :
" How long, O Lord, how long, before the flood
Of crimson-welling carnage shall abate ?
From sodden plains in West and East the blood
Of kindly men streams up in mists of hate
160 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Polluting Thy clear air : and nations great
In reputation of the arts that bind
The world with hopes of Heaven, sink to the state
Of brute barbarians, whose ferocious mind
Gloats o'er the bloody havoc of their kind,
Not knowing love or mercy. Lord, how long
Shall Satan in high places lead the blind
To battle for the passions of the strong ?
Oh, touch Thy children's hearts, that they may know
Hate their most hateful, pride their deadliest foe." l
To LIEUTENANT PUREFOY CAUSTON
" AMARAH,
August 26 and September 25, 1915.
" I wonder how long H 's * delirious joy ' at going
to the front will last. Those who have seen a campaign
here are all thoroughly converted to my view of fronts.
I can't imagine a keener soldier than F , and even
he says he doesn't care if he never sees another Turk,
and as to France, you might as well say, ' Hurrah, I'm
off to Hell ! ' Pat M goes as far as to say that no
sane fellow ever has been bucked at going to the Front,
as distinguished from being anxious to do his duty by
going there. But I don't agree with him. Did you see
about the case of a Captain in the Sikhs, who deserted
from Peshawar, went to England, enlisted as a private
under an assumed name, and was killed in Flanders ?
The psychology of that man would be very interesting
to analyse. It can't have been sense of duty, because
he knew he was flagrantly violating his duty. Nor can
you explain it by some higher call of duty than his duty
as a Sikh officer, like the duty which makes martyrs
disobey emperors. It must have been just the primitive
passion for a fight. But if it was that, to indulge it was
a bad, weak, and vicious thing to do. Yet it clearly
wasn't a selfish thing to do : on the contrary, it was
1 Sonnet published in the Times of isth October 1915.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 161
heroic. He deliberately sacrificed his rank, pay, and
prospects and exposed himself to great danger. Still,
as far as I can see, he only did it because his passion for
fighting was stronger than every other consideration,
and therefore he seems to me to be morally in the same
class as the man who runs away with his neighbour's
wife, or any other victim of strong (and largely noble)
passions. And I believe that the people who say they
are longing to be at the Front can be divided into
three classes : (1) those who merely say so because it
is the right thing to say, and have never thought or
wished about it on their own ; (2) those who deliberately
desire to drink the bitterest cup that they can in these
times of trouble these men are heroes, and are the
men who in peace choose a mission to lepers; (3) the
savages, who want to indulge their primitive passions.
Perhaps one ought to add as the largest class (4) those
who don't imagine what it is like, who think it will be
exciting, seeing life, and experience and so on, and don't
think of its reality or meaning at all."
" I know you will sympathize deeply with our hard
luck in being kept away from a possible scene of bloodshed ;
but the less of that nasty side of things that I see, the
better I shall like it. Only I do want to find out how I
and the men should feel and behave under fire. I believe
that if I could choose a day of heavy fighting of any kind
I liked for my draft, I should choose to spend a day in
trenches under heavy fire without being able to return it.
The fine things of war spring from your chance of being
killed : the ugly things from your chance of killing. Per-
sonally, the chances of being killed which presented
themselves vividly to my craven imagination from a dis-
tance hardly ever occur to me now ; and when they do,
are far less interesting than they used to be. I attribute
this partly to being busy and partly to the forward
162 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
tendency of one's mind, which is always far more con-
cerned with the week after next than with to-morrow."
To HIS FATHER
" AMARAH,
September 16 and 21, 1915.
" The main item of news which reached me from Agra
yesterday is, that they have gazetted me a Captain after
all. I suppose I ought to have been expecting it, as they
had so explicitly assured me it was impossible ; but they
go on taking one in every time, as we do Orientals by
speaking the truth.
" The provision for the sick and wounded is on the
whole fairly good now. Six months ago it was very
inadequate too few doctors and not enough hospital
accommodation. My men who were in the Base Hospital
at Basra spoke very well of it : the serious cases are
invalided to India by the hospital ship Madras. It is
said that ten thousand have gone back to India in this
way. It is a curious fact that the Indian troops suffered
from heat-stroke every bit as much as the British."
To THE LADY LAURA RIDDING
" AMARAH.
" I suppose everyone is struck by the weakness of a
democracy in war-time as compared with an autocracy
like the German. It is a complaint as old as Demosthenes.
But it does not shake my faith in democracy as the best
form of government, because mere strength and efficiency
is not my ideal. If a magician were to offer to change us
to-morrow into a State of the German model, I shouldn't
accept the offer, not even for the sake of winning the
war."
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 163
To Miss ELEANOR BALFOUR J
" AMARAH,
September 24, 1915.
" As for the future, I think it would be a mistake to
expect this war to produce a revolution in human nature,
and equally wrong to think nothing has been achieved
if it doesn't. What I hope is that it will mark a distinct
stage towards a more Christian conception of inter-
national relations. I'm afraid that for a long time to
come there will be those who will want to wage war and
will have to be crushed with their own weapons. But I
think this insane and devilish cult of war will be a thing
of the past. War will only remain as an unpleasant means
to an end. The next stage will be, one hopes, the gradual
realization that the ends for which one wages war are
generally selfish ; and anyway that law is preferable to
force as a method of settling disputes. As to whether
national ideals can be Christian ideals, in the strict sense
they can't very well : because so large a part of the
Christian idea lies in self-suppression and self-denial, which
of course can only find its worth in individual conduct and
its meaning in the belief that this life is but a preparation
for a future life ; whereas national life is a thing of this
world and therefore the law of its being must be self-
development and self-interest. The Prussians interpret
this crudely as mere self-assertion and the will to power.
The Christianizing of international relations will be
brought about by insisting on the contrary interpretation
that our highest self-development and interest is to
be attained by respecting the interests and encouraging
the development of others. The root fallacy to be
eradicated, of course, is that one Power's gain is another's
loss : a fallacy which has dominated diplomacy and is the
1 Now the Hon. Mrs. G. E. Cole.
164 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
negation of law. I think we are perceptibly breaking away
from it ; the great obstacle to better thinking now is the
existence of so many backward peoples incapable (as we
think) of seeking their own salvation. Personally, I don't
see how we can expect the Christianizing process to make
decisive headway until the incapables are partitioned out
among the capables. Meanwhile, let us hope that each
new war will be more unpopular and less respectable than
the last."
On 29th September he wrote : " We have just had news
from the front that a successful action has been fought,
the enemy's left flank turned, and several hundred
prisoners taken our own casualties under 500. So the
show seems to have come off up to time."
To HIS MOTHER
" AMARAH,
October 6, 1915.
" The latest figures of the Kut fight show that the
proportion of killed on our side was extraordinarily small.
They are : Our Side Killed : officers, 4 or 5 ; rank and
file, 80. Wounded : officers, 40 ; rank and file, 1000.
Enemy Prisoners : 1300; Killed (?), 400; Wounded (?) ;
guns captured, 8 ; do. in river (?) 11. These figures are
largely conjectural, as the inhabitants of Kut came out
and buried the Turkish dead without waiting for us to
count them.
" Yesterday afternoon Mark Sykes reappeared here on
his way down, so I boarded his boat and introduced myself.
I had met him when I dined with Bob at the House of
Commons. He was very affable and talked to my know-
ledge for five hours without a minute's pause. He is a
colonel, but has been on political service first to the
Balkans, then India, and now here. He had, of course,
lots to say about the Balkan crisis. He came and dined
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 165
with me in mess and talked till 10 p.m. it was much
appreciated by us all."
To LIEUTENANT THE HON. LEWIS PALMER
" AMARAH,
October 11, 1915.
" I have developed a bubble reputation as a footballer,
and played centre-half for the officers and servants yes-
terday. We won 1-0. It was a splendid game. The
local Arab kids take a tremendous interest in footer.
They turn up on the ground by scores and have a
great time scrambling for the ball behind the goal during
the preliminary kicking about. During the play they
mimicked Tommy Atkins' cheers in the most ridiculous
way, and added to the effect by cheering loudest whenever
the Major took a toss."
" October 26.
" To-morrow I shall have to try the case of Private
R , who is charged with refusing to mount a mule
when ordered. Having observed the mule in question, 1
feel it would be as reasonable to charge him with refusing
to hop over Mount Ararat when ordered ; but I suppose
discipline will have to be maintained, and no doubt R
has calculated that twenty-one days' field punishment
No. 2 is the lesser evil."
To THE REV. RONALD KNOX
" AMARAH,
October 11, 1915.
" I have just seen in the Times that Charles Lister
died of his wounds. It really is heart-breaking. All
the men one had so fondly hoped would make the world
166 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
a little better to live in seem to be taken away. And
Charles was a spirit which no country can afford to lose.
I feel so sorry for you too : he must have been very dear
to you personally. How the world will hate war when
it can pause to think about it !
" No, Luly is not with me : I was the only officer
with the draft. As for impressions of our surroundings,
they are definite but not always communicable.
" If this neighbourhood could certainly be identified
with Eden, one could supply an entirely new theory of
the Fall of Adam. Here at Amarah we are two hundred
miles by river from the sea, and twenty -eight feet above
sea-level. Within reach of the water anything will grow ;
but, as the Turks levied a tax on trees, the date is the
only one which has survived. There are little patches of
corn and fodder-stuff along the banks, and a few vegetable
gardens round the town. Otherwise, the whole place
is a desert and as flat as this paper : except that we can
see the bare brown Persian mountains about forty miles
off to the N.N.E.
" The desert grows little tufts of prickly scrub here
and there; otherwise it is like a brick floor. In the
spring it is flooded, and as the flood recedes the mud
cakes into a hard crust on which a horse's hoof makes
no impression ; but naturally the surface is very rough
in detail, like a muddy lane after a frost. So it is vile
for either walking or riding.
" The atmosphere can find no mean between absolute
stillness which, till lately, meant stifling heat and
violent commotion in the form of N.W. gales which blow
periodically, fogging the air with dust and making life
almost intolerable while they last. These gales have
ceased to be baking hot, and in another month or two
they will be piercingly cold.
" The inhabitants are divided into Bedouins and town-
Arabs. The former are nomadic and naked, and live
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 167
in hut-tents of reed matting. The latter are just like
the illustrations in family Bibles.
" What I should be grateful for in the way of litera-
ture is if you could find a portable and readable book
on the history of these parts. My Gibbon sketches the
doings of the first four Caliphs ; but what I should like
most would be the subsequent history the Bagdad
Caliphs, Tartar Invasion, Turkish Conquest, etc. Mark
Sykes tells me he is about to publish a ' Little AbsuTs
History of Islam,' but as he is still diplomatizing out here
I doubt if it will be ready for press soon.
" As for this campaign, you will probably know more
about the Kut battle than I do. Anyway the facts were
briefly these. The Turks had a very strongly entrenched
position at Kut, with 15,000 men and 35 guns. (We
had about 10,000 men and 25 or 27 guns, 7 of them on
river-boats, I think.) We feinted at their right and then
outflanked their left by a night march of twelve miles.
Then followed a day's hard fighting, as the outflankers
had to storm three redoubts successively before they
could properly enfilade the position. Just as they had
done it, the whole Turkish reserve turned up on their
right and they had to turn on it and defeat it, which
they did.
" (Meanwhile, the Turkish commander announced
that he had received a telegram from the Sultan re-
quiring the immediate presence of himself and army at
Constantinople : so the firing-line took the hint and
started for the new alignment by the shortest route.
However, as everybody's great idea was to put the river
between himself and the enemy he'd been facing, two
streams met at the bridge and there were further scenes.)
By this time it was dark, the troops were absolutely
exhausted and had finished all their water ; the only
thing to do was to bivouac and wait for daylight. In
the night the Turks got away. If we could have pressed
168 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
on and seized their bridge, we should have almost wiped
them out ; but it was really wonderful we did as much
as we did under the circumstances. Our casualties
were 1243, but only 85 killed. The Turkish losses are
not known : we captured about 1400 and 12 of the guns ;
we buried over 400, but don't know how many the local
Arabs buried. Our pursuit was delayed by the mud-
banks on the river, and the enemy was able to get clear
and re-form in their next position, about ninety miles
farther north. We are now concentrating against them."
To Miss ELEANOR BALFOUR
" AMARAH,
October 8, 1915.
" If I said that this War means the denying of
Christianity I ought to have explained myself more.
That phrase is so often used loosely that people don't
stop to think exactly what they mean. If the Germans
deliberately brought about the War to aggrandize them-
selves, as I believe they did, that was a denial of
Christianity, i.e. a deliberate rejection of Christian
principles and disobedience to Christ's teaching ; and it
makes no difference in that case that it was a national
and not an individual act. But once the initiating evil
was done, it involved the consequence, as evil always
does, of leaving other nations only a choice of evils.
In this case the choice for England was between seeing
Belgium and France crushed and war. In choosing war
I can't admit there was any denial of Christianity ; and
I don't think you can point to any text, however literally
you press the interpretation, which will bear a contrary
construction. Take ' Resist not him that doeth evil '
as literally as you like, in its context. It obviously
refers to an individual resisting a wrong committed
against himself; and the moral basis of the doctrine
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 169
seems to me twofold : (1) As regards yourself, self-
denial, loving your enemies, etc., is the divine law for
the soul ; (2) as regards the wronger, nothing is so likely
to better him as your unselfish behaviour. The doctrine
plainly does not refer to wrongs committed in your
presence against others. Our Lord Himself overthrew
the tables of the money-changers. And the moral basis
of His resistance to evil here is equally clear if you tolerate
evils committed against others : (1) Your own morale
and courage is lowered it is shirking ; (2) the wronger
is merely encouraged. If I take A's coat and A gives
me his cloak also, I may be touched. But B's acquies-
cence in the proceeding cannot possibly touch me and only
encourages me. Now the Government of a country is
nearly always in the position of B ; but I would justify
the resistance of Belgium on the same grounds."
Bobby continued this argument in a letter to his
father dated 10th October.
" You've got to face the fact that the spirit which
produces war is still dominant. Fight that spirit by all
means ; but while it exists don't suppose your own
duty is merely to keep out of wars. That seems to me
a very selfish and narrow view. As for our Lord in a
bayonet charge, one doesn't easily imagine it ; but that
is because it is inconsistent with His mission rather
than His character. I can't imagine a Christian enjoying
either a bayonet charge, or hanging a criminal, or over-
throwing the tables of a money-changer, or any other
form of violent retribution.
" I have been out shooting three times this week
with Patmore of I/ 7th Hants. On our way home after
the first shoot I saw a falcon catch a swallow on the
wing. It flew straight and rather fast past us, just
within shot, fairly high. A swallow came sailing at full
speed from the opposite direction and would have passed
above and to the right of the falcon, and about six feet
170 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
from it. The latter took no notice of it till the crucial
moment, when it swerved and darted upwards, exactly
as a swallow itself does after flies, and caught the swallow
neatly in its talons. It then proceeded on its way so
calmly that if you had taken your eye off it for one-fifth
of a second you wouldn't have known it had deviated
from its course. It then planed down and settled about
four hundred yards away on the ground."
To HIS PARENTS
" AMARAH,
October 13, 1915.
" The state of Europe after the War is too horrible to
contemplate. Even if we win decisively, we shall have
piled up a debt which will cost us something like two
hundred millions a year in interest. I see no prospect
of there being a penny to spare for social reforms for a
generation or more, even if we escape a catastrophic
crash. What a cheap insurance conscription looks now !
But I can't feel sure that conscription would have pre-
vented the War, since Germany expected us to keep out
of it.
"... I have become the battalion's right hand
at ' soccer,' which I never should have foretold for
myself."
To THE LADY LAURA RIDDING
" AMARAH,
October 22, 1915.
" The birds here are very few compared with those in
India. On the river there are pied kingfishers. On the
flooded land, and especially on the mud-flats round it,
there are large numbers of sandpipers, Kentish and ringed
plovers, stints and stilts, terns and gulls, ducks and teal,
egrets and cranes ; but as there is not a blade of vegeta-
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 171
tion within a mile of them, there are no facilities for
observation, still less for shooting.
" There are several buzzards and falcons and a few
kites, but vultures are conspicuous by then- absence ;
and there is a hooded crow, not very abundant, which is
peculiar to this country, having white where the European
and Eastern Asiatic species have grey a handsome bird.
In the river there are a few sharks and a great abundance
of carp-like fish which run up to a very large size."
To THE REV. RONALD KNOX
" AMARAH,
All Saints', 1915.
" Life here requires a Jane Austen to record it. Our
interests are focused on the most ridiculous subjects.
Recently they took an ecclesiastical turn, which I think
should be reported to you. The station was left * spiritu-
ally ' in charge of a Y.M.C.A. deacon for a fortnight,
and discussion waxed hot in the mess as to what a deacon
was. The prevailing opinion was that he * was in the
Church,' but not ' consecrated ' ; so far lay instinct was
sound, if a little vague. Then our Scotch Quartermaster
laid it down that a deacon was as good as a parson in that
he could wear a surplice, but inferior to a parson in that
he couldn't marry you. But the crux which had most
practical interest for us was whether he could bury us.
It was finally decided that he could, but fortunately in
actual fact his functions were confined to organizing a
football tournament and exhibiting a cinema film.
" He was succeeded by a priest from the notorious
diocese of Bombay, who proceeded to shift the table
which does duty for altar to the east side of the Royal
Army Temperance Association room and furnish the
neighbourhood of it into a faint resemblance to a church.
But what has roused most speculation is the * green
i 7 2 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
thing he wears over his surplice for the early service and
takes off before parade service.' I suggested that it was
a precaution against these chilly mornings.
" Gibbon has more to say about these parts than I
thought ; and I find he alludes to them off and on right
down to 1453, so if you haven't been able to find a suit-
able book, I can carry on with that philosopher's
epitome."
On 24th November Bobby had an accident in the
football field. " I have always felt that my entree into
the football world should be pregnant with fate, and so
it is proving," he wrote with curious prescience, for his
presence at the fatal battle of Umm-Al-Hannah arose
from his detention at Amarah. The day after he sprained
his leg, half the battalion (including his "A " Company)
were ordered to move upstream immediately to an un-
known destination. To his great chagrin, they started
without him, leaving him in the hands of the Medical
Officer. He remained behind in Amarah for over five
weeks.
He enjoyed the enforced- leisure and quiet, employing
them in writing an article on " Mesopotamia and the
Middle East," and two chapters of " The Conversations of
Christopher," l as well as in preparing a lecture on the
Balkans to be given to the convalescent soldiers.
The lectures, carefully prepared by Bobby, were given
on 15th and 22nd December in a large newly built room
of the Royal Army Temperance Association. He used no
notes, but illustrated the lectures with maps and lantern
slides which a fellow-officer, Lieutenant J. Bucknill,
1 " The Conversations of Christopher " were intended to form a sym-
posium. He wrote four of them on " Theology," " Ideals and Com-
promise," " Public Schools," " Lawyers." The manuscript of the last
was found unfinished in his wallet after the battle of Umm-Al-Hannah.
All but the first were published hi The National Review, December 1916.
and January and February 1917.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 173
kindly prepared for him. Bobby thus described his
effort :
December 19. " I gave a lecture Friday night on
' The Historical Background of the Balkan Situation.'' It
was a great success, though the experiment was rather a
bold one, to an audience consisting mainly of convalescent
wounded. There must have been over two hundred
there. I had some home-made slides with sketch maps
to illustrate it. I took them right back to Constantine
the Great, through the decline and fall of the Eastern
Empire, the rise of Bulgaria in the tenth and thirteenth
centuries, the Servian Empire of the fourteenth, the
Turkish Conquest and decay, the rise of Russia, the
Liberal movements of the nineteenth century, the new
orientation given to Austrian policy by Prussia's rise, the
Russo-Turkish War, down to the Berlin Treaty of 1878, all
in forty minutes without notes. It was rather an effort.
Their attention never wandered a moment, which shows
what an intelligent man the average Tommy really is.
I'm continuing on Wednesday with the rest of the
story."
The second lecture exhibited the terms of the Con-
gress of Berlin as a " compromise " which lasted for
thirty years. It traced the growth of Germany's power
through the weakening of Russia in her war with Japan
in 1904, through the weakening of Turkey by revolution
in 1906 (the year when the Bagdad railway was begun to
be built), through the annexation by Austria of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, and through the Italian-Turko War of
1911. It ended with the first Balkan War, the rise of
Venezelos in 1912, and the events which led to the out-
break of war all over Europe in 1914.
The fame of the previous lecture had spread through-
out Amarah, and on the 22nd, Colonel Stilwell remembers
that : " The large room was packed with an audience of
all ranks, from the General to private soldiers. A more
i 7 4 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
interested audience I have rarely seen. At the end,
Palmer was given great applause and was thanked in a
short speech which the General Officer in Command
made." Other officers and privates have spoken enthusi-
astically of the lectures as wonderful in interest and as
feats of memory.
Meanwhile, while the two companies left at Amarah
were preparing to enjoy their Christmas festivities in
peace, disaster had befallen our forces between Kut and
Bagdad. The following letters explain the situation.
To THE REV. RONALD KNOX
" AMARAH,
December 12, 1915.
" Let me begin at 24th November, the day we heard of
the victory at Ctesiphon or Suliman Pak. That afternoon
I crocked my leg at footer and have been a hobbler ever
since, with first an elephantine calf and now a watery knee,
which, however, like the Tigris, gets less watery daily.
" The very next day (25th November), half the bat-
talion, including my * A ' Company, was ordered up-
stream and departed next morning, leaving me fuming
at the fancied missing of a promenade into Bagdad.
But Providence, as you may point out in your next sermon,
is often kinder than it seems. Two days later I could just
walk, and tried to embark ; but the Medical Officer
stopped me at the last moment. (I have stood him a
benedictine for this since.)
** Meanwhile, events were happening up-river. The
Press Bureau's account, I expect, compresses a great deal
into 4 Subsequently our force took up a position lower
down the river ' or some such facon de parler. What
happened was this. We attacked without reserves,
relying on the enemy having none. We have done it
several times successfully : indeed our numbers imposed
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 175
the necessity generally. This time there were reinforce-
ments en route, had we waited. But I anticipate.
" Well, we attacked, and carried their first line and
half their second before darkness pulled us up. A
successful day, though expensive in casualties. We
bivouacked in their first line. Daybreak revealed the
unpleasant surprise of strong enemy reinforcements, who
are said to have diddled our spies by avoiding Bagdad :
5000 of them. As we had started the affair about 12,000
strong to their 15,000, this was serious. They attacked,
and were driven off. In the afternoon they attacked
again, in close formation : our artillery mowed them, but
they came on and on, kept it up all night, with ever fresh
reinforcements, bringing them to 30,000 strong, all told.
By dawn our men were exhausted and the position un-
tenable. A retreat was ordered : that meant ninety miles
back to Kut over a baked billiard -table. The enemy pressed
all the way. Once they surrounded our rear brigade.
Two officers broke through their front lines to recall the
front lot. Another evening we pitched a camp and left it
empty to delay the enemy. Daily rear-guard actions were
fought. Five feverish days got us back to Kut, without
disorder or great loss of men ; but the loss in material was
enormous. All possible supplies had been brought close
up to the firing-line to facilitate pursuit. The wounded
filled all the carts, so those supplies had to be abandoned.
The Tigris is a cork-screwed maze of mud-banks, no river
for the hasty withdrawal of congested barges under fire.
You can imagine the scene. Accounts differ as to what we
lost. Certainly, two gunboats (destroyed), one monitor
(disabled and captured), the telegraph barge and supply
barge, besides all supplies dumped on the bank. Most
accounts add one barge of sick and wounded (400), the
aeroplane barge and a varying number of supply barges.
In men, from first to last, we lost nearly 5000 : the Turks
about 9000 a guess, of course.
176 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
" The tale of woe is nearly complete. My 4 A ' Com-
pany got as far as Kut and was set to feverish entrenching
and wiring. Now the whole force there, some 8000 in all,
is cut off there and besieged. They have rations (some say
half -rations) for six weeks or two months, and ammunition.
They are being bombarded, and have been attacked once,
but repelled it easily. We aren't worried about them ;
but I, with my leg (like another egoist), can't be sorry to
be out of it. I should like to be there to mother my men.
Our Major * is wounded, and the other officers are infants.
Meanwhile our reinforcements have turned up in great
numbers and expect to be able to relieve Kut by the end
of the month."
" December 19, 1915.
" Our regimental Sergeant-Major has been killed and
seven men of 4 A ' Company wounded, including three of
the nicest of my draft. I wish I was there to look after
them, but of course I should be no use if I couldn't get
about."
To THE LADY LAURA RIDDING
" AMARAH,
December 19, 1915.
" I think it must always be, in the nature of things,
impossible to realize our future state at all. The only
thing our minds can ever tentatively define about it is the
elimination of all the mediums through which our con-
sciousness now works sensation, place, and perhaps even
time. Purgatory always seems to me the materialistic
interpretation of a process which I believe everyone will
go through the process of ' knowing even as I am known,'
of realizing the full evil of all one's bad acts and qualities,
followed by the withering of all that side, which to some
may mean death.
1 Major Footner.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 177
' ; My leg is nearly well. I walked about three-quarters
of a mile, and hope to be soon fit to return to duty. I have
quite enjoyed the peaceful month of reading and writing ;
but I am anxious about my draft getting peppered up the
river, without me there to look after them.
" The sunsets are splendid almost every evening now.
One night half the vault of the sky was a blazing mantle of
feathered gold, and slowly shrank through every shade of
molten metal. At other times long lines of crimson cloud
lie over the west like a river of rubies. Last night the
clouds were diffused and made a marvellously soft opal-
escent gauze, like a screen of mother-of-pearl, to shade the
sun. It is the greatest joy of the day to watch them.
" I never realized before how dependent one's spirits
are on beauty : the lack of music and hills and gentle faces
leave a kind of hunger in one's soul, which is only satisfied
by these sunsets, and now and then a look from one's men.
It makes one feel the crime of slums more acutely than
ever before."
To Miss ELEANOR BALFOUR
" AMARAH,
December 20, 1915.
" I do get the Round Table. I don't think it suggests
a World -State as practical politics, but merely as the only
ideal with which the mind can be satisfied as an ultimate
end. If you believe in a duty to all humanity, logic won't
stop short of a political brotherhood of the world, since
national loyalty implies in the last resort a denial of your
duty to everyone outside your nation. But in fact, of
course, men are influenced by sentiment and not logic ;
and I agree that, for ages to come at least, a World-State
wouldn't inspire loyalty. I don't even think the British
Empire would for long, if it relied only on the sentiment
of the Mother Country at home. The loyalty of each
2 3
178 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Dominion to the Empire in future generations will be
largely rooted in its own distinctive nationalism, para-
doxical as that sounds : at least, so I believe.
" I want to be at Kut very much, to look after my
company there, poor dears ; but I must say that Tommy
Atkins* view that a place like Kut is desirable to be in
per se never fails to amaze me, familiar though it now is.
I had another instance of it last night. About twelve of
my draft were left behind on various duties when the
company went up-river in such a hurry. Hearing that
my knee was so much better, they sent me a deputy to ask
me to make every effort to take them with me if I went up-
river. I agreed, of course ; but what, as usual, struck me
was that the motives I can understand that one's duty
is with the company when there's trouble around, or even
that it's nicer to be with one's pals at Kut than lonely at
Amarah didn't appear at all. The two things he kept
harping on were : (1) ' it's so dull to miss a " scrap," ' and
(2) * there may be a special clasp given for Kut, and we
don't want to miss it.' They evidently regard the com-
pany at Kut as lucky dogs having a treat : the ' treat,'
when analysed (which they don't), consisting of 20 Ib. kits
in December, half-rations, more or less regular bombard-
ment, no proper billets, no shops, no letters, and very hard
work I
" My leg is very decidedly better now. I can walk half
a mile without feeling any aches, and soon hope to do a
mile."
Just before Christmas Bobby wrote :
" Christmas is almost unbearable in war-time : the
pathos and the reproach of it. I am thankful that my
company is at Kut on half-rations. I don't of course mean
that ; but I'm thankful to be spared eating roast beef and
plum pudding heartily, as these dear pachyderms are now
doing with such relish. I'm glad they do, and I'd do it if
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 179
my company was here. I'm always thankful for my thin
skin, but I'm glad dear God made thick ones the rule in
this wintry world."
And on 26th December : " Christmas passed off
quietly and cheerfully. Tommy Atkins is so profoundly
insensible of incongruities that he saw nothing to worry
him in the legend ' A MERRY CHRISTMAS ' and the latest
casualty list on the same wall of the Royal Army Temper-
ance Association room ; and he sang 4 Peace on earth and
mercy mild ' and * Confound their politics ' with equal
gusto. And his temper is infectious while you're with
him."
To HIS MOTHER
" AMARAH,
December 29, 1915.
" I am looking forward to this trek. Four months is a
large enough slice of one's time to spend in Amarah ; and
there will probably be more interest and fewer battles on
this trek than could be got on any other front. The
Censor has properly got the breeze up here, so I probably
shan't be able to tell you anything of our movements or
to send you any wires : but I will try and let you hear
something each week ; and if we are away in the desert,
we generally arrange and I will try to for some officer
who is within reach of the post to write you a line saying
" I am all right (which he hears by wireless) but can't write."
That is what we have been doing for the people at Kut.
But there are bound to be gaps, and they will tend to get
more frequent and longer as we get farther.
" No casualties from * A ' Company for three days ; so
I hope its main troubles are over."
The fatal expedition for the relief of Kut left Amarah
on the last day of the year.
CHAPTER IX
THE END, 1916
THE march to the relief of Kut, its ill-management, and
the fighting and sufferings involved are best described in
extracts from the diary-letters written by Bobby between
2nd and 20th January.
" Sunday, January 2, 1916. Ali Gherbi. 1 On Thursday,
30th December, we went for a route march and saw
thousands of sand-grouse flying around in parties. In the
afternoon I took my gun out and shot nine sand-grouse
and two pigeons. As I came home, three enormous
waves of sand-grouse passed over Amarah in lines, two
lines over a mile long and one half a mile long ; I reckoned
there must have been 400,000 birds.
" We left Amarah at 2 p.m. on Friday, 31st. The men
were on barges slung either side of the roomy river-boat,
the Medijieh, on which various details, our officers and the
General and his staff and we were.
" I brought my gun and 150 cartridges and was un-
expectedly soon rewarded ; for one of the Army Corps
Commander's staff came along after lunch and asked for
someone to come with him in the motor-boat and shoot
partridges. As I was the only one with a gun handy I
went. We raced ahead in the motor-boat for half an hour
and then landed on the right bank and walked up the
river for two and a half hours, not deviating even to follow
up coveys. There were a lot of birds, but it was windy
1 All the place-names were given in cipher in the letters.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 181
and they were wild and difficult. We persevered till it was
dark. Then we had to walk three-quarters of a mile
before we could find a place where the boat could get near
the bank ; so we had a longer and colder chase to catch
up the ship than I had bargained for, especially as I had
foolishly forgotten to bring a coat. However, when I
got too cold I snuggled up against the engine and so kept
parts of me warm. Luckily the ship had to halt at the
camp of a marching column, so we caught her up in one
and a quarter hours.
" I pitched my bed on deck up against the boiler, and
so was as warm as toast all night.
" Yesterday morning (1st January) we steamed steadily
along through absolutely bare country. The chief feature
was the extraordinary abundance of sand-grouse. I told
mamma of the astonishing clouds of them which passed
over Amarah. Here they were in small parties or in flocks
of up to 200 ; but the whole landscape is dotted with
them from 8 a.m. till 11 and again from 3 to 4, so that
any random spot would give one much the same shooting
as we had at the Kimberley dams.
" We reached here about 2 p.m. This place is only
about forty-five miles from Amarah as the crow flies, but
by river it takes sixteen hours, and with various halts and
delays it took us just twenty-four.
" This is a most desolate place. Apart from the village
with its few palms and gardens there seems not to be a
blade of vegetation within sight. To the N.E. the
Persian hills are only fifteen miles away. The rainstorm
of last week covered their tops (4000 ft.) with snow,
reminding me of those exquisite lines of Purefoy's
favourite poet which begin :
" ' The Persian hills are bright with snow,
The tawny Tigris sleeps :
The glories of the sunset glow
Like dreams upon his deeps.'
182 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
This place is about half-way between Amarah and Kut :
from the latter, we can hear the guns distinctly, but we
have had no news for several days. We are about forty-
five or fifty miles from Kut. Things have been very quiet
MAP I ENCLOSED IN LETTER OF JANUARY 2, 1916
, All Gherbi
the last few days. This place is a large camp round
a small village. Here we found * D ' Company, which got
stranded here when * A ' Company got stuck in Kut.
" There is an enemy force of 2000 about ten miles from
here. We know nothing of our own movements yet, and I
couldn't mention them if we did. We have been put into
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 183
a different brigade, but the Brigadier has not been
appointed yet. The number of the brigade equals that
of the ungrateful lepers. We are independent of any
division."
" Monday, January 10. We left AH Gherbi last
Thursday morning (6th January), and were told we should
march sixteen miles : we marched up the right bank, so our
left flank was exposed to the desert, and ' D ' Company
did flank guard. My platoon formed the outer screen, and
we marched strung out in single file. There were cavalry
patrols beyond us again, and anyway no Arab could come
within five miles without our seeing him, so our guarding
was a sinecure.
" Our new Brigadier turned up and proved to be a
pleasant, sensible kind of man. Having just come from
France, he keeps quite cool whatever we encounter.
(P.S. We have had a new Brigadier since this one. I
haven't yet seen the present one.)
" The march was slow and rough, as most of the ground
was hard-baked plough. The country was as level and
bare as a table, bar the ditches, and we hardly saw a
human being all day. It took us till after 4 p.m. to do
our sixteen miles. About 2 p.m. we began to hear firing and
see shrapnel in the distance, and it soon became clear
that we were approaching a big battle. Consequently,
we had to push on beyond our sixteen miles, and went on till
sunset 5 p.m. By this time we were all very footsore
and exhausted. The men had had no food since the
night before, the ration-cart having stuck in a ditch ; and
many of the inexperienced ones had brought nothing with
them. My leg held out wonderfully well, and in fact has
given me no trouble worth speaking of.
" By 6 p.m. it was quite dark, and the firing had ceased ;
we got orders to retrace our steps to a certain camping-
place (marked 1 on Map II). This meant an extra mile,
184 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
and immense trouble and confusion in finding our way
over ditches and then sorting kits in the dark.
" Friday, 7th. We started at 8.30 and marched quietly
about five miles. This brought us within view of the
large village of Sheike Saad, which is roughly half-way
between Ali Gherbi and Kut. Between us and it the
battle was in full swing. We halted by a pontoon bridge
(2 on sketch) just out of range of the enemy's guns, and
MAP II ENCLOSED IN LETTER OF JANUARY 10, 1916
N
Our (in. of march 5 < tt ' c a fP r
I . Thursday mjhfs Camp
2 Pontoon bridge
3 Place w her* first shelled.
watched it for several hours. It was hot, and the mirage
blurred everything. Our artillery was clearly very
superior to theirs, both in quantity and in the possession
of high explosive shell, of which the enemy had none ;
but we were cruelly handicapped (a) by the fact that
their men and guns were entrenched and ours exposed,
and (b) by the mirage, which made the location of their
trenches and emplacements almost impossible.
" On Friday a big attack was launched on both banks.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 185
On the right bank we got round their flank and carried
their first line trenches with 500 prisoners, but we hadn't
enough men or water to carry the second line. On the
left bank three-quarters of our force attacked frontally,
and one-quarter had orders to envelop their left flank.
For some unexplained reason, this one-quarter changed
direction in the middle of the fight and came barging
into the right of the frontal force, so that we were involved
in a congested frontal attack, which was very expensive,
as we got within two hundred yards of their trenches with-
out being able to carry them. Our casualties were over
3000. It was here that Goschen l was mortally wounded.
" On the Saturday, 8th, there were intermittent
artillery duels. In the following night the Turks retired
to the Canal.
" Our failure to do better was due mainly to three
causes : (i) the badness of our reconnaissance ; (ii) the
inability of the artillery to locate anything with certainty
in the mists and mirage ; and (iii) the difficulty of finding
and getting round the enemy's flanks. Either they had
a far larger force than we expected, or they were very
skilfully spread out for they covered an amazingly wide
front, quite eight miles or more.
" The battle was interesting to watch, but not exciting.
The noise of the shells from field-guns is exactly like that
of a rocket going up. When the shell is coming towards
you, there is a sharper hiss in it, like a whip. It gives you
a second or two to get under cover, and then crack-whizz
as the shrapnel whizzes out. The heavy shells from the
monitors, etc., make a noise like a landslide of pebbles
down a beach, only blurred as if echoed.
" (To revert to Friday, 7th.) The Hampshires had
orders about 3.30 to cross to the left bank. When we
reached the left bank we marched as if to reinforce our
right flank. Presently the Brigadier made us line out
1 Lieutenant the Hon. G. J. Goschen.
24
186 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
into echelon of companies in line in single rank, so that
from a distance we looked like a brigade, instead of three
companies. About 4, we came up to a howitzer battery,
and lay down about two hundred yards from it, thus :
> t3C3 t= L
v o oOO :
'X I
'. C
\
" We had lain there about ten minutes when a hiss,
crack, whizz, and shells began to arrive, invariably in
pairs, about where I've put 1 and 2, They were ranging
on the battery ; but after a minute or two they spotted
our ammunition column, and a pair of shells burst at 3,
then a pair, at 4. So the column retreated in a hurry along
the dotted arrow, and the shells following them began
to catch us in enfilade. So Foster * made us rise and move
to the left in file. Just as we were up, a pair burst right
over my platoon. I can't conceive why nobody was hit.
I noticed six bullets strike the ground in a semicircle
between me and the nearest man three paces away, but
nobody was touched. I don't suppose the enemy saw us
at all ; anyway, the next pair pitched two yards beyond
us, and the next got two men of ' B ' all flesh wounds,
and not severe. They never touched the ammunition
column.
" We lay down in a convenient ditch, and only one
more pair came our way, as the enemy was ranging back
to the battery.
1 Captain Foster, officer in command of " D " Company.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 187
" Just before 5 we got orders to advance in artillery
formation. My platoon led, and we followed a course
down by the dotted line. We went through the battery
and about three hundred yards beyond, and then had orders
to return to camp. On this trip (which was mere window-
dressing) no shell came nearer than fifty yards ; in fact,
our battery made us jump much more.
" The whole episode was much more interesting than
alarming. Fear is seated in the imagination, I think,
and vanishes once the mind can assert itself. One feels
very funky in the cold nights when nothing is happening ;
but if one has to handle men under fire one is braced up
and one's attention is occupied. I expect rifle fire is
much more trying ; but the fact that shell-fire is more or
less unaimed at one individually, and also the warning
swish, gives one a feeling of great security.
" We got back to camp near the river (4 on Map II)
about 6 p.m., and dug a perimeter, hoping to settle down
for the night. But at 7.30 orders came to move at 9.30.
We were told that an enemy force had worked round our
right flank, and that our brigade had to do a night march
eastward down the river and attack it at dawn. So at
10 p.m. we marched with just a blanket apiece, leaving
our kits in the camp.
" (It is very unsatisfactory that, beyond the regimental
stretcher-bearers, there is no ambulance to bring the
wounded back ; and how can a dozen stretchers convey
300 casualties five miles ? And when they get back to
the dressing-station the congestion is very bad, thirty
men in a tent, and only three or four doctors to deal with
3000 or 4000 wounded.)
" Well, we started out at 10 p.m., and marched slowly
and silently till nearly midnight. Then we bivouacked
for four and a half hours (5 on Map II), and a more un-
comfortable time I hope never to spend, from cold and
damp, lying in a ditch
i88 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
"Saturday, Sth. At last 4.30 a.m. arrived and we
started marching again. It was a blessing to get one's
feet warm, but the pleasures of the march were strictly
comparative. We trekked on eastwards along the river-
bank till sunrise. At 7.30 we halted ; we waited till 9,
when the cavalry patrols returned and reported no sign
of the enemy, so we marched back to the pontoon bridge
(7 on Map II). The march back was the most unpleasant
we've had. It got hot and the ground was hard and
rough and we were all very tired and foot-sore. A sleep-
less night takes the stamina out of one.
" On arrival at the bridge we were only allowed half
an hour's rest and then got orders to march out to take
up an 4 observation post ' on the right flank. Being
general reserve is no sinecure, with bluffing tactics pre-
vailing.
" This last lap was extremely trying. We marched
in artillery formation, all very lame and stiff. We passed
behind our yesterday's friend, the howitzer battery, but
at a more respectful distance from the enemy's battery.
This latter showed no sign of life till we were nearly
two miles from the river. Then it started its double
deliveries and some of them came fairly close to some of
our platoons, but not to mine.
" It took us nearly two hours to drag ourselves three
miles, and the men had hardly a kick in them when we
reached the place assigned for our post (8 on Map II).
We were ordered to entrench in echelon of companies,
facing north. I thought it would take till dark to get us
dug in (it was 2 p.m.) ; but luckily our men, lined up
ready to begin digging, caught the eye of the enemy as
a fine enfilade target and they started shelling us from
6500 yards (Enemy's Battery, 9 on Map II). The effect
on the men was magical. They woke up and dug so
well that we had fair cover within half an hour and quite
adequate trenches by 3 p.m. This bombardment was
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 189
quite exciting. The first few pairs were exactly over
' D ' Company's trench, but pitched about 100 yards
behind it. The next few were exactly right in range,
but about forty yards right, i.e. behind us. Just as we
were wondering where the third lot would be, our faithful
howitzer battery and some heavy guns behind them,
which opened all they knew on the enemy battery as soon
as they opened on us, succeeded in attracting its fire to
themselves. This happened three or four times and went
on until we were too well dug in to be a tempting target,
and they devoted themselves to our battery. The curious
part of it was that though we could see the flash of their
guns every time, the mirage made it impossible to judge
their ranges or even for our battery to observe its own
fire properly. Our howitzer battery unfortunately was
not in the mirage and they had its range to a yard and
plastered it with shrapnel.
"About 4.30 the mirage cleared and our guns had a
free go for the first time that day (in the morning, mists
last until the mirage begins). I'm told the mirage had
put our guns over 1000 yards out in their ranging. Any-
way, it is the fact that those guns and trenches which were
sited in mirages were practically untouched in a heavy
two days' bombardment.
" In that last hour, however, our heavy guns got into
the enemy finely with their high explosives. They blew
one of our tormentors bodily into the air at 10,500 yards,
and silenced the others, and chased every Turk out of the
landscape.
" All the same, we were rather gloomy that night.
Our line had made no progress that we could hear of ; we
had had heavy losses, and there seemed no prospect of
dislodging the enemy. Their front was so wide we could
not get round them, and frontal attacks on trenches are
desperate affairs here if your artillery is paralysed by
mirages. The troops who have come from France say
igo ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
that in this respect this action has been more trying than
either Neuve Chapelle or Ypres, because, as they say, it is
like advancing over a billiard-table all the way.
" To crown our troubles, we were three miles from the
river, which meant no water except for necessities the
men had no kits, and it was very cold, and we could not
show lights. And finally, after midnight, it began to pour
with rain !
" Sunday, 9th. We've had a very strenuous time and
been fiendishly uncomfortable. Not had a wash for three
days. Water too precious. On this day I cleaned my
teeth from a puddle.
" At 5.30 a.m. we stood to arms. It rained harder
than ever and most of us hadn't a dry stitch. At last it
got light, the rain gradually stopped, and a thoroughly
depressed battalion breakfasted in a grey mist, expecting
to be bombarded the moment it lifted. About 8.30 the
mist cleared a little, and we looked in vain for our tor-
mentors. Our cavalry reconnoitred and, to our joy, we
saw them ride clean over the place where the enemy's line
had been the evening before. They had gone in the night.
A cold but drying wind sprang up and the sun came
out for a short time, and we managed to get our things
dry. At 1 o'clock we marched back to the river and
found the bridge gone. I enclose a sketch-map II to
explain our movements. 1
" When we reached the river (10 on Map II) it began
to rain again and we spent a very chill afternoon on the
bank awaiting orders. About dusk ' B ' and * C ' Com-
panies were ordered to cross the river to guard the hospital
there, and ' D ' stayed to guard the hospital on the left
bank. Mercifully our ship was handy, so we got our tents
and slept warm, though all our things were wettish.
" Monday, IQih. A quiet morning, no orders. ' C '
Company returned to left bank, as all wounded were
1 See page 184.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 191
being shipped across. We got orders to march to Sheike
Saad by night. We started at 8 p.m. It was seven or
eight miles, but we went very slow, and did not get in till
1.30 a.m. and our transport not till nearly 3, heavy guns
sticking in the ditches. (AM?. Once we got behind the
evacuated Turkish line, we found that the ditches had
been filled in to allow passage of guns, an expedient
which had apparently not occurred to the British Com-
mand, for no ditch had been filled in between All Gherbi
and this point.)
"Tuesday, llth. When morning came we found our-
selves camped just opposite Sheike Saad (11 on Map II),
and we are still there. Two fine days (though it freezes
at night) and rest have restored us.
"Wednesday, 12th (on the Tigris). After posting
your letter I went to see Foster, who has had to go sick
and lives on our supply ship. About twenty per cent, of
our men are sick, mostly diarrhoea and sore feet.
" In the evening ' D ' Company had to find a firing-
party to shoot three Indians, two N.C.O.'s and one sepoy,
for cowardice in the face of the enemy. I'm thankful
that North and not I was detailed for the job. I think
there is nothing more horrible in all war than these
executions. Luckily they are rare. The men, however,
didn't mind at all. I talked to the corporal about it
afterwards a particularly nice and youthful one, one of
my draft and remarked that it was a nasty job for
him to have to do, to which he replied gaily, 4 Well, sir,
I 'ad a bit o' rust in my barrel wanted shootin' out, so
it came in handy like.' Tommy Atkins is a wonderful
and attractive creature.
" Thursday, 13th. Moved at 7 a.m., carrying food
and water for two days. The enemy had been located on
the E. Canal, about eight miles from Sheike Saad, and our
people were going to attack them. The idea was to hold
them in front with a small force, while a much bigger
192 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
force got round their left flank (the Canal is on the left
bank of the river). Our brigade was to support the
frontal containing force.
" We marched about four miles and then halted about
9 a.m. About 3.30 p.m. we advanced, and reached an
abandoned enemy fort a little before sunset. Here we
heard various alarming and depressing reports, the facts
underlying which, as far as I can make out at present,
were these. The Turks, seeing their left flank being
turned, quitted their position and engaged the out-
flanking force, leaving only about 500 out of their 9000
to hold the Canal. Our outflanking force, finding itself
heavily engaged, sent and asked the frontal force to
advance, to relieve the pressure. The frontal force
advanced too rashly and were surprised and heavily
punished by the remnant left along the Canal, losing
half their force and being obliged to retire. Meanwhile,
our outflankers nearly got round the enemy and cut
off his retreat. Unfortunately they just failed and the
enemy got safely away. Our casualties were 2000.
Here again (a) the artillery was quite ineffective ; (b)
we failed to foresee the obvious Turkish counter-move
to our outflanking tactics ; (c) the aeroplane wrongly
reported on the evacuation of their first line.
" When our retiring frontal force met us they naturally
gave us the impression that there was a large force still
holding the Canal, which we should have to tackle in
the morning.
" We dug ourselves in about 2000 yards from the
Canal. It was very cold and windy, and we had not
even a blanket, though I had luckily brought both my
greatcoat and burberry. There was a small mud-hut
just behind our trench, littered with Turkish rags. The
signallers made a fire inside ; it was not an inviting spot,
but it was a choice between dirt and cold, and I had
no hesitation in choosing dirt. So, after a chill dinner,
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 193
I turned into the hut. The other officers (except North)
at first disdained it with disgust, but as the night wore on
they dropped in one by one, till by midnight we were
lying in layers like sardines. The Colonel l was the last
to surrender. I have a great admiration for him. He is
too old for this kind of game, and feels the cold and
fatigue very much ; but he not only never complains,
but is always quietly making the best of things for every-
one, and taking less than his share of anything good
that is going. Nothing would induce him, on this
occasion, to lie near the fire.
" Friday, 14>th. As soon as it was light we got orders
to advance and marched in artillery formation to within
1200 yards of the Canal, where we found some hastily
begun trenches of the day before, and proceeded to
deepen them. As there was no sign of the enemy, the
conviction grew on us that he must have gone in the
night ; and presently the order came to form a line to
clear up the battlefield, i.e. the space between us and
the Canal. This included burying the dead and picking
up the wounded, as the stretcher parties, which had
tried to bring the wounded in during the night, had been
heavily fired on and unable to get farther than where we
were.
"I had never seen a dead man and rather dreaded
the effect on my queasy stomach ; but when it came to
finding, searching and burying them one by one, all
sense of horror though they were not pleasant to look
upon was forgotten in an overmastering feeling of pity,
such as one feels at the tragic ending of a moving story,
only so oppressive as to make the whole scene like a sad
and impersonal dream, on which, and as in a dream,
my mind kept recurring to a tableau, which I must have
seen over fifteen years ago, in Madame Tussaud's of
Edith finding the body of Harold after the battle of
Colonel Bowker.
194 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Hastings; and indeed the stiff corpses were more like
waxen models than anything that had lived.
" The wounded were by comparison a cheerful com-
pany, though their sufferings during the eighteen hours
they had lain there must have been fearful; but the
satisfaction of being able to bring them in was our pre-
dominant feeling.
" In the middle of this work we were suddenly recalled
and ordered to march to the support of the outflanking
force, of whose movements we had heard absolutely
nothing. But when we had fallen in, all they did was
to march us to the Canal, and thence along it back to
the river, where we encamped about 1 p.m., and still are.
" It was a great comfort to be within reach of water
again, though the wind and rain have made the river
so muddy that a mug of water from it looks exactly like
a mug of tea with milk in it.
" The wind had continued unabated for two days
and now blew almost a gale. The dust was intolerable
and made any attempts at washing hopeless. Indeed,
one's eyes got so full of it the moment they were opened
that we sat blinking like owls or shut them altogether.
So it was a cheerless afternoon, with rain threatening.
Our supply ship with our tents had not come up, but the
Major (Stilwell) had a bivouac tent on the second line
transport, which he invited me to share, an offer which
I gladly accepted. It came on to rain heavily in the
night, so I was lucky to be under shelter.
"Saturday, 15th. This morning it rained on and off
till nearly noon and the wind blew all day, but the rain
had laid the dust.
" I have just seen the padre who has been working
in the field-dressing station. In his station there were
two doctors, two nursing orderlies and two native
sweepers ; and these had to cope with 750 white wounded
for five days till they could ship them down the river.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 195
Altogether our casualties in the two battles have been
well over 5000, so the Turk has rather scored.
" This afternoon news is : (a) that we have got a new
Brigadier our brigade manages its commanders on the
principle of the Caliph and his wives, and has not yet
found a Sheherazade ; (6) that we have got a brigade
M.O.O. ambulance. This is a luxury, indeed. We are
only just over twenty miles from Kut now, so we hope
to get through after one more battle.
" Sunday, 16th. Still in camp. No sun. More rain.
Friday's gale and the rise in the river have scattered our
only pontoon bridge, and Heaven knows when another
will be ready. All our skilled bridge-builders are in
Kut. The people here seem quite incapable of even
bridging the Canal, twenty feet wide. Typical, very.
" We had a celebration on a boat this morning, which
I was very glad of, also a voluntary parade service.
"Monday, 17th. Rained on and off all day. Grey,
cold and windy. Ordered to cross river as soon as bridge
is ready. We took only what blankets we could carry.
When we reached the bridge we found it not finished,
and squatted till 8.15. Then the bridge was finished
and immediately broke. So we had to come back to
camp and bivouac. Rained like hell all night.
" Tuesday, 18*A. Whole place a sea of mud, ankle
deep and slippery as butter. Nearly the whole bridge
had been washed away or sunk in the night. We got
men's tents from the ship, cleared spaces from mud, and
pitched camp again. Rain started again about 1 p.m.
and continued till 4. The Canal or * Wadi ' had
meanwhile come down in heavy spate and broken that
bridge, so we were doubly isolated. I went out to post
pickets. It took two hours to walk three miles. Foster
being sick, North is officer in command of 4 D ' Company,
and I share a 40 Ib. tent with him. Desultory bombard-
ment all day.
196 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
" Wednesday, IMh. Sun at last ; first fine day since
Thursday last. Orders to cross Wadi as soon as bridge
repaired. Crossed at 4 p.m. and camped in a dry place.
" Thursday, 2Qth. Fair, sun, heavy bombardment all
day. Post going."
These were the last words written by Bobby. He was
killed in the battle of Umm-Al-Hannah on the following
day.
The part taken by the Hampshire Regiment in the
day's disastrous action can be best understood by the
following accounts given by two of its number present in
the battle. It is sufficient to mention that the duty of
acting as support to the troops engaged in pushing the
main attack on 21st January was allotted to the Hamp-
shires.
" The leading brigade entrenched itself during the
night within about 500 yards of the position, while our
regiment, with one Indian regiment, formed the first line
of supports. We were in our trenches about 1000 yards
from the enemy's position, ready to make the attack by
6 a.m. For some reason the attack was delayed, and our
guns did not open fire till 7.45 a.m. instead of 6.30, as
originally intended. At 7.55 a.m. (after our guns had
bombarded the enemy's trenches for only ten minutes)
the infantry were ordered to advance to the attack, our
support line advancing at the same time.
" Our battalion (which consisted of three companies
(one company being in Kut-El-Amarah) advanced in three
lines : ' B ' Company forming the first line, under Lieu-
tenant Needham ; ' C ' Company the second line, under
Captain Page Roberts ; and ' D ' Company the third
line, under Captain North, with Captain the Hon. Robert
Palmer as his second in command. Lieutenant-Colonel
Bowker was with the third line.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 197
" As soon as we left the trenches, we were under a
heavy rifle fire ; and as we advanced, this became more
and more intense, with machine-gun and shrapnel fire
added. The ground was perfectly flat and open, with no
form of cover to be obtained, and our casualties soon
became very heavy. We continued to advance till we
got to within about 150 yards of the enemy's trenches,
but by this time our casualties were so heavy that it was
impossible to press home the attack without reinforce-
ments, though at the extreme left of our line our troops
actually got into the first line of trenches but were bombed
out of them again by the Turks. No reinforcements
reached us, however ; and we afterwards heard that
the regiment, which should have come up in support of
us, was enfiladed from their right, and was consequently
drawn off in that direction. All we could do now was
to hold on where we were, making what cover we could
with our entrenching tools ; and this we did until darkness
came on, when we withdrew.
" The weather had been terrible all that day and night,
there being heavy rain with a bitterly cold wind coming off
the snow hills. The ground became a sea of mud, which
made it most difficult to remove the wounded ; and many
of these had to lie out till the armistice was arranged
the following day." And : " The fighting was a pure
slaughter. It was too awful. . . . The troops from France
say that in all their experience there they never suffered
so much from weather conditions." l
" The three companies of Hampshires were in support,
with two native regiments and a battalion of Connaught
Rangers. The Hants men were next the river. The two
native regiments refused to leave their trenches when they
1 From letters of Lieutenant-Colonel W. B. Stilwell, D.S.O. As Major,
he took command of the Hampshires during the battle, after Colonel
Bowker's death.
ig8 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
saw the fierce fire from the machine guns. The Connaughts
were fighting farther off. So the Hampshire men were
obliged to go on alone. We never made a rush, and just
walked slowly through the rain. A slow march to our
deaths, I call it."
The narrator then said they had got mixed up with
the Black Watch and got into the first Turkish trench,
but had been driven out of it again. He saw Captain
Palmer fall about 200 yards from the trench, but did not
see whether he got up again or where he was wounded. 1
Out of the 310 Hampshires who went into the battle,
only 51 escaped untouched. Colonel Bowker, the colonel
in command, Captains Brandon and North, and Lieutenant
Needham were killed ; Captain Bucknill and Bobby were
missing, and all their remaining officers wounded or half-
dead from shock and exposure. Of the men, 32 were
killed, 136 wounded, and 75 missing. On the following
day, at the end of the armistice, 75 officers and men were
still missing. It was clear that those of them who had
fallen wounded close to the Turkish lines must have been
removed by the Turks as prisoners, and that Bobby must
have been among their number.
A few scanty facts regarding his last hours have come
to our knowledge.
" He was always cheerful to the end," was the testi-
mony of Colonel Stilwell. His men who survived him
described with great admiration " his coolness in action,
his greater thoughtfulness for them than for himself.
He was," they said, " a man upon whom they could fully
rely." " When Captain Palmer was leading part of an
attack over a long stretch of absolutely flat country that
had no cover whatever, the only possible approach was
by steadily walking forward. He was so anxious all the
1 This was the story as told in the Agra Hospital by a wounded private
of the Hampshire Regiment shortly after the event.
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 199
time that his line should be kept in perfect ' extension,'
so as to minimize the risk to his men. His sole thought
seems to have been for his men."
Two wounded men from Bobby's platoon reported in
their Indian hospital that he had been wounded in the
leg. After he was seen to fall, he must have picked
himself up and have gone on, according to the account
given of him in the following letter from Second-Lieutenant
C. H. Vernon of the l/4th Hants, written to Mr. J. T.
Bucknill, in which he mentioned his vain search for my
nephew's body on 7th April 1916. Afterwards he heard
of his death in the Turkish camp.
" Some stories," he wrote, " have come through from
survivors as to how Captain Palmer lost his life. As far
as we can gather, he was the only Hants officer actually
to penetrate tjie Turkish trenches with a few men. That
was on the extreme left, close to the river. Our men,
however, had not been supplied by the Indian Govern-
ment with bombs. Consequently the Turks, being so
provided, bombed them out, and only one or two men
escaped capture or death. It was here that Captain
Palmer was mortally wounded while trying to rally his
men to hold the captured sector."
The agonizing suspense endured by his parents and by
all who loved Bobby came to a tragic end on 14th March,
when Monsieur E. Naville, Vice-President of the Inter-
national Red Cross Committee, telegraphed from Geneva
that he had learnt through the Red Crescent that, " Cap-
tain Palmer was captured grievously wounded. Died
before reaching hospital."
Two months later, Captain Aubrey Herbert was able
to supplement this information.
200 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
CAPTAIN THE HON. AUBREY HERBERT TO THE EARL
OF SELBORNE
" H.M.S. Mantis,
May 1916.
" I am more grieved than I can say to have given you
the news which I telegraphed yesterday. I know how
cruel the anxiety of doubt is, and telegraphed to you
when I had the evidence which I and my friends here
consider reliable.
" About six days ago I went out to the Turks to discuss
terms for the surrender of Kut. I spent the night in their
camp and have been with them several times since then. I
asked them for information about three names. About two
of the names I could get little information. On the third
day I received a message from Ali Jenab Bey, telling me
that your son had died in hospital, and that all that could
be done for him had been done, and asking me to tell you
how deeply he sympathized with you. The next day Ali
Jenab and two other Turks came into our camp. One of
them, Mohammed Riza, told me that your son had been
brought in after the fight on the 21st, slightly wounded in
the shoulder and badly wounded in the chest. He had
been well looked after by the doctor, and the colonel of
the regiment (I could not find out which regiment) had
visited him and, at the doctor's wish, sent him some
brandy. He did not suffer ; and the end came after two
hours.
" It is useless to try to tell you how sorry I feel for you
and all of yours. In this campaign, which in my mind has
been the most heroic of all, many of our men who have
given their lives have suffered long and very terribly,
and when one hears of a friend who has gone, one is
glad in this place to know that he has been spared that
sacrifice."
ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 201
Later in the year, when that part of Mesopotamia had
fallen into the hands of our army, the chaplain who had
administered Bobby's last Communion to him five days
before his death, the Rev. R. Irwin, searched in vain all
over the site occupied by the Turkish lines and camp on
21st January. He could find no trace of the burial-
places where the enemy had interred their own men or
their prisoners. The body of our beloved Bobby lies in an
unknown grave in that ancient land. But the fact is not
embittered with any thought of loneliness or unfulfilled
destiny in regard to him. Rather we rejoice to believe
that the experience described by him in a poem on The
Voyage of Life has been his : that his spirit, in company
with many other steadfast souls, passed out of the stress
of battle up the steep stairway to Paradise, and that to
them was granted the vision of
" One standing on the path with hands outstretched.
They follow, and the hard ascent seems smooth,
Till, when they reach the upper light serene,
They look upon their Leader face to face :
Straightway they know Him and themselves are known.
Then are they glad, because they are at rest,
Brought to the haven at last where they would be.
R. S. A. P."
s.
INDEX
Alexandra, Queen, 11-3.
Ashby, Dr. T., 54.
Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., 17, 145,
146.
Bailey, Rev. C. W., 49.
Balfour, Miss Alice, 104 (see
Letters).
Miss Eleanor, 104 (see Letters).
Rt. Hon. A. J., i. 16, 17. 65,
I0 3~5. J 4 6 -
Rt. Hon. Gerald and Lady
Betty, 102, 104.
" Balkan Situation, Historical
Background of," 173.
Bar. the, R. S. A. Palmer called to,
107.
Legal studies, 107-9.
Prospects at, 109, no.
Bax, Rev. A. N., 8, 9.
Bertie, Ninian, 144, 145.
Bewsher, J., 7.
Blackmoor, 3, 22, 25, 31, 35, 80,
no, in, 117, 122, 135.
Botha, General, 57, 58.
Bowker, Lieut. -Colonel F. J., 193,
196, 198.
Bradley, Dean, of Westminster,
13-
Brandon, Captain, 198.
Bucknill, Lieut. J., 198.
Burge, Dr. H., Bishop, first of
Southwark ; second of Ox-
ford, 27, 28, 37, 98, 131.
Caldey Abbey, 70, 75, 76.
Canning Club, Oxford, 40, 45, 46, 52,
63, 70, 81.
Carritt, E. F., 61.
Carter, F., 16, 18.
Causton, Captain Purefoy, 116, 130,
132-4, 137, 143, 145-8,
151, 181 (see Letters).
Cecil, Lady Gwendolen (Aunt), 40,
73 (see Letters.)
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh (Uncle)
9, 40, 62, 65.
Rt. Hon. Lord Robert (Uncle),
72, loo, 145, 164.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Austen, 17.
Rt. Hon. Joseph, 17.
Charity Organization Society, 95,
96.
" Poor Man's Lawyer "
Dept., 48, 95, 97, 98, 100.
Christian Social Union, 95.
Churchill, third Lord, 12.
Cole, Hon. Mrs. G. E. (see Balfour,
Miss Eleanor).
" Conversations of Christopher,"
172.
Cook, A. B. K., 18.
A. K., 14, 25, 29, 30 (see
Letters).
Corbett, Ronald, 145.
Curtis, Captain G. E., 123.
Darling, Sir C. J., 107.
Drage, Major R. L., 30-2.
Eady, Sir C. S., 108.
Earl, Austin, 80, 81.
Mrs., 79.
Edghill House, Sydenham, 98, 99.
Edward VII., King, n, 12.
Elton, Captain G., 149-51.
Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L., 78.
Fletcher, George, 145.
Footner, Lieut.-Col. F. L., 176.
Forrest, Captain, 157.
Foster, Captain H. M., 186, 191,
195-
Franqueville, Comte de, 53, 55.
Gomtesse de (Aunt), 53, 55.
George V., King, n, 12.
Gibbs, W., 102.
Gladstone, W. G. C., 145.
Goddard, R., 102, 107-10.
INDEX
203
Gore, Dr. Charles, Bishop, first of
Worcester ; second of
Birmingham ; third of
Oxford, 116.
J., 102, 115.
Goschen, Hon. G. J., 185.
Grenfell, Captain Hon. Julian, 148.
Hon. William, 148.
Grey. Countess (see Howick, Vis-
countess).
fifth Earl (see Howick, Viscount).
of Falloden, Viscount, 22, 52, 1 10.
Lady Elizabeth (Niece), 146.
Halsbury, Earl of, 12.
Hampshire Regiment, The t
R. S. A. Palmer's Commission in,
105, in, 114, 129, 162.
on Salisbury Plain, 109, 111-15.
at Fort Monckton, 113, 122.
" F " Company, 115, 119, 129.
ordered to India, 116.
on Ullonia, 118, 130.
in India, 118-48.
at Dum-Dum, 119.
at Barrackpore, 119.
at Agra, 119-48.
" D " Company, 129.
ordered to Persian Gulf, 147.
in Amarah, 158-79.
" A " Company, 159, 172, 174,
176, 178, 179.
Christmas at Amarah, 174, 178,
179.
Casualties at Kut, 176, 179.
in battle of Sheike Saad, 185-92.
Umm-Al-Hannah, 196-9-
Officers of, 116, 119, 123, 128,
13. M9-5I. 158, 159, 173.
174, 186, 191, 193, 196-8.
Work of R. S. A. Palmer in
Canteen Reform, 128,
129.
Care for Men, 114, 130,
131, 135. 136. 147, 149-
52, 157, 176, 177, 198,
199.
Regimental games, 129,
145, 165, 170.
Lectures, 129, 130, 172-4.
Harris, J. H., 159.
Hatfield, 3, 44, 80.
Herbert, A. P., 30, 45, 46.
Hon. Aubrey, 199, 200.
Hirtzel, Sir A., 102.
" Historical Background of the
Balkan Situation," 173.
Houghton, Boydell, K.C., 109.
Howard, Lady Mary, 12.
Howick, Viscount, i, 26, 52, 71, 72.
Viscountess (Sister), i, 4, 26, 52
(see Letters).
India :
Agra, 84, 119, 123. 129, 131. M 8 -
159, 162.
Barrackpore, 119.
Benares, 87, 116, 126.
Bhurtpur, shoot at, 123-6.
Bombay, Diocese of, 83, 90, 94.
Missionary Tours in, 90-2.
Christian Church in, 93-5.
Darjeeling, 89, 116, 121.
Delhi, 126.
Dinapur, 116, 119.
Dum-Dum, 119-
Durbar, The, 82-4.
Goa, 85, 86.
Hampshire Regiment in (see
Hampshire Regiment).
Hinduism, 84, 87, 88, 94, 126-8.
Hindustani language, 146, 147,
149.
Jains, the, 88.
Khyber Pass, 89.
Kinchin janga Peak, 88, 89.
Mesopotamia, Indian regiments
in, 162, 191, 196, 197.
Muttra, 126-8.
Narkanda, 143.
Problems of Government of, 92-5.
138-43 (see also Palmer,
Roberts. A. III. Views).
Rawal Pindi, 133.
Srinagar, 89, 90, 97.
Taj, the, 84, 120, 148.
Territorials in, 131.
Tour, 1911, R. S. A. Palmer's,
83-93-
India, A Little Tour in, 83, 91.
" Inequalities : Criticisms and Sug-
gestions from the Chris-
tian Point of View," 132.
Iremonger, Rev. F. A., 97.
Irwin, Rev. R., 201.
" Isis Idols," 65, 66.
Jeanned'Arc,Beatificationof.53,55.
Johnson, Lionel, 14.
Kelly, Major-General, 113, 122.
Kitchener of Khartoum, Earl,
114. "5-
204 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMED
Knox, Rev. Ronald A., 67-71 (see
Letters).
"Labour Problem in South Africa,
The," 32.
Lascelles, E., 100.
Letters:
Cecil, Lady Gwendolen, to Sel-
borne, Countess of, 40.
Cecil, Lord Robert, to Selborne,
Countess of, 100.
Herbert, Captain, Hon. A., to
Selborne, Earl of, 200.
Wolmer, Viscount, to Selborne,
Countess of, 40.
Letters of R. S. A. Palmer to i
Balfour, Miss Alice, 104.
Miss Eleanor, 163, 164, 168-
70, 177, 178.
Causton, Purefoy, 137, 160-2.
Cook, A. K., 25, 26.
Howick, Viscountess, 122, 145,
146.
Knox, Rev. Ronald, 121, 152,
153, 165-8, 171, 172, 174-6.
Norfolk, Duke of, n.
Palmer, Hon. Lewis, 78, 79, 165.
Ridding, Lady Laura, 22, 23, 98,
136, 162, 170, 171, 176, 177.
Selborne, Countess of, 8, 16-8, 20,
21, 42-4, 56-60, 72, 75,
76, 80, 81, 96, 97, 100-4,
106-8, 112-7, II 9~ 2I >
133-6, 138, 146-8, 153-8,
164, 165, 170, 179.
Earl of, 19, 20, 23-5, 29, 38,
46-50, 74, 75, 123-6, 138-
43, 146, 159, 160, 162, 169,
170.
Wolmer, Viscount, 53, 122, 123.
Lister, Hon. Charles, 165, 166.
Little Tour in India, A, 83, 91.
Lunt, Sergeant A., 130, 131.
Lyttelton, General Hon. N. and
Hon. Lady, 102.
Hon. Mrs. Arthur, 16.
Marriott, J. A. R., 45.
Mesopotamia and the Middle East,
172.
Mesopotamia :
Ali Gherbi, 181-3.
Amarah, 158, 166, 172, 178-82.
Arabs, 154, 158, 165, 166-8.
Bagdad, 173-5.
Basra, 151, 153, 162.
Ctesiphon, battle of, 174-6.
Mesopotamia (continued)
Hampshire Regiment in, 153-98.
Kut, Action at, 164, 167, 168.
Attempted Relief of, 179-96.
Retreat to and Siege of, 151,
!75. !7 6 . X 7 8 . r 79. 200.
Sheike Saad, battle of, 184-90.
the Tigris, 153, 157, 158, 174,
175, 190, 191, 195, 197.
Turkish forces and movements,
164, 167, 168, 182, 184-92,
i 97-200.
Umm-Al-Hannah, battle of,
196-9.
Unhealthy Conditions of troops
in, 159, 162, 191.
Wadi River, battle of, 191-4.
Meston, Lady, 147.
Micklem, Rev. Nathaniel, 41, 42,
62, 66, 67, 77.
Mills, Hon. C. T., 115.
Missionary Campaign In South
London, 48-51.
Naville, E., 199.
Needham, R. L., 196, 198.
Norfolk, fifteenth Duke of, n, 12.
Norris, Private F., 151, 152.
North, Captain H. F., 191, 193, 195,
196, 198.
Northcote, Lady, 96.
Lord, i, 82.
Oxford :
All Souls' Fellowship, 82.
Arnold Society, 99.
Bagley Wood, 80.
Canning Club (see Canning
Club).
Final Honours School, 60, 80, 81.
Friends of R. S. A. Palmer at,
39-45, 60-2, 64, 66-70,
73. 74, 77. 78, 80, 81.
Hertford Scholarship, 45, 52.
Ireland and Craven Scholarship,
52, 62.
Moral Standards at, 138.
New College Fellowship, 107.
Newdigate Prize, 45, 52.
Union Society (see Union
Society).
University Church Union, 62, 63,
65, 66, 69.
University College, 36, 39, 60-2,
66, 68.
Oxford House, Bethnal Green, 47,
48, 95-8, 100, in.
INDEX
205
Palmer, Hon. Robert Stafford
Arthur :
I. Events of his Life
Birth, i.
Childhood, 1-13.
Colet Court, Hammer-
smith, at, 6, 7, 14.
Confirmation, 10.
Coronation page to Queen,
Southgate Hill, Win-
chester, at, 14-38.
South Africa, visits to, 25,
3?, 39-
Senior Commoner Prefect,
26, 28, 32, 51.
Scholar, University Col-
lege, Oxford, 36, 39-81.
Oxford House, Bethnal
Green, at, 47, 48, 95-8,
100.
South London Missionary
Campaign, 48-51.
Paris, in, 53.
Rome, in, 53-5.
First Class in Modera-
tions, 52.
Oxford Canning Club, 40,
45. 46. 63, 70, 81.
President of Oxford Union,
62-9, 150.
President of Oxford Uni-
versity Church Union,
62, 63, 65, 66, 69.
Dartmoor, on, 41, 73, 74.
Caldey Abbey, at, 70, 75,
76.
Dunottar Castle cruise, 79.
First Class in Litt. Hum.,
62, 81.
India, tour in, 83-93.
London Philanthropic
Work, 94-101.
Social Experiences, 102-6.
The Bar, 107-10.
Commission in Hampshire
Regiment, 105, in, 114.
Home Service, 1 1 1-7.
Volunteered for Foreign
Service, 114, 115.
Ultonia, voyage on, 118.
India, stationed in, 118-
48.
Promotion to Captain, 129,
162.
Persian Gulf, ordered to,
147.
Palmer, Hon. Robert Stafford
Arthur (continued) :
I. Events of his Life (continued)
H.M.S. Varsova, voyage
on, 152, 153.
Mesopotamia, in, 153-201.
Football, accident at, 172,
174.
Amarah lectures, 172-4.
Relief of Kut, march to,
176-96.
Sheike Saad Battle, 184-
90.
Wadi River Battle, 191-4.
Umm-Al-Hannah Battle,
196-9.
Death, 196, 198-200.
II. Character and Character-
istics, 2-4, 10, ii, 27, 28,
30-2, 34-6, 41, 60, 61,
64, 67-71, 74, 77, 78,
94, no, 134, 135, 150,
I 5 I -
Affections, force of, 25,
28, 51, 73, 78, 105, 106.
Art and beauty, apprecia-
tion of, 14, 26, 35, 36,
79, 80, 83, 84, 88-90,
III, I2O, 1268, 143,
144, 148, 177, x8i.
Balance and judgment, 3,
4, 54. 60. 61, 69, 92, 93.
IO2, IO3, 107.
Conscientiousness, 28, 30,
33, 34, 61, 67.
Duty, sense of, 2, 28, 29,
51, 113, 131, 135.
Friendships and social en-
joyment, 36, 404, 52,
7<>. 73. 74. 77. 78. 80, 84,
97, 102-6, 132-4, 149-
5 1 -
Fun and humour, 7, 34,
36, 46, 49, 69-71, 73,
76, 91, 104, 105, in,
133. 165, 171, 172, 195.
Games, love of, 30, 32, 34,
35, 66, 102, 103, 145,
165, 170, 172.
Indian problems, interest
in, 83, 85, 90-5, 131,
132, 138-43.
Legal acumen, 4, 5, 9,
95. 97. 107-10.
Literary talent and
tastes, 19-21, 32, 33,
35-7. 56-6o, 72-4, 83,
206 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Palmer, Hon. Robert Stafford
Arthur (continued) :
II. Character and Characteristics
(continued)
92, 106, 119, 131, 132,
134. !35. H 6 , *49. 15.
153, 167, 172-4.
Mental force, 4, 7, 9, 27,
32, 33. 60. 92, i9-
Methodizer, 3, 9, 34, 35,
4. 52, 77. 81.
Military capacity, 113,
128-31, 135, 149-51.
172-4, 198, 199.
Missionary ardour, 48-51,
93-5. 132, 137-8-
Mother, devotion to his,
5. 15. 56, 75. 134-
Naturalist, 7, 8, 21-5, 35,
36, 74, 87, 88, no, in,
118, 120, 123, 143, 144,
169-71, 181.
Oratory, 40, 45, 46, 49, 50,
64-6, 68, 69, 174.
Personal appearance, 3,
39, 42,68, 79, 117.
Philosopher, 5, 29, 57,
58, 72, 112.
Political interests, 16-9,
45-7. 66-8, 72, 77, 81,
82, 84, 85, 132, 138-43,
145, 146, 170.
Purity, 10, n, 29, 34,
36, 71, 136-8.
Religion, 10, n, 28-30,
32, 41, 42, 63, 69, 70,
78, 90, 96, 97, 134, 148,
150. 151-
Scholarship, 7, 16, 27, 33,
36, 45, 52, 53, 55-62,
67, 72.
Sensitiveness and reserve,
2, 22, 27, 30, 37, 38, 42,
43, 103, i2i, 145, 178.
Social Reform interests,
46, 47, 66, 67, 94-9,
177.
Sport, love of, 22, 66,
123-6, 180, 181.
Theological interests, 10,
41, 67, 69, 75, 76, 85, 87,
TTT i/ 90' 93-5, 96, 98.
III. Views on
Conservatism and Radi-
calism, 45, 47, 66, 67,
81, 82.
Death, 61, 161, 193.
Palmer, Hon. Robert Stafford
Arthur (continued) :
III. Views on (continued)
Democracy, 162.
Ethics of war, 148, 168,
169.
Fear, 187.
Friendship-making, 42, 43,
*34-
Future of Christianity in
India, 93.
Future state, a, 176.
Indian unrest, 92-4, 138-
Military mentality and
standards, in, 112, 119,
I2i. 122, 144, 155-7,
160, 161. 178, 179, 191,
195.
National and Christian
ideals, 148, 163, 164,
169, 177-
Prostitution, 136-8.
Public school mentality,
29, 33. 37. 38, 43. 122,
3*
Pursuit of enjoyment, 102,
103.
Responsibility of share-
holders, 95, 96.
Women's Suffrage, 99 (see
also Letters).
IV. Writings : Prose
A Little Tour in India
(Arnold), 83, 91.
Appeal for Edgehill
House in the Spectator,
" Conversations of Christo-
pher," National Review,
172.
" The Historical Back-
ground of the Balkan
Situation," 173.
" Inequalities : Criticisms
and Suggestions from
the Christian Point of
View," 132.
" The Labour Problem in
South Africa," National
Review, 32.
" Mesopotamia and the
Middle East," 172.
" The Territorials in
India : Adaptation to
Environment," the
Indiaman, 131.
INDEX
207
Palmer, Hon. Robert Stafford
Arthur (continued) :
IV. Writings : Prose (continued)
Wentworth's Reform, 35,
36, 45. 134, 135.
" Why Men should Sup-
port Women's Sufi-
rage," Conservative and
Unionist Woman's
Franchise Review, 99.
" Woman Sufirage at
Work in America,"
Nineteenth Century, 100.
IV. Writings : Verse
" Letizia, Mother of
Napoleon," 36.
Limericks, 21, 37.
" Michael Angelo," 52.
" On Seeing the Sunrise
after reading Kant on
the ' Cosmological Anti-
nomy,' " 73.
Sonnet on a Game of
Lawn Tennis, 103.
Sonnet on the War, the
Times, 159, 160.
"On a Visit to Vijaya-
nagar," 86.
" The Voyage of Life,"
201.
Palmer, Dr. E. J., Bishop of Bom-
bay, 14, 48, 65, 902.
Hon. William Jocelyn Lewis
(Brother), I, 25, 51, 78-80,
96, 115-7, 130, 133, 136,
143, 145, 166 (see
Letters).
Ralph C., 82.
Patmore, Gaptain F. J., 169.
Peel, Colonel, Hon. S., 115.
Penal Reform Association, 95.
Pickford, Sir W., 108.
Pius X., Pope, 54.
Ponsonby-Fane, Sir Spencer, 12.
Poynton, A. B., 61, 62.
Prior, Captain E. Foss, 48, 50.
Radwell, Major J., 123.
Raju, Professor J. B., 84, 85, 94,
119, 132, 140.
Reminiscences and Impressions of
R. S. A. Palmer, by :
Bewsher, J., 7.
Burge, Dr. H., Bishop of Oxford,
27, 28, 131.
Carritt, E. F.. 61.
Carter, F., 16.
Reminiscences and Impressions by
(continued)
Cook, A. K., 29, 30.
Drage, Major R. L., 30-2.
Earl, Mrs., 79.
Elton, Captain G., 149-51.
Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L., 78.
Goddard, R., 109, no.
Herbert, A. P., 30, 45, 46.
Iremonger, Rev. F. A., 97.
I sis Idols, 65, 66.
Knox, Rev. R., 67-71.
Lunt, Sergeant A., 130, 131.
Micklem, Rev. N., 41, 42, 66,
67.
Norris, Private F., 151, 152.
Palmer, Dr. E. J., Bishop of
Bombay, 15, 91, 92.
Poynton, A. B., 61, 62.
Stevenson, G. H., 60.
Stilwell, Lieut.-Colonel W. B.,
151, 198.
Swain, Rev. E. Priestley, 40, 41,
Talbot, Dr. N., Bishop of Pre-
toria, 74.
Williams, Rev. G., 84, 85.
Wolmer, Viscount, 10, n, 33-6.
Ridding, Dr. G., Bishop of South-
well, 8, 9.
Lady Laura (Aunt), 8, n, 25,
in, 123 (see Letters).
Robertson, Canon, 12.
Rosebery, fifth Earl of, 17.
Ross-Keppel, Sir G., 89.
Salisbury, late Marchioness of
(Grandmother), 4.
Marchioness of, 40.
third Marquis of (Grandfather),
I, 8, 9, 23, 65.
Scrutton, Sir T., 107.
Selborne, Countess of (Mother), I,
5, 6, io, 15, 25, 26, 43, 51,
56, 57. 75. 79. 99. 117.
132, 134, 136, 151, 199
(see Letters).
first Earl of (Grandfather), 4,
65, 107.
second Earl of (Father), x, 8, 9,
14, 15, 17, 25, 37, 75, 99,
117, 145, 146, 199 (see
Letters).
Shaw-Stewart, Sir Hugh and Lady
Alice, 103.
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J., 109.
Sinister Street, 136-8.
208 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER
Socialism and Social Reform, 47,
66, 67, 76, 95- 8 . I02 , I0 3.
no, 122 (see Palmer,
Hon. R. S. A. III.
Views).
" South Africa, Labour Problem
in," 32.
South Africa :
First visit to, 22, 25, 26.
Second visit to, 38, 39.
Selborne, Earl of, High Com-
missioner of, 25, 74, 75.
Sport in, 22, 66.
Victoria Falls, 25, 26.
Spectator, the, letter to, 99.
Stables, J. H., 130.
Stevenson, G. H., 60.
StilweU, Lieut.-Colonel W. B., 151,
159, 173. 194. 198.
Students' Christian Movement, 42,
69, 95-
Swain, Rev. F. Priestley, 40, 41, 74.
Sykes, Colonel Sir Mark, 164, 165,
167.
Talbot, Dr. E., Bishop, first of
Rochester ; second of
Southwark ; third of Win-
chester, 10, 51.
Dr. N., Bishop of Pretoria, 74.
Gilbert, 46, 148.
John, 102.
Tariff Reform, 17, 18.
Temple, Dr. F., Archbishop of
Canterbury, 7, 12, 20.
" Territorials in India : Adaptation
to Environment," 131.
Union Society, Oxford, 40, 45,
62-9, 150.
University Church Union, Oxford,
62, 63, 65, 66, 69, 75.
Vernon, C. H., 199.
Victoria Falls, South Africa, 25, 26.
" Visit to Vijayanagar," on, 86.
" Voyage of Life," 201.
War, The :
Casualties in, 144, 145, 147, 148,
159, 162, 164-6, 168, 175,
War, The (continued)
176, 179, 185, 187, 189,
192-4, 197-200.
Ethics of, 148, 1 68, 169.
Hampshire Regiment in (see
Hampshire Regiment).
Hatred of, 119-22, 134, 135, 148,
151, 159-64, 166, 168,
169, 178, 179.
Indian opinion of, effect on, 141.
Kut (see Mesopotamia).
Mesopotamia (see Mesopo-
tamia).
Outbreak of, in, 112.
Sonnet on, 159, 160.
Turkish forces and movements
in (see Mesopotamia).
Wentworth's Reform, 35, 36, 45,
134. 135-
Whittuck, Rev. C., 63.
" Why Men should Support
Women's Suffrage," 99.
Williams, Rev. G., 84, 85.
Willoughby de Broke, Lady, 99.
Winchester, n, 14, 65.
Assizes at, 107-9.
Bird-study at, 21-5, 35.
Cathedral, 14, 49, 120.
Debating Society, 18, 32.
Games, 29, 30, 32-5.
House Prefect, 25, 26, 28-31,
37. 43, 5i, 52.
Scholarly successes at, 16, 27,
32, 33. 36, 40, 43-
Senior Commoner Prefect, 26,
28, 40, 43, 51, 52.
Southgate Hill : House C., 14,
15, 25, 26, 37, 43, 51, 52.
Wolmer, Viscount (Brother), i, 3-6,
10, ii, 15, 25, 33-6, 39,
40, 44, 53, 64, 66, 71, 72,
79, 108, 122 (see Letters).
Viscountess, I.
" Woman's Suffrage at Work in
America," 99, 100.
Woman's Suffrage, 99, 100.
Wright, Howard, 107.
Wyatt, Lieut.-Colonel A., 119, 128-
3. 147-
Xavier, St. Francis, 85, 86.
PRINTED BV MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH
ROBERT PALMER
By LAI.V ' rami
. when one
'
better for
-em tc
,i truth when they are used ,
i Eon of the
ihorne. Whom the gods ,|
die young: :tnd not only the;|
il men and wumen loved him. I
-arprise that he did not know I
lest, some one says in >
excess He lived, it is
a life of continual witness to
d-.-als. carried out as very few
i in carrying them out; but also
thoroughly human and natural,
. without affectation or insincerity,
unselfish, and full of humour and
pleasantness. The biography is much
more agreeable in the earlier chapters,
dealing with Kobert Palmer's childhood
and boyhood, than most biographies. The
are really illustrative or really
amusing, not merely imagined to be so
by an indulgent relation. Here is a
characteristic story of his thirst for
knowledge at an early age:
" We discovered him seated on the library
floor, surrounded by volumes of the new
: Encyclopedia Britannica.' ' I cannot find
what I want.' he explained; ' I wish to under-
stand why women wear hats in church, and
I have looked under " Hats," " Church," and
' Women," and cannot find the reason.' W
introduced him to Binghani's 'Antiquities,'
where his curiosity was satisfied, but without
convincing him of the reasonableness of the
rule.' 1
The biographer notes his first public
appearance as at the Coronation of
Edward VII., when he was a Page to the
Queen. To account for her choice of him,
the boy of fourteen said, '-We met five
yea* "ago." That must have been
at the Jubilee of 1897, when the two
:ied the train of their grand-
lathei, the late Lord Salisbury, as. Chan-
"f the ("Diversity O f Oxford as ha
of the ("niversity lt>
Queen Victoria. That, too, may have
': been Robert Palmer's first introdoc-
; tion to Oxford, when one of its
members fed him with cake at
Windsor. Then lira at Wiis-
r, much more iruitful than he knew
i references show that the influence
!! a-; school, had sunk
Lady Laura Ridding
-phere of sorious-
- we venture to think
wrongly, as many passages in tlv
hat, in regard to other
t minded what they
illv believed
wa~ all
low ideals and held low beliefs. His
His, small
ciivle nf friends was always the b
his-'h cb
nm.-h ; people heli.
n no narrow or
tarian " sense- was very true of him at
Oxford. lie was :' loyal son of tho Church
of England, a most loyal (though very
critical) member, ton, of the Consen.
Critical, we said ; and
but always in a good sense. He was
extraordinarily loyal to his own kin lie
had for those, among them from whos
learnt rnr<-> a thorough admiration: he-
would even say (but only to his own
family) that a sermon from one of them
" was a- [: : Ld be.
an opinion in which not every one
outside the charmed circle would follow
him. But after all. the admirati",
natural enough in the circumstance-
many people have had such a Prime
Minister as Lord Salisbury and such a
Lord Chancellor as the first Lord Sei-
borne as grandfathers. Nor must one
always take what he says quite so
seriously as his biographer does. Even
he had his moments of discontent. He
certainly did not mean it seriously when
he said:
i: It afflicts me rather that nearly all the
nice people I know at Oxford are Liberals.
The Tories are mostly selfish and insiucera
jingoes; the people who really caie i'or ' the
poor and needy ' are almost all Liberals. !t
is hard to resist the conclusion dial there is
loss attraction to good minds in L~in
than in Liberalism. i (iuii't at all want to
become a Liberal, and this fact seems to uie
to make it more important not <o; but the
rn'hiriK my views ;o the
Tories (it it over extends beyond the Canning )
I will, f fear, be thank !<>>."
At Oxford, as ai Winchester, he showed
great ability ami a rare c<mscieiiti.
Th" biography reveals, quite delicately.
' his intimates ai the L'nm-r-
', sity were rather priggish
persons, but then 1 was never in him th<i
ouch of prigu'i-lin- ->s
He was a man in character
and judgiv ndent
" lotus, leres. utijtie ruumdus." So when
he ciu: -ehoo] and colioge, and
was called to a life for which he Ir-
natural disinclination, he made the
fice willingly, eiidured Itardntss, und gnv-?
up his life with undaumed eourftge. 'i h
, later life consists roughly <,t two parts,
j the g- : Lion f/f the material for
which ha- been in print before -India and
amia. The " Little- Tour in
India" and the "Lettt>> liom Mesofjo-
tamia "Deeply impressed those' who read
them. <! the writer's extra-
ordinary power of observation and analy-
sis, as well as the charm of his character.
UK* Of
his great, friendship with Pmrfcy (
there is indeed not. much to add. A- w>
close the hook we crives thanks for it lif*
which ended nobly, with a sacrilii-r- that
did not blink the ir. Hi* own
words are ihe inosi, tittintr ending to Una
appreciation of a beautiful life
' On* standing on th path with hands oub
stretched
ITiey follow, and the liarcl ascent
smooth ,
Till, when thej reacli ihe upper liglit
They look upon their Leader face to
Straightway they know Him aad
are known.
Then are they glad. Voaus* they are at rest,
Brought to the haven at last whero ther
be."-
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