Place Name
Captain Gledstanes Palliser (died June 1891) was a Royal Navy captain. A obituary in The Times dated June 16, 1891 told of his naval heroics: “He was first lieutenant of the Spartan, frigate, he commanded the boats of that ship in several expeditions against Chinese pirates in 1854, when those pests made war on a formidable scale against commerce. On one occasion he had to storm three forts mounting 17 guns, and was on the point of being speared by a Chinaman when the captain of the foretop of the Spartan, by one sweep of his cutlass, cut off the pirate’s bead, which fell at the feet of Lieutenant Palliser. On another occasion he was ordered to attack the pirate fleet with his boats and rescue a French lady. He distinguished her with his glass, though she was dressed as a Chinaman, and made for the chief pirate’s ship under a heavy fire from the junks. In the act of boarding he received a spear thrust, and his feet slipped off the brass gun at the bow of his boat, and on the rise of the wave he was pinned by the muzzle of the gun to the side of the junk and had several ribs broken. His men behaved gallantly and rushed on board, where, after a severe hand-to-hand fight, the lady was rescued and taken on board the Spartan. Captain Palliser received the name of Gledstanes from his mother, who inherited the property of her ancestor.” He died after catching influenza. It was not however his exploits at sea for which this road was named in 1877. His brother Sir William Palliser, an MP who invented numerous advances in weaponry including the Palliser shot, an early armour-piercing artillery projectile, intended to pierce the armour protection of warships, developed Fulham’s North End estate and its thought to have named it Baron’s Court. Part of the estate was sold after his death and became the Queen’s Club in West Kensington.
