from Oriel College, Oxford, on 28 March 1781, graduating B.A. on 3 Feb. 1785, proceeding M.A. on 22 Feb. 1791, and M.B. on 16 July 1791. He commenced practice in Swansea, his leisure time being devoted to the study of natural history and the publication of various works. About 1797 he married a Miss Salmon, by whom he had a son and three daughters.
From the prefaces to his books it appears that he was still at Swansea in 1807, that from 1813 to 1816 he was in Dublin, in 1819 at Teignmouth, in 1822 at Torquay, and in 1831 at Bideford, where he died on 28 Dec. 1835. He had been elected a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1809.
Turton was author of: 1. ‘A Medical Glossary,’ London, 1797, 4to; 2nd edit. 1802. 2. ‘British Fauna,’ vol. i. (all published), Swansea, 1807, 12mo; London, 1810, 8vo. 3. ‘Some Observations on Consumption,’ London, 1810, 8vo; Dublin, 1813. 4. ‘A Conchological Dictionary of the British Islands,’ in which he was ‘assisted by his daughter,’ London, 1819, 12mo. 5. ‘Conchylia Insularum Britannicarum’ (bivalves only), Exeter, 1822, 4to; reissued as ‘Bivalve Shells of the British Islands,’ London, 1830, 4to. 6. ‘Manual of the Land and Freshwater Shells of the British Islands,’ London, 1831, 12mo; another edition, largely rewritten by John Edward Gray [q. v.], 8vo, London, 1840 and 1857. 7. ‘A Treatise on Hot and Cold Baths’ [no date]. He also wrote, in conjunction with J. F. Kingston, the natural history portion of N. T. Carrington's ‘Teignmouth, Dawlish, and Torquay Guide’ (Teignmouth [1828?] 8vo). Three papers on scientific subjects were written by him for the ‘Zoological Journal’ and the ‘Magazine of Natural History’ between 1826 and 1834. He is also said to have prepared a ‘Pocket Flora.’
Turton edited a ‘General System of Nature, translated from Gmelin's last edition of the Systema Naturæ [of Linnæus],’ &c. London, 7 vols. 4to [Swansea, printed], 1802–1806, vols. i–v. reprinted in 1806; a new edition of Goldsmith's ‘History of the Earth,’ 1805 and 1816, 6 vols.; and ‘Luctus Nelsoniani. Poems [by different authors] on the Death of Lord Nelson, in Latin and English, written for the Turtonian Medals,’ London, 1807, 4to.
He gave his collection of shells, before his ‘Manual’ appeared, to William Clark of Bath. They subsequently passed into the hands of John Gwyn Jeffreys [q. v.], and are now with the latter's collection in the United States National Museum at Washington. Turtonia, a genus of bivalve shells, was named in his honour in 1849 by Forbes and Hanley, who remark, however, that Turton was not always to be relied on in his published statements.
[Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Gent. Mag. 1836, i. 557; Britten and Boulger's Biogr. Index; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Forbes and Hanley's Hist. Brit. Moll. ii. 81; information kindly supplied by his great-nephew, Major W. H. Turton, R.E.; prefaces and advertisements to his works; British Museum Cat.; Nat. Hist. Museum Cat.; Royal Soc. Cat.]
TUSSAUD, MARIE, Madame Tussaud (1760–1850), founder of the waxwork exhibition known by her name, born at Berne in 1760, was the posthumous daughter of Joseph Gresholtz, a soldier who had served on the staff of General Wurmser in the seven years' war, by his wife Marie, the widow of a Swiss pastor named Walther. In 1766 she was adopted by her maternal uncle, Johann Wilhelm Christoph Kurtz or Creutz (he subsequently latinised his name into Curtius), under whose auspices she was taken to Paris and taught wax modelling, an art in which she became proficient. Curtius, a German Swiss (though during the revolution from prudential motives he gave himself out to be an Alsatian), migrated to Paris in 1770, and ten years later started a ‘Cabinet de Cire’ in the Palais Royal. The business was extended in 1783 by the creation of a ‘Caverne des grands voleurs’ (the nucleus of the ‘Chamber of Horrors’) in the Boulevard du Temple, in a house formerly occupied by Foulon. Curtius seems to have been a man of taste and conviviality; a mania for modelling in wax was fashionable in Paris, and the ‘cero-plastic studio’ of M. Curtius in the ‘Palais,’ owing largely no doubt to its central position, became for a time a popular rendezvous for Parisian notabilities. There as a child Marie Tussaud was spoken to by Voltaire, Rousseau, Franklin, Diderot, Condorcet, and other famous men, and she was even sent for to Versailles to give lessons in flower-modelling to Madame Elisabeth, Louis XVI's sister. On 12 July 1789 a crowd of well-dressed persons obtained from the exhibition in the Palais Royal the busts of Necker and Philippe d'Orléans, and carried the effigies through the city dressed in crape. Two days later Curtius proved his patriotism by taking part in the ‘storming’ of the Bastille. At the close of the year, as one of the ‘vainqueurs de la Bastille,’ he was presented by the municipality with an inscribed musket (still preserved at Madame Tussaud's). Three brothers and two uncles of Marie Tussaud were in the Swiss guard, and all perished bravely in defending the Tuileries
