Palmer, EDWARD HENRY, the 'Sheikh Abdul-lah,' was born 7th August 1840, at Cambridge, and while a schoolboy there picked up Romany (the Gypsies' tongue), while a clerk in the City Italian and French. In 1859 he all but died of consumption; in 1860 at Cambridge began to devote himself to oriental studies—Arabic, Persian, and Hindú-stáni; in 1863 obtained a sizarship at St John's; and in 1867, graduating with a third-class in classics, was yet elected a Fellow of his college. During 1868-70 he was engaged for the Palestine Exploration Fund in the survey of Sinai, and, with Charles Tyrwhitt Drake, of the Desert of the Wanderings, acquiring meanwhile a marvellous knowledge of the wild Arab tribes. In 1871 he was appointed Lord Almoner's professor of Arabic at Cambridge (his stipend £40, 10s., augmented next year by £250); and in 1874 he was also called to the bar. So ten years went by of work and play—he was a wonderful conjurer—of sorrow, too, and trouble, for he lost his first wife and got involved in money difficulties, till in 1881 he turned London journalist, writing principally for the Standard. Finally, in June 1882, on the eve of Arabi's Egyptian rebellion, he was pitched on by government for the perilous mission of winning over the Sinai tribes to Britain and hindering the destruction of the Suez Canal. He made two expeditions—the first his great ride from Gaza to Suez (July 15-31), and the second when, starting from Suez with Captain Gill, R.E., and Lieutenant Charrington, R.N., he and they on August 11 were betrayed and murdered in the ravine of Wady Sudr. Eight months later the three were buried in St Paul's.
Of a score of works by Professor Palmer may be mentioned his Desert of the Exodus (1871), Arabic Grammar (1874), Song of the Reed (1876), Poems of Behâ ed Din Zoheir (1876-77), Persian-English and English-Persian Dictionary (1876-83), Haroun Alraschid (1880), and a translation of the Koran (1880). See his Life by W. Besant (1883).