Where is it
University of Reading London Road Campus, to the left of the front door of The Acacias, London Road. It is not accessible from within the University site. It can be viewed from the London Road through the gates of the property.
The plaque was unveiled 2013-2014, as part of the University’s commemorative plaque programme.
A bit of background
In the 1860s George William and Alfred, who were George Palmer’s eldest sons, joined the family firm of Huntley and Palmers as unpaid clerks at the age of sixteen, becoming partners in the firm in 1874.
George William and Albert’s financial generosity was heavily relied on by the Reading University Extension College, now the University of Reading, to meet the yearly recurring deficits. Alfred twice contributed £50,000 and made possible the move from the College’s cramped mid-town premises to the London Road site by, not only giving The Acacias, which had been purchased as the Palmer family home, in 1865 and which became the Senior Common Room, but also the adjoining six-acre site, on which the first permanent College buildings were erected, and his adjacent house, which became St Andrews Hall and the present Museum of English Rural Life, in 1906.
George William donated £100,000, Lady Wantage £50,000 and Alfred £50,000, which established The University Endowment Fund of £200,000 that enabled the establishment, delayed by First World War, of the University of Reading in 1926.
Like his father, George William Palmer served as mayor of Reading and represented the town as Liberal Member of Parliament from 1892-to 1895 and from 1898 until 1904. He received the honorary Freedom of the Borough of Reading on 3 December 1902, for valuable public service rendered to the town. He was only the second person to receive this honour, the first being his father.
In memory of George William, who died in 1913, Alfred and his relatives paid for the Library on the London Road site.
Dr Alfred Palmer spent over fifty years working for Huntley & Palmers, the biscuit manufacturers, chiefly as engineering director, where he was responsible for the design, building and maintenance of the biscuit machinery. His mechanical inventiveness enabled the firm to produce up to 400 different varieties of biscuit in huge quantities. In 1905 he held the position of High Sheriff of Berkshire. Reading University awarded him its first Honorary Doctorate of Science.
From the outset, members of the Palmer family have supported the University and its aims with enthusiasm. There is an unbroken Palmer record of Council membership, from the Extension College’s formation in 1892 to the 2000s.