SHARON

See also:

• TURNER, CHARLES (1773–1857)
• TURNER, JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM (1775–1851)
• TURNER, NAT (1800-1831)
• SHARON TURNER (1768-1847)
• TURNER, SIR JAMES (1615–1686)
• TURNER, WILLIAM (d. 1568)

TURNER (1768-1847)  , English historian, was born in Pentonville, London, on the 24th of September 1768 . His parents came from Yorkshire . He was educated at a private school kept by Dr Davis in Pentonville, and was articled to a solicitor in the Temple in 1783, and when his master died in 1789 he continued the business . He remained in business at first in the Temple, and later in Red Lion Square till 1829, when failing health compelled him to retire . He settled for a time at Winchmore Hill, but afterwards returned to London, and died in his son's house on the 13th of February 1847 . In early boyhood he had been attracted by a translation of the " Death Song of Ragnar Lodbrok," and was led by this boyish interest to make a study of early English history in Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic sources . He devoted all the time he could spare from his business to the study of Anglo-Saxon documents in the British Museum . The material was abundant and had hitherto been neglected . When the first volume of his History of England from the earliest times to the Norman Conquest appeared in 1799, it was at once recognized as a work of equal novelty and value . The fourth volume appeared in 1805 . He also published a continuation (History of England during the Middle Ages), a Modern History of England, a Sacred History of the World, and a volume on Richard III . (1845), and he was the author of pamphlets on the copyright laws (1813) .

His son,

Sydney Turner (1814-1879), educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, took orders, was known as a strong partisan of reformatory schools, and died rector of Hempstead in Gloucestershire .