Transcript

of

Thomas Turner [Obituary]

by

Maxwell Adams (Ed.)

Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol.  XLII, (1910), pp.51-52.

Prepared by Michael Steer

The obituary was read at the Association’s July 1910 Collumpton meeting. Nonagenarian Mr Turner was the second oldest magistrate in the Cullompton Division. A barrister by profession, he was also a Justice of the Peace (J.P.), a judicial officer of a lower or puisne court, elected or appointed by means of a commission (letters patent) to keep the peace. JP’s are appointed or elected from the citizens of the jurisdiction in which they serve, and are (or were) usually not required to have any formal legal education in order to qualify for the office. Mr Turner was unusual in this regard.  He also had a keen interest in meteorology. The South-West Heritage Trust: Devon Archive Collection, Reference No 3573A, possesses four volumes of meteorological recordings by Thomas Turner JP, Cullompton, 1880-1905, available here. The obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Mr. Turner was one of the oldest and most esteemed residents of Cullompton. He was a barrister by profession, and the second oldest magistrate in the Cullompton Division. He came to reside in that town in 1850, and married, in 1856, a daughter of Dr. Gabriels, of the same place, and celebrated his golden wedding in 1905. His wife predeceased him in 1907 at the age of eighty-eight.
Mr. Turner was a staunch Churchman and Conservative, and a generous subscriber to all deserving objects in the town, and among none will his loss be more felt than the poor.
He joined the Association in 1880, and would have been one of the Vice-Presidents for the Cullompton Meeting in 1910 but for his untimely death. He was also a member of the Royal Meteorological Society.
He died in March, 1910, at the age of ninety-two, and was interred at Cullompton.