George Palmer made his first appearance on 4 July 1996 and his last appearance on 8 December 1998. He is portrayed by Paul Moriarty.
Storylines[]
George, a prominent figure in the East End criminal underworld, owns an illegal gambling den/money laundering operation, which masquerades as a members' only club known as The Market Cellar. Peggy Mitchell disapproves of the business and tries to petition against it. Pragmatically, George begins wooing Peggy in order to stop the objections to his club, but this eventually blossoms into genuine attraction. George supports Peggy through breast cancer and they announce their engagement at Christmas 1996. However, Peggy dumps George when her son Phil tells her about his illegal activities. George flees to New Zealand where his import/export business is based, and in his absence, Peggy is menaced by masked men who are looking for George. Peggy subsequently has nothing more to do with George.
George's daughter Annie moves to Walford to help her father run his club. Her relationship with George is strained, as Annie has always felt her father wanted a son, and Annie continuously tries to prove her worth to her father. George starts a romance with widow Rosa di Marco, and they eventually get engaged. It emerges that he had an affair with Rosa years before moving to Albert Square, when her husband Giuseppe was in prison, which put doubt in Rosa's mind about who fathered her son Gianni. A DNA test confirms George is not the father. George then breaks off the engagement and goes back to New Zealand in 1998.