Gossip or fact?
Eliza Tharme was a pretty looking eighteen year old live-in maid-servant at Dr. Palmer’s house. She was the youngest of ten children of James and Mary Tharme from Colton. It is not known if they had a relationship before Palmer’s wife died but there is little doubt that she became his mistress after Ann’s death.
Palmer’s own diary records that on June 26th 1855, nine months after Annie his wife died, Eliza gave birth to an illegitimate son in the Palmer House. Note:- The birth certificate gave the date of birth as June 27th 1855.
Eliza’s child was sent to be cared for by a ‘nurse’ at Armitage some two or three miles from Rugeley. It was claimed that Palmer sent for the young child saying that he wished to see that the child was well. The Illustrated Life and Career of William Palmer of Rugeley published in 1856 added:-
…..The reader will guess the result, the child was seized with convulsions while going home and died shortly after, or as some say on its journey back.”
The boy died on November 17th 1855 in the same year as he was born and just four days before John Parsons Cook died.
Birth Certificate details
| No | When and where born | Name, if any | Sex | Name and surname of father | Name, surname and maiden surname of mother |
Signature, description residence of informant
|
When registered |
Signature
of registrar |
| 480 | Twenty seventh June 1855 Market Street Rugeley |
Alfred Thame | Boy | ? | Eliza Tharme | Benjn Thirlby present at the birth Lower Brook Street Rugeley |
Thirtieth June 1855 |
Frederick Crabb Registrar John P Dyall Superintendent Registrar |
Death Certificate details
| No | When and where died |
Name and surname | Sex | Age | Occupation | Cause of death | Signature, description residence of informant | When registered |
Signature of registrar |
| 480 | Seventeenth November 1855 Armitage |
Alfred Thame | Male | 5 months | Son of Eliza Tharme |
Erysipelas 5 days Certified |
Benjn Thirlby In attendance Lower Brook Street Rugeley |
Nineteenth November 1855 |
Frederick Crabb Registrar |
In the Rugeley Edition of the Illustrated Times February 2nd 1856 (who spelt Tharme without an ‘e’) we read:-
We next hear of William Palmer in Stafford gaol. Before, however, he is conveyed there, he took a farewell leave of Eliza Tharm, his maid-servant, throwing his arms round her neck, and requiting her illicit love with a £50 Bank of England note.
Gossips hinted that Palmer “might” have poisoned his illegitimate son. Was this the case? Or, was it a case of ‘giving a dog a bad name’?