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August 1846 Palmer returned to Rugeley a qualified doctor having obtained
his diploma from the College of Surgeons (M.R.C.S.) Later, probably in 1847,
he started up as a doctor by putting up a brass plate up outside the house
in Market Street, that he rented for £25 a year from Lord Lichfield.
This house stood opposite the Talbot Arms (later named the Shrewsbury Arms
and more recently The Shrew) where John Parsons Cook later died in Room
10. His mother-in law, Leonard Bladen, four of his five children and his
wife all died in the house that Palmer rented.
Palmer
must have been well liked as a doctor, at least at first, because he built
up his practice to such an extent that he could afford to engage Benjamin
Thirlby to be his full time assistant. Thirlby in fact went on to run the
practice as Palmer spent most of his time occupied with his horses and
horseracing.
George
Fletcher, in his book The Life and Career of Dr. William Palmer of Rugeley
published in 1925, told a story of one of his visits to Rugeley. In 1905
the then landlady of the Talbot Arms showed him Palmer's brass plate saying
she had been offered £5 for it and asked how she could best dispose
of it. Fletcher suggested that Madame Tussaud's Wax Exhibition might want
it to put in its Chamber of Horrors. Unfortunately I have been unable to
trace what happened to the brass plate.
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Introduction
