PALMER, Charles Frederic (1863-1934)
Geelong football player, and well known tanner, Charles Palmer was born at Newtown on 15 April 1863, to parents John Palmer and Elizabeth nee Marsham. He was educated at the Geelong College from 30 July 1878 to 1881.
At College in 1879, he was 3rd in the Fourth Class and 3rd in the Geelong College Cup, an aggregate award for running held at the Geelong College Annual Sports. He does not appear to have played in a College 1st Football Team. Known popularly as ‘Charley’ Palmer, he was a member of the 1886 Geelong Football Team with a reputation as one of the outstanding and most dashing wing players of his day. Always an enthusiastic athlete he gained many successes while at the School and in later years won the Veterans’ Plate at the Annual College Sports Meeting. A Geelong Football Club jumper of about 1886 and originally belonging to Charles Palmer is held in the School Archives.
A family biography written in 1934 described him as follows: ‘He was a member of the Geelong team that visited Adelaide in 1882 under the captaincy of James Wilson, a son of the famous Yorkshireman, who made the St Alban's estate celebrated both on the racecourse and as a breeding place of high class racehorses. In I884, Geelong again visited Adelaide, and produced the best football ever seen on the City Oval. The Writer should know, for he was in the Norwood team, then champions of South Australia, and recalls what a wonderful speed merchant Charley Palmer was in those days, for no faster wingman has been seen on the Adelaide oval since he played there. But it was in the tanning industry that Palmer made his name. At the age of 18 years, he joined Brearly Brothers’ tannery as a clerk, and when that establishment closed down young Palmer took a position at Michaelis, Hallenstein & Company’s, Footscray tannery and here he learnt all there was to learn of the tanning trade. Later he took over the management of the Australian Tannery at Marshalltown, adjacent to Geelong. At the same time, he also managed the firm of George Gardiner & Company, more commonly known as the Victoria Tannery, which he purchased in 1912. Here he carried on until 1926, adding the manufacture of glue and other kindred industries to the capacious establishment. However, in 1926 a calamity hit Palmer’s Victoria Tannery, when a tornado blew the tannery almost inside out. The loss was very heavy, but the irresistible Charley Palmer set to work to restore the loss. He worked day and night at the task, but hard work was no novelty to him, for he was always one of those men to whom the hardest day is never too hard, nor the longest night too long.’
Charles Palmer had 9 children and left 3 sons, all of whom attended Geelong College, and were associated with the leather trade. They were Charles Noel (1891-1981), John Vernon (1901-), and Clive Ronald (1907-1976). Charles was in the tanning trade in Melbourne. John took over F Fisher and Sons’ leather and grindery business in Adelaide. Clive Palmer, the other son, had a leather and grindery business at Perth. A daughter, Gladys Iolantha nee Palmer married Basil Noel Marcus Collins and their son ‘Sandy’, a student from 1925 to 1938, became a noted College identity and supporter.
Sources: Pegasus December 1934 p 81; ‘Sandy’ Collins - Family History Notes.