Life
Turner was the son of James Turner, head of the Gurney and Turner's Yarmouth Bank and Elizabeth Cotman, the only daughter of the mayor of Yarmouth, John Cotman. He was educated at North Walsham Grammar School (now Paston College), Norfolk and at Barton Bendish as a pupil of the botanist Robert Forby. He then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he left without a degree due to his father's terminal illness. In 1796 he joined his father's bank and married Mary Palgrave, the daughter of William Palgrave.
He became interested in botany and published a number of books. In December 1802 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1816, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
By 1820 his interest in botany had been replaced by an interest in antiquities. He and his children were taught drawing by renowned Norfolk artist John Sell Cotman who became a good friend. They travelled to Normandy together and collaborated on a book, Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, published in 1822, with Cotman providing the etchings.
By his first wife he was father-in-law of Sir William Jackson Hooker, FRS and of Sir Francis Palgrave, FRS and the grandfather of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, FRS and Sir Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave, FRS. After his first wife's death in 1850 he married Rosamund Duff and moved to live in Old Brompton. He died in 1858, and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.
Read more about this topic: Dawson Turner
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“What life have you if you have not life together?
There is no life that is not in community,”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Unfortunately, life may sometimes seem unfair to middle children, some of whom feel like an afterthought to a brilliant older sibling and unable to captivate the family’s attention like the darling baby. Yet the middle position offers great training for the real world of lowered expectations, negotiation, and compromise. Middle children who often must break the mold set by an older sibling may thereby learn to challenge family values and seek their own identity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)