Hampshire, mayor of Reading. He matriculated from St. John's College, Oxford, on 26 June 1610, graduating B.A. on 6 June 1614 and M.A. on 9 May 1618. He was elected a fellow, took the degree of B.D. on 20 July 1624, and was created D.D. on 1 April 1633. In 1623 he was presented by his college to the vicarage of St. Giles's, Oxford, which he held with his fellowship, but relinquished in 1629. Laud, when bishop of London, made him his chaplain and licenser; he had much regard for him, and bequeathed him his 'ring with a diamond, and the garter about it' (Laud, Works, 1854, iv. 270, 444). On 7 Jan. 1627-8 Turner was appointed a member of the commission for ecclesiastical causes (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1627–8, p. 506); and on 14 April 1629 Laud collated him to the prebend of Newington in St. Paul's cathedral. On 29 Oct. following he was collated chancellor of London, and soon after was appointed chaplain in ordinary to the king. In May 1631 he obtained the rectory of St. Augustine-in-the-Gate, but exchanged it on 10 Nov. for that of Southwark. In 1633 he accompanied Charles in his Scottish coronation progress, and on 17 Dec. of the same year his name appears in the commission for exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England and Wales (ib. 1633–4, p. 576). On 11 Nov. 1634 he was instituted rector of Fecham in Surrey; on 31 Dec. 1638 he and John Juxon received from the king the lease of the prebend and rectory of Aylesbury for five years (ib. 1638–9 p. 191, 1640 p. 11); and 16 Feb. 1641–2 he was nominated dean of Rochester (ib. 1640-1, pp. 562–3). On 3 Jan. 1643–4 he was constituted dean of Canterbury, a nominal office, as Kent was in the hands of parliament. He adhered to the king with great devotion, and attended him at Hampton Court and during his imprisonment in the Isle of Wight. During the parliamentary ascendency and in the time of the Commonwealth he was much harassed and deprived of all his benefices. Three of his houses were plundered, his books seized, and he himself arrested at Fecham by a party of horse for having sent 120l. to the king. He was forcibly dragged away while holding divine service and carried to the White Lion prison in Southwark.
At the Restoration he regained his Surrey rectories, and entered into possession of the deanery of Canterbury. It is said he declined the offer of a bishopric, 'preferring to set out with too little than too much sail.' Shortly after he resigned the rectory of Fecham, and, dying on 8 Oct. 1672, was buried in the dean's chapel in Canterbury Cathedral, where a mural monument was erected to his memory. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir Francis Windebank [q. v.], principal secretary of state to Charles I. By her he had three sons, Francis Turner [q. v.], nonjuring bishop of Ely; Thomas Turner (1645–1714) [q. v.], president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford; and William Turner (1647–1685), archdeacon of Durham.
[Chalmers's Biogr. Dict. 1816; Manning's Hist. of Surrey, ed. Bray, i. 486, iii. 606; Le Neve's Fasti Eccles.; Hackett's Select and Remarkable Epitaphs, 1757, i. 262; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 472; Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 115, 189; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, ii. 6; Hasted's Hist. of Kent, ii. 28, iv. 538, 595; Lansdowne MS. 986, ff. 160–61.]
TURNER, THOMAS (1645–1714), president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, second son of Thomas Turner (1591–1672) [q. v.], was born at Bristol on 19 or 20 Sept. 1645. He was a younger brother of Francis Turner [q. v.], bishop of Ely. Thomas originally matriculated at Hart Hall on 10 May 1662, but on 6 Oct. 1663 he was admitted to a Gloucestershire scholarship at Corpus, of which he became fellow in 1672. He graduated B.A. on 15 March 1665–6, M.A. in 1669, B.D. in 1677, and D.D. in 1683. From 1672 to 1695 he was vicar of Milton, near Sittingbourne, Kent, and from 1680 to 1689 rector of Thorley, Hertfordshire. He became rector of Fulham, Middlesex, in 1688, archdeacon of Essex in 1680, canon of Ely in 1686, canon of St. Paul's in 1682, and precentor in 1690. These accumulated preferments, except the sinecure rectory of Fulham and the canonry and precentorship of St. Paul's, he resigned at or shortly after his election to the presidency of Corpus, an event which occurred on 13 March 1687–8. The election, which took place within a week of his predecessor's death, was possibly hurried on in order to diminish the chance of any interference from the court of James II. On the accession of William III he did not, like his brother Francis, refuse to take the oaths; but many circumstances, coupled with the ascription to him of the title 'honest man' by Hearne, make it plain that he had Jacobite proclivities. It is not, however, true, as insinuated by Whiston, and, after him, stated positively by Bentham in his 'History of Ely' and Alexander Chalmers in his 'Biographical Dictionary,' that he skilfully evaded taking the oaths so as to retain his preferments. Hearne, who seemed disposed to accept the story and had actually written in his 'Diary,' 'He is said never
