1701 Weedon gave a performance at Stationers' Hall before the houses of parliament; Turner composed two anthems for the occasion. Another anthem, ‘The Queen shall rejoice,’ was produced at the coronation of Queen Anne. He died at his house in King Street, Westminster, on 13 Jan. 1739–40. His wife Elizabeth, to whom he had been married nearly seventy years, had died on the 9th; and they were buried on the 16th in the same grave, in the west cloister of Westminster Abbey. By his will, dated 1728, he had bequeathed all his property to his wife, except one shilling to each of his five children. The youngest, Anne [see under Robinson, John, (1682–1762)], proved the will on 14 Feb. 1740.
Turner composed both sacred and secular music. Songs and catches were printed in several collections; and many more exist, a manuscript in the Fitzwilliam Museum containing more than a hundred. British Museum Addit. MS. 19759, dated 1681, contains unharmonised tunes for Thomas Flatman's elegy on the Earl of Rochester, and four other poems. His sacred music is more remarkable. One piece was printed in John Playford's ‘Harmonia Sacra,’ 1688. Two complete services and six anthems (including ‘The King shall rejoice’ and ‘The Queen shall rejoice’) are in Tudway's scores; eight more anthems are preserved at Ely Cathedral, and others at Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal. One of Turner's anthems, ‘Lord, Thou hast been our Refuge,’ is printed in Boyce's ‘Cathedral Music;’ and another, ‘Lift up your heads,’ in Warren's ‘Chorister's Handbook’ and in the ‘Parish Choir,’ vol. iii. Chants by Turner are in the ‘Parish Choir,’ vol. i. and Rimbault's ‘Cathedral Chants.’ A theoretical treatise, ‘Sound Anatomised,’ followed by an essay on ‘The Great Abuse of Musick,’ 1724, was by William Turner, who is not styled Mus. Doc. Its author was probably a William Turner who published some sonatas about that period; but it has been sometimes ascribed to Dr. Turner, and is singularly antiquated in several respects, even arguing against key-signatures as unnecessary. The younger William Turner also composed songs for several plays, which are inaccurately described as operas in Brown and Stratton's ‘British Musical Biography’ and ascribed to Dr. Turner.
[Cheque-book of the Chapel Royal, in Camden Society's publications, 1872; Gent. Mag. 1740, p. 36; Chester's Westminster Abbey Registers, p. 353; Graduati Cantabrigienses, p. 480; Tudway's scores and prefaces, Harleian MSS. 7337–42; Hawkins's Hist. of Music, chaps. 158, 167; Burney's Hist. of Music, iii. 460; Husk's Musical Celebrations on St. Cecilia's Day, pp. 21, 23, 29, 36, 39, 147; Grove's Dict. of Music and Musicians, iv. 194; manuscripts quoted.]
TURNER, WILLIAM (1714–1794), dissenting divine, son of John Turner (1689–1737), was born at Preston, Lancashire, on 5 Dec. 1714. His father, a restless man, who was minister for short periods at Preston, Rivington, Northwich, Wirksworth, and Knutsford, distinguished himself on the Hanoverian side in the rebellion of 1715. His mother was Hannah (d. 20 Feb. 1747), daughter of William Chorley of Preston; her first husband's name was Holder. Turner was educated at Findern Academy (1732–6) under Ebenezer Latham, and at Glasgow University (1736–7). He was dissenting minister at Allostock, Cheshire (1737–46), but was not ordained till 7 Aug. 1739. Ill-health caused him to retire from the ministry for eight years, during which he kept a school; in 1754 he became minister at Congleton, Cheshire; in April 1761 he removed to Wakefield, where he continued to minister till July 1792.
His Wakefield ministry brought him into close connection with Thomas Amory (1691?–1788) [q. v.], the creator of ‘John Buncle;’ with Joseph Priestley [q. v.], then at Leeds, whose opinions he espoused; and with Theophilus Lindsey [q. v.], then vicar of Catterick, whose policy of inviting a unitarian secession from the established church he disapproved. His manuscript criticisms suggested to Priestley the project of his ‘Theological Repository,’ to which Turner contributed (1768–71) with the signature of ‘Vigilius’ (Wakefield). His notes in Priestley's ‘Harmony of the Evangelists,’ 1780, are signed ‘T.’ He died on 28 Aug. 1794. He married (1758) Mary (d. 31 Oct. 1784), eldest daughter of John Holland of Mobberley, Cheshire, by whom he had two sons. He published several single sermons.
William Turner, secundus (1761–1859), eldest son of the above, was born at Wakefield on 20 Sept. 1761. He was educated at Warrington Academy (1777–81) and Glasgow University (1781–2). On 25 Sept. 1782 he was ordained pastor of the Hanover Square congregation, Newcastle-on-Tyne. He ministered at Newcastle for fifty-nine years, retiring on 20 Sept. 1841. He was a main founder (1793) of the Literary and Philosophical Society at Newcastle, and acted as secretary till 1833; he was also a founder of the Natural Historical Society (1824). He was a chief projector of the Newcastle branch of the Bible
