Background
He was the son of William Turner the churchman, Marian exile and botanist. He was instructed by his father in both a religious and a scientific outlook.
He was the son of William Turner the churchman, Marian exile and botanist. He was instructed by his father in both a religious and a scientific outlook.
He graduated Master of Arts
At Street John"s College, Cambridge. He then proceeded Doctor of Medicine at Heidelberg in 1571, where his medical contacts included Thomas Erastus and Sigismund Melanchthon. He was incorporated Doctor of Medicine at Cambridge in 1575, and on 10 July 1599 at Oxford.
Turner practised his profession in London, where, on 4 December 1582, he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians.
He was promised on 4 May 1580 the reversion to the office of physician to Street Bartholomew"s Hospital. There he succeeded Roderigo Lopez, and was in 1584 succeeded by Timothy Bright.
Turner knew Thomas Penny at Heidelberg. And accompanied him on trips as a naturalist.
Turner is one of the "Lime Street naturalists" for Harkness, who also notes his reputation for chemical treatments that killed his patients.
Among those he treated were Roger North, 2nd Baron North and Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham. Muffet"s correspondence with Petrus Severinus indicates that Turner was part of the same network. When the German Valentine Russwurin, a Paracelsian with a worked-out system of treatment, was active in London, Turner accompanied him to observe his methods.
In politics, Turner represented Bridport in the parliaments of 1584 and 1586.
His patron is thought to have been Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford. In 1606 Turner attended Sir Walter Ralegh in the Tower of London.
He died in London on 27 May 1614. He was buried near his father in the church of Saint Olave"s, Hart Street, London, in a coloured tomb of the Jacobean style, on which his effigy knelt in a scarlet gown.
He also was a Member of Parliament, during the 1580s.