PALMER, Sir John, 5th Bt. (1735-1817), of Carlton Carlieu, Leics.

Palmer succeeded his father as M.P. for Leicestershire, and held his seat without a contest until his retirement. He seems to have generally supported the Rockingham Administration: George Onslow reporting to Newcastle on 18 Apr. 1766 that ‘a good many of our people’ had voted against the window tax, included Palmer among them.Add. 32974, ff. 425-6. Both Rockingham in November 1766 and Newcastle in March 1767 classed him as a Tory. He voted against Chatham’s Administration on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767, and nullum tempus, 17 Feb. 1768; voted for hearing Wilkes’s petition, 27 Jan. 1769, but does not appear again in a division list until 13 Feb. 1771 when he opposed the Spanish convention. Robinson in his surveys for the royal marriage bill, March 1772, classed him as ‘doubtful’; he voted in opposition over the Middlesex resolution, 26 Apr. 1773; and Robinson in September 1774 classed him as Opposition.

He seems to have supported the court over the American war, and appears in none of the division lists 1775-8, all of which are minority lists only; on the contractors bill, 12 Feb. 1779, he was absent, but classed by Robinson as ‘pro’, with a query. He voted against the court in three divisions in 1780: the motion for an account of pensions, 21 Feb., economical reform, 8 Mar.; and Dunning’s motion, 6 Apr.—divisions on which a number of country gentlemen went against the court; but is not known to have voted for any motion condemning the American war or the Government’s conduct of it. Apparently he never spoke in the House. He did not stand in 1780.

He died 11 Feb. 1817.