Introduction from 'The Palmerian' Summer 1947.

I wonder how many schoolboys have ever paused to consider how their School House obtained its name - or whom the name commemorates?

A ‘Palmerian” of pre-1914 days which has come to hand records the activities of three Houses - Country, Riverside and House: but the rapidly expanding numbers at school after the First Great War led to the eventual formation of eight houses.

The last war necessitated a further modi?cation, Butler being combined with Shaftesbury and Herbert Brooks with Theobald, while Walpole has, for the time being, disappeared; so that at present seven names are commemorated in the five existing houses.

Of these seven, five have the names of great contemporaries of William Palmer, renowned in the spheres of Literature,’ Science, Politics, Religion and Warfare.
It is to be noted that, while the name of Marlborough recalls the splendour of the army in the reign of Queen Anne, none commemorates His Majesty’s Navy.
Alas! that the most distinguished sailor of Palmer’s day should have borne the picturesque, but for commemorative purposes, the somewhat inappropriate name of Sir Cloudesley Shovel.

J.K.S.