Turner, George (? 1766–1839), Church of England clergyman

The date of George Turner’s birth is uncertain. According to the parish register of Pulham St Mary, Norfolk (and the archdeacon’s transcript of the same), George, the son of George and Mary Turner, was baptised there on 17 June 1766, and the same date and place of baptism were recorded in the ordination register at the times of Turner’s ordination as deacon and priest (Norfolk Record Office, DN/ORR/3/2); but Al. Cantab. gives the date of his birth as 14 April the following year and his age at the time of his death on 9 November 1839 as 72.

His sister Mary was baptised at Pulham on 17 March 1768.

He was admitted as a pensioner at Jesus College, Cambridge, on 28 November 1783, when he was described as being of Pulham, Norfolk, and he matriculated in 1784, obtaining his BA in 1788 (Al. Cantab.).

On 21 December 1788 he was ordained deacon at Norwich Cathedral (Norfolk Record Office, DN/ORR/3/2–3 (ordination registers)), and on 25 February 1790 he was married at Framlingham to Elizabeth, née Turner (sic) (1757/8–1823) (Bishop’s Transcript).

He was presumably serving the church at Kettleburgh by the time his daughter Mary was privately baptised there on 24 February 1792 (Kettleburgh parish register), and he was ordained priest at Norwich Cathedral on 26 May 1793, on his nomination to a curacy at Kettleburgh (Norfolk Record Office, DN/ORR/3/2–3 (ordination registers)). NB. there is a note in the Kettleburgh parish register dated 26 Feb. 1795, subscribed ‘Geo: Turner, Curate.’ George and Elizabeth’s son George Thomas Turner (1793–1871) was privately baptised at Kettleburgh on 17 August 1793 (ibid.).

Turner was admitted and instituted to the rectory of Monewden on 25 Aug. 1803, on the presentation of Chaloner Arcedeckne of Glevering Hall (Norfolk Register Office, DN/REG/25.32; Norfolk Chronicle, 3 Sept. 1803), and to the rectory of Kettleburgh on 3 Dec. 1806, on the presentation of Robert Sparrow (Norfolk Chronicle, 6 Dec. 1806).

He was serving as a justice of the peace for the county of Suffolk by 1804 (Bury and Norwich Post, 15 Aug. 1804).

‘Tuesday [i.e. 2 Dec.] died, sincerely lamented by her family and friends, after a severe affliction, which she bore with exemplary resignation, Elizabeth, the wife of the Rev. George Turner, of Kettleburgh.’ (Ipswich Journal, 6 Dec. 1823.) She was 65 years of age at the time of her death (History of Framlingham, p. 168).
He edited Robert Forby’s Vocabulary of East Anglia (2 vols., London: J. B. Nichols and Son, 1830), (see his Preface, dated 16 Nov. 1829). Dawson Turner contributed a memoir of Forby to the same work.

He died on 9 November 1839, aged 72 (according to Al. Cantab.).

Alumni Cantabrigienses