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William Turner - This article discusses the ornithologist and botanist William Turner, for the painter please refer to J. M. W. Turner
William Turner (c. 1508 - 7 July, 1568) was a British ornithologist and botanist. He is sometimes called "the father of English botany" and the first ornithologist in the modern scientific spirit. William Turner was born in Morpeth, Northumberland in or around 1508. His father was probably a tanner of the same name. He studied at Cambridge University, Pembroke Hall, from 1526-1533, where he received his B.A. in 1530 and his M.A. in 1533. During this time, he embraced the reformation, apparently under the influence of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. In 1540 he began travelling about preaching until he was arrested. After his release, he went on to study medicine in Italy, at Ferrara and Bologna, from 1540 to 1542 and was incorporated M.D. at one of these universities. After completing his medical degree, he became physician to the Earl of Emden. Back in England he became Chaplain and physician to the Duke of Somerset, and through Somerset's influence he obtained ecclesiastical preferment. The position as Somerset's physician also led to practice among upper society. He was Prebend of Botevant in York Cathedral in 1550, and Dean of Wells Cathedral from 1551 to 1553. When Mary I of England acceded to the throne, Turner went into exile once again. From 1553 to 1558, he lived in Weissenburg and supported himself as a physician. He became a Calvinist at this time, if not before. After the succession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, Turner returned to England, and was once again Dean of Wells Cathedral from 1560 to 1564. His attempts to bring the English church into agreement with the reformed churches of Germany and Switzerland led to his suspension for nonconformity in 1564. Turner died in London on 7 July 1568 at this home in Crutched Friars, in the City of London, and is buried in the Parish Church of St. Olave's in Hart Street. An engraved stone on the south-east wall of this church commemorates Turner. Thomas Lever, one of the great puritan preachers of the period, delivered the sermon at his funeral. Quite early in his career, Turner became interested in natural history and set out to produce reliable lists of English plants and animals, which he published as Libellus de re herbaria in 1538. In 1544, Turner published Avium praecipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia, which not only discussed the principal birds and bird names mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny but also added accurate descriptions and life histories of birds from his own extensive ornithological knowledge. This is the first printed book devoted entirely to birds. In 1545, Turner published The Rescuynge of the Romishe Fox, and in 1548, The Names of Herbes. In 1551, he published the first of three parts of his famous Herbal, on which his botanical fame rests. This was illustrated, mainly by woodcuts copied from Leonhart Fuchs's De historia Stirpium (1542). For the first time, a herbal was available in England in the vernacular, from which people could identify the main English plants without difficulty. A New Book of Spiritual Physick was published in 1555. In 1562, Turner published the second part of his Herbal, dedicated to Sir Thomas Wentworth, son of the patron who had enabled him to go to Cambridge. This book was published by Arnold Birckman of Cologne, and included in the same binding Turner's treatise on baths. The third and last part of Turner's Herbal was published in 1568, in a volume that also contained revised editions of the first and second parts. This was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. A New Boke on the Natures and Properties of all Wines, also published in 1568, had pharmacological intent behind it, as also the included Treatise of Triacle. External links Turner, William Turner, William Turner, William Turner, William
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