George Palmer

George Palmer ( 1746 – 3 March 1826), also known as George Giros de Gentilly, named Palmer) was an English dye chemist, colour theorist, inventor, and soldier. He is best known for his conjectures about colour vision and colour blindness. Life According to statements in his Copenhagen obituary, Palmer was born on an English ship to English parents of Catholic faith. Owing to the 18th century restrictions on activities of English Catholics, Palmer, as many others of his time, lived a double life between England and France. Nothing is known about his early years. Palmer reports to have witnessed the destructive fire at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris in 1772, at approximate age 26. Circa 1775, he introduced a solution of tin as a new mordant for the dyeing of wool fabrics in Louviers, France, using the last name Giros de Gentilly. In 1777, located in London, he published Theory of Colours and Vision, a French edition of which, translated by Denis-Bernard Quatremere d'Isjonval, was published in the same year in Paris. The translator was active at the time as director in the textile manufacturing facility Disjonval in Sedan, France, co-owned by his family. In the same year Palmer also invented a fawn-coloured dye in London. In 1781 J. H Voigt of Gotha, Germany, editor of Magazin fuer das Neueste aus der Physik und Naturgeschichte, a scientific review journal, describes meeting with Giros von Gentilly and the latter's conjectures about colour blindness. In 1785 Palmer, living in Paris, had Lettre sur les moyens de produire, la nuit, une lumiere pareille a celle du jour published. In it he described the modification of oil lamp light with a blue glass mantel, resulting in the approximation of daylight. He became acquainted with Antoine-Arnoult Quinquet (1745–1803) and his partner Ambroise Bonaventure Lange, producers of a dual-air current (Argand-style) oil lamp and formed a partnership with the former. Introduction of the Quinquet-Lange lamp in Paris was the cause of Benjamin Franklin's famous letter on the subject of daylight saving time to the editor of Journal de Paris. In 1786 Palmer published Theorie de la lumiere, applicable aux arts, et principalement a la peinture. Toward the end of that decade Palmer became a mercenary soldier in the Corps of Engineers, at different times for Sweden, Austria, and Russia, reaching the rank of Major, as described in his obituary.