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Master of Magdalene College, 1595-1604

John Palmer was born in Kent. He matriculated at St John's College in 1567. BA in 1572 and became a Fellow in 1573. MA in 1575.
In 1580 he was incorporated at Oxford University. He was Proctor of his college from 1587 to 1588. He was awarded DD in 1595.

1595-1604 Master of Magdalene College
1597-1607 Dean of Peterborough from 1597 to 1607
1605-1607 Prebendary of Lichfield

Palmer was imprisoned for debt, and died in prison in June 1607

Palmer made a clandestine marriage to Katherine Knevit, daughter of William Knevit of Little Vastern Park, Wiltshire on 29 March 1593

Palmer resigned the Mastership in 1604. The true reason for his resignation isn't clear but his protracted absences from Magdalene were an issue. Chiefly famous as a debtor and a place-seeker but as a Master, he appears to have been attentive when he was in residence, and the register records his careful oversight of College business. After he left he was voted a a payment as a 'gratuitie', implying that his departure wasn't acrimonious.

Born at Brescello in the duchy of Modena (then part of the Cisalpine Republic). In March 1856 Panizzi became head of the British Museum when he was promoted principal librarian to succeed Sir Henry Ellis.

Sister of Lord Howard de Walden, the first Lord Braybrooke, married the Revd Dr William Parker DD, FRS (1714 -1802), Rector of St James’s, Westminster, and curate of Catharine Cree Church, eminent preacher, royal chaplain and chaplain to the Bishop of London . Mary succeeded to the family estates on the death of her brother in 1797, so she and her husband had a life interest in Audley End, and as ‘owners’ under the old Statutes (an arrangement which lasted until 1926, when the right was vested in the Braybrooke family, not the ownership of Audley End), they jointly signed the patent for the presentation of William Gretton to the mastership in 1797; however, they did not reside at Audley End.

Matriculated in 1865. He was sent down for the remainder of term on 26 May 1869 after a fight near the railway station. He failed to return to College.
Leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, 1880-1890.
Captain William O’Shea, MP, brought a divorce case against his wife who was Parnell’s long-term mistress and this destroyed Parnell’s political career.

The College has an annual Parnell Visiting Fellowship.

Further reading about Parnell's time in Cambridge please see Ged Martin's articles on his website: https://www.gedmartin.net/martinalia-mainmenu-3?task=blogcategory&id=3
and College Magazine, No. 6, (1961-62), pp. 13-16.

Draughtsman and engraver; worked in London. Father of F.E. and Joseph Pastorini, miniature painters.

Matriculated at Magdalene college in 1856; 8th Wrangler (1861). He spent his entire adult life in Magdalene, as a Fellow from 1861, Librarian (1863), Tutor from 1865, and President from 1876 until his untimely death at the age of 59 in 1896. He was suddenly taken ill while dining with his old friend Henry Latham, the Master of Trinity Hall, ‘and expired in a few minutes’ [Venn, J., and Venn, J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses; a biographical list of all known students, graduates and holders of office at the University of Cambridge, from the earliest times to 1900]. According to family tradition, Pattrick expected to become Master in succession to Latimer Neville (‘Binkie’/Pattrick, F. G. Twenty-Thirty: An Autobiography of this Decade of my Life (St Ives, Cambs, 1986) p 5).

Arms in Hall glass, W2.

Karma Paul was a interpreter on the 1922 and 1924 British Mount Everest Expeditions, mentioned by name by George Mallory.

Among the climbers of the 1924 Third British Expedition to Everest Karma Paul had perhaps one of the least glamorous but most important jobs. He wasn't a climber, he never summited Everest, but as the group's translator his job was vital in communicating with the native Himalayan people and with the group's own Sherpa.

Karma Paul was fluent in Nepali, English and Tibetan and would serve as the translator for all the British expeditions from 1922 to 1938. Aside from his work as interpreter Paul also served as a recruiter and all-around moderator between the expedition and the native people.

Following the death of Sherpa Shamsher Pun from a likely blood clot on the brain, Paul was dispatched to the Rongbuk Monastery to see if the Sherpas, who were suffering low spirits following the death of young Pun, might be blessed by the head Lama there. The Lama agreed and invited the entire expedition to the monastery where he blessed them all and declared that they had been forced back by demons who would not do so again.

Following his career on Everest, Paul trained himself to be a skilled auto mechanic and in the 1950s won a small fortune at the horse races. He retired to Darjeeling.

An English painter active in the later part of Elizabeth I's reign and for most of the reign of James I. In 1604, he was appointed picture maker to the heir to the throne, Prince Henry; and in 1607, serjeant-painter to King James I – a post he shared with John De Critz. Peake is often called "the elder", to distinguish him from his son, the painter and print seller William Peake (c. 1580–1639) and from his grandson, Sir Robert Peake (c. 1605–67), who followed his father into the family print-selling business.

Martha Peckard was a published poet in her day. Her Ode to Spring and Ode to Cynthia were featured in the periodicals The Gentleman's Magazine and The Weekly Magazine, or Edinburgh Amusement. She was the eldest daughter of Edward Ferrar, a lawyer in Huntingdonshire, and she married Peter Peckard in 1755. She ensured the safe transfer of the Ferrar Papers and Peckard's personal library to Magdalene College upon Peckard's death.

Master of Magdalene College, 1781-1797

Educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford in the late 1730s where he was a young tearaway, repeatedly in trouble for being drunk, even during divine service, which he often skipped. A major transformation in his character must later have taken place, perhaps due to his service as an Army Chaplain.
He lost his left arm 'when very young' the result of 'the unexpected going off of his companion's gun'. He was skilful in concealing the injury.

Married Martha Ferrar in 1755.
Vice-Chancellor, 1784-1785.
Dean of Peterborough, 1792-1797.
The first Anglican sermons against the slave trade were preached by Peckard in the College Chapel, leading to courageous and galvanic sermons in Great St Mary’s in 1783 and 1784, and to the prize essay which inspired Thomas Clarkson's campaign. Peckard was also a notable benefactor to the College.

Memorial brass in the Old Library.

College Mgazine:
Article: 'Peter Peckard', College Magazine, No. 1, 1956-57, pp.15-23
Article: 'The Peckard Bicentenary', College Magazine, vol. 42, 1997-98, pp. 29-31

Emperor of Brazil (1822–31).

Matriculated at Magdalene College in 1890. One of the first men to take the Mechanical Sciences Tripos. After working on Parsons steam turbines, and teaching at the Leys School, he returned to the Engineering Department in 1898, where he continued to lecture until 1937, on mechanics and thermodynamics.

Made a Fellow at Magdalene in 1909; Steward, 1912-1913, 1942-1945; Bursar, 1913-1937, 1943-1947. He was brought out of retirement to fill the gap left by the departure of his successor.

Further reading:
Article: 'Mr Talbot Peel, 1872-1954', College Magazine, No. 85 (1954) pp. 21-23

Climbing sherpa on 1921 Mount Everest Expedition with George Mallory, mentioned by name.

Matriculated from Magdalene College in 1839. He was directly descended through his mother from Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s sister.
Rowed in the Blue Boat, 1840, 1841, 1842.
‘Architect, archaeologist and astronomer’, surveyor of the fabric of St Paul’s Cathedral (1852-1897), he is chiefly remembered as an architectural historian. His famous work Principles of Athenian Architecture (1851, 1888, 1973) demonstrated that there were no straight lines in the Parthenon (entasis of the columns).
One of the first Honorary Fellows, 1885.
President of the RIBA, 1894-1896, and first director of the British School at Athens.
For Magdalene he undertook the restoration of the Street Front and laid out River Court (he designed the gates); part of the Chapel Court in St John’s is also his work.

Further reading:
Article: 'Unbuilt Magdalene I Penrose's Plan for Second Court (1872-73)', College Magazine, No. 30, (1985-86), pp. 21-24 (R. Hyam)

Elizabeth de St Michel was born at Bideford, Devon, on 23 October 1640. She was the daughter of Alexandre le Marchant de St Michel and Dorothea Fleetwood. The family lived in Devon, where Dorothea had inherited land. They later lost this property and subsequently travelled between Germany, Flanders, and Ireland. Dorothea, along with Elizabeth and her brother Balthasar, fled to Paris after their fortunes had been undermined by Alexandre's increasingly determined religious views. Her mother intended that Elizabeth should become a nun, and she was briefly placed in the city's Ursuline convent before she and Balty were removed to London by their father.

It was in London that Elizabeth met Samuel Pepys, then in the employ of Edward Mountagu, later first earl of Sandwich. Details of the circumstances of their meeting remain unknown, though it is evident, given that neither party stood to gain financially from the union, that theirs was a love match. The couple were married at a civil service at St Margaret's, Westminster, on 1 December 1655, when Elizabeth, described as being of St Martin-in-the-Fields, was aged fifteen and Samuel twenty-two. By the time of this service the couple had apparently already 'married' in an unrecorded religious ceremony which took place on 10 October, the date Pepys identified as their anniversary during his years of diary keeping.

The early months of their marriage were characterised by antagonism and argument. The cramped conditions of his attic apartment at Whitehall Palace exacerbated both Elizabeth's irritation at the prosaic nature of married life and Samuel's jealousy and sexual frustration which derived, in part, from his own and his wife's recurrent ill health. Within a year of their marriage Elizabeth left her husband to stay with her family at Charing Cross returning to Whitehall in December 1657. In August of the following year the couple left for a house in Axe Yard, Westminster, where they stayed until July 1660 before moving to the Navy Office at Seething Lane.

By this date Pepys had begun a diary, which he maintained daily until six months before his wife's death. Pepys never named her in his journal but referred to 'his wife'.

Elizabeth gained additional leisure time as her husband's career, and salary, improved over the decade. She also enjoyed more freedom than many women of her status on account of the marriage remaining childless.

In June 1669 Elizabeth accompanied her husband and brother on a tour of northern France and the Netherlands. Here she contracted the fever, probably typhoid, which developed during their return journey and from which, aged twenty-nine, she died at Seething Lane on 10 November.