It has been claimed that Palmerston was the natural son of Lord Palmerston. However, Palmerston was born in Melbourne to Casino Jerome Carandini, the 10th Marquis of Sarzano and Marie Burgess, an English-born opera singer. Palmerston was baptised Cristofero Palmerston Carandini. This is the name he gives on his marriage registration in 1886, when he listed his father as Casino Carandini. His elder brother Frank succeeded to the marquessate upon their father's death in 1870, and his sister Isabella Sara married in 1886, Sir Norman Montgomery Abercrombie Campbell, 10th Baronet.
In 1868 Christopher Palmerston, in a departure from the theatrical heritage of his family, was employed as a stockman on the Willangi cattle station near St Lawrence in the Broadsound area of central coastal Queensland. The station was run by brothers William and Mark Christian who were powerful squatters in the region. While droving cattle to Rockhampton in early 1869, Palmerston rode off on one of his employer's horses and sold the saddle to a stable owner. He was arrested for horse stealing and later convicted. Palmerston appealed the decision but it was dismissed and he was sentenced to two years in a Brisbane prison.
Prospecting and early expeditions
Palmerston then worked in the Palmer Rivergold rush of 1872-1874. However, it was not until around 1876 during the Hodgkinson River gold Rush that Palmerston began to be known as a pathfinder. As trade increased from Hodgkinson, Cooktown merchants began to worry that a new port at Cairns would take over the majority of the trade. As a result, in 1877 the merchants backed Palmerston to cut a track from the goldfields to a new port at Island Point. As Palmerston became more well known as a path cutter, he embarked on more explorations, including his notable discovery of a route along the Mowbray River, which contributed to the founding of Port Douglas. During the 1880s, large parts of coastal far North Queensland were still covered in dense rainforest. Palmerston boasted of shooting a large number of Aboriginals in Mamu territory. In 1880, Palmerston was part of a private expedition led by James Venture Mulligan to search for gold at the heads of the King and Lukin rivers in northern Queensland. On the King River, Mulligan wrote about how Palmerston shot two Aboriginal men and returned to camp with a stolen "little blackboy". At night, they handcuffed the child to Pompey, Palmerston's other "boy", to prevent him from escaping. The expedition failed to find any significant signs of gold deposits.
Palmerston settled down in Townsville and married Teresa Rooney at St Joseph's Church on 6 December 1886; they had one daughter. Palmerston moved to Borneo and then Malaya where he contracted fever in the jungle and died at Kuala Pilah on 15 January 1897.
