Ken Palmer died on July 23, 2024, aged 87. A Somerset stalwart, he played a solitary Test, and stood in 27 Test matches and 26 ODIs as an umpire. He was remembered in the 2025 edition of the Wisden Almanack.
PALMER, KENNETH EDWARD, MBE, died on July 23, aged 87. Ken Palmer established such a lasting reputation during his time as a hard-working Somerset all-rounder, and in 31 years as an umpire, that his brief international career was largely forgotten. Before the fifth Test against South Africa at Port Elizabeth in 1964/65, MJK Smith’s team were facing an injury crisis, with Tom Cartwright, David Brown and John Price all struggling. Palmer, playing and coaching in Johannesburg, was summoned as cover – and made the team.
News of the England line-up did not go down well in Jamaica, where Fred Trueman, left out of the tour party, was playing for the Rothmans Cavaliers. “Look who’s opening the bowling for England – Ian Thomson and Kenny bleeding Palmer,” Trueman raged. “And here I am bowling for cigarette coupons.” Taking the new ball with Thomson, Palmer toiled on a flat St George’s Park pitch: South Africa’s 502 occupied most of the first two days, and he had to wait until the score reached 447 before he took a wicket – Peter van der Merwe, caught by Ken Barrington at second slip. He also had Peter Pollock dropped by Jim Parks, but ran out John Waite with a typically smart piece of fielding. He finished with 1-113, followed by 0-76 in the second innings. “Grisly,” said The Observer. It proved his only Test.
There was no question of Palmer’s value to Somerset. In 302 first-class appearances, he took 837 wickets at 21, eighth on the county’s all-time list. He also made 7,567 runs at 20, including two centuries. “Kenny was an excellent bowler,” said Fred Rumsey, his new-ball partner. “But he was only around 5ft 10in and could not generate the extra pace the Test selectors looked for. He made up for that with his control and movement off the pitch.” Rumsey recalled an incident at Old Trafford in 1963, after Palmer had bowled seven Lancashire batsmen. “Bert Lock, the groundsman came to me in the dressing-room and said: ‘Come and have a look at this, Fred.’ He showed me a small area where Kenny’s balls had pitched. He had been pitching on leg and hitting off.”
He played his last game for Somerset in 1969, but his family connections to the county remained strong. His brother, Roy, also a seamer, had a five-year spell on the staff in the late 1960s, and later became an umpire too; they stood together in 11 first-class matches. Ken’s son Gary played for Somerset in the second half of the 1980s.
Palmer had joined the first-class umpires’ list in 1972, and stood alongside Dickie Bird in the first of 22 Tests in 1978, an England innings victory over Pakistan at Edgbaston. The match ended in controversy when nightwatchman Iqbal Qasim was hit in the face by a bouncer from Bob Willis. “Yesterday’s play was marred by a piece of English cricket which showed the two umpires at their weakest,” wrote John Woodcock in The Times. When Pakistan toured in 1987 they objected to the inclusion of Palmer and David Constant on the Test list, and Palmer was at the centre of two flashpoints during the sulphurous summer of 1992. In the fourth Test at Headingley, he gave Graham Gooch the benefit of the doubt over a run-out decision. Blown-up photographs of Gooch short of his crease were displayed in the windows of buses in Pakistan. In the fourth ODI at Lord’s, Palmer and John Hampshire changed the ball during the lunch interval, because they believed its condition had been altered by the Pakistan seamers. The reason for the change was not made public; even so, an acrimonious row ensued.
Palmer had arrived in Taunton as a teenager in 1954. He was born in Winchester, and grew up in Devizes, where his performances in Wiltshire club cricket came to the attention of Hampshire. He had two trials at Southampton, but grew impatient at the county’s reluctance to sign him. He was 48 not out in a key trial match when his father took over from an injured umpire, and promptly gave his son out caught behind. Palmer briefly harboured ambitions as a footballer, and once played in the same county representative team as future Liverpool and England striker Roger Hunt. Somerset proved more accommodating than Hampshire, and he made his debut, aged 18, against Middlesex at Bath in June 1955. There were some big names among the opposition, but Palmer was unfazed: he had never heard of any of them. Don Bennett and Fred Titmus were his first victims.
For a time, wickets – and runs – were hard to come by, but he blossomed in 1961, becoming the youngest Somerset player to do the double. His 1,036 runs at 26 included his first century, at Northampton, where he shared a sixth-wicket stand of 265 with Bill Alley, still a county record. His most productive year as a bowler came in 1963, when he took 139 at 16. That summer, he was twelfth man in the fourth Test against West Indies at Headingley, and won the inaugural Carling Single-Wicket competition at Scarborough, securing the £250 prize by defeating Tony White, the Barbados all-rounder, in the final.
Earlier in the season, he had achieved his best bowling figures, against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge. With the ground under water the day before the start, Palmer had hit the town with his roommate, Roy Virgin, confident of no play. By his own estimation, he sank nine pints of Guinness, telling Virgin: “It tastes good and I’m going to sleep well.” Palmer was unimpressed when Virgin threw open the curtains next morning to reveal bright sunshine. He was even less happy when Somerset lost the toss. A groggy Palmer took the new ball from the Radcliffe Road End, and his first two overs cost 23: “I didn’t know which way it was going.” He switched to the Pavilion End with a warning from Somerset captain and wicketkeeper Harold Stephenson that his future was on the line. His second spell was rather better: 8-28 in 11.5 overs. After a rain break, he added a ninth. In came Bomber Wells, a notorious rabbit. Rumsey remembered: “I was bowling at Bomber with the deliberate intent of not getting him out, but the wider I bowled the further Bomber reached for it, until with a despairing lunge he finally made contact and the ball went through to Harold Stephenson, who caught it. There was complete silence for a few seconds, then in hardly a whisper Harold appealed. Bomber was given out, and Kenny had missed taking the magic ten-wicket haul.”
Follow Wisden for all cricket updates, including live scores, match stats, quizzes and more. Stay up to date with the latest cricket news, player updates, team standings, match highlights, video analysis and live match odds.
